I spent a day with INTERSEX PEOPLE

Intersex— What do you think you would do if you found out during puberty that you weren't exactly male or female, or if you found out that doctors surgically altered your body when you were born and your parents hid it from you until you were 18? I'm Anthony Padilla and I spent a day with intersex people to find out. Hello, Hayden! - Hey! Hello, Maria! - Hi! This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy. Visit betterhelp.com/padilla because sometimes existing is exhausting. And, if you

want to watch this episode completely uncensored and unsponsored, click the join button below to become a member. Members are gonna be getting a lot more than that soon. But, anyway— You are intersex. - Correct. - Do you start a lot of conversations like that? - I did used to get in my younger years, "Are you a boy or a girl," and that was the intro before. - What is intersex? - An intersex individual is a person born with sex characteristics that differ from the typical definitions of what it m

eans to be male or female. Oftentimes, intersex individuals can have what they call ambiguous genitalia, so it's not— It doesn't fit that binary definition of what a penis is and what a vagina is. - My whole life I've been taught, "This is what a penis looks like." "This is what a vagina looks like." But, when I was looking up intersex, it was like, "Oh, there's a spectrum." [cartoon plinks SFX] It's like a whole Animorphs transition [Maria laughs] from penis to vagina. [crew and Anthony gigglin

g from Animorph trauma] - I haven't quite heard it as an Animorph, but I suppose it does kind of work. If you really think about it, every penis that I'm sure you've seen looks different you know? Every vagina that you've seen looks different. - Every nose that I've seen looks different. - Every nose. Every eye color. - Every eyebrow. - Eyebrow— Why not your genitalia as well? Your chromosomes, your hormones. - It's not a sexuality, it's not a gender identity, it's variances of sex. I'll try to

simplify it as much as I can. You're building a person and at this point, once it's six weeks, we all look alike. We're gonna have in our downstairs area what's called labiolscrotal folds, which like the name suggests, it could become either the labia or the scrotum. - Mhmm. - You have urogenital sinuses, which will become the vagina or elongate to a urethra, and you have a genital tubercle, which will be the penis or the clitoris. In the Y chromosome, it's going to say, "Hey, internally, let's

create proteins that will differentiate your gonads." So, the gonads— Like, what are gonads? It's either the testes, like testicles— [echoes] your balls. [ Hayden laughs] - [normal] Oh. Thank you. [ Hayden laughs] Thank you. Now I get it. - Yeah. Or ovaries. Once you have your testes, they will have two different cells that will create hormones. Testosterone will start to masculinize the downstairs region, but what about the inside, right? Internally, we still have that thing that looks the same

. So, those parts will recede, but those were already inside your body. So, for example, okay— You would've had a uterus if that part developed, too, but now since it receded because you had those hormones, inside even your body, even the completely male, you have what's called a prostatic utricle, which is just a fancy name for small little pocket uterus. That's what— - I have a pocket uterus? - You have a pocket uterus! [Hayden laughs] - Oh, hell yes! I had no idea. - Yeah. - A little bit of o

ne. [Anthony giggles] - Yeah. Same with women. Women have what's called the female prostate, or Skene's glands. It's just much smaller. That's the secret to why some women can squirt and some others can't. [laughs] Unlocking secrets here. - Good to know. Now, I know. - Yeah. - Lots of people know now. - Yeah. So, that's— [trying to hold back laughter] When you understand that part, you understand how intersex variations happen, too. Say you have the proteins. What if you have the building blocks

and you're like, "Oh, man, I ran out of those blocks. I don't have enough to build the basement downstairs area." - Got it. Are you comfortable talking about how you deviate, what, how, why you are considered intersex? - Well, I did not have those bricks. [laughs] - Wait, which bricks? - [cracking up] Not enough bricks. - Dude, wait, which bricks? [cackling] Specifically. There's a lot of bricks that happen. - [laughing] I have no gonads at all. - Okay. - Yeah. It's called gonadal agenesis. - M

y specific variation of intersex is androgen insensitivity syndrome. Androgens, if you remember, are your sex hormones. So, my body doesn't react to testosterone or estrogen. Because my body didn't respond to those sex hormones in the womb, none of my internal sex reproductive organs formed. So, no fallopian tubes, no eggs, no uterus— What are the other things called, the things on the end? - The tube stuff. - Yeah. You know, right? You know it. - Yeah, the egg drop stuff? - Mhmm. [back and fort

h "mhmm"s] both giggle] As a teenager, I just felt different. Most women get their periods when they're 12, 13. I didn't. It's little things, but girls are like, "Can I borrow a tampon?" You don't have a tampon and you feel weird about that. All these little things that make girlhood— becoming a woman a thing— you're kind of missing out on. I was assigned female at birth 'cause that's what I appeared at birth to [be]. It wasn't until puberty where stuff wasn't happening in the typical female way

that they didn't— You know, it didn't click. I didn't go through a normal puberty, so— - What did that look like? So, you're like— - Very childlike. - So, around 12, 13, people usually start going through puberty and your like, "Someday it'll happen, but I don't know when?" - Yeah, pretty much. Even at 18, I looked like a child and my voice was very— I don't know, picture you put a squirrel through a blender— That bad. [squirrel being blended SFX] That's like— [laughing] very high-pitched voice

. - Do you identify as male? - I identify as a guy, but I know I'm not male. I just say "intersex guy." - Intersex guy? - I always say my pronouns, I'm like, "Anything but 'she.' Yeah, you could put 'he,' 'they,' I don't care. Just don't call me 'she' and we're fine." I use she/they pronouns. I continue to use 'she' because people will perceive me and see me as a feminine— a more feminine-presenting person. I also use they/them pronouns because I feel truly connected to my non-binary body. - I'v

e heard people say 'intersexual.' Is that an accurate term? - Yeah, there are many different ways to say it. So, you can be an intersex person, you can be intersex, an intersexual. Some people before used the term 'hermaphrodite.' - What is 'hermaphrodite?" I don't even know if I can say it. [Hayden laughs heartily] Is it okay for me to say it? - "Is it a dirty word?" - How do you feel about the term? - Um, I like the term, in English. [laughs] - In English? - In Spanish, I feel like I have hear

d it more as a slur— "hermafrodita." Yeah, the English one, too. Sometimes my friends would joke and call me Hermie. [breathy laugh] - Ooh. - And I'm fine with that, too. - And not the Greek god. - And not the Greek god, too. [both laugh] Yeah. - We had a lot of difficulty finding intersex people for this episode— - Mhmm. - even though the statistics show that it's a higher amount of intersex people than someone might imagine. - It depends on your definition and how you classify it, but it's aro

und 2%. It's a very sensitive topic for people just to openly be like, "Oh, hey, yeah, this is what I got going on downstairs." - Yeah. - But, it's also just the stigma that comes around an intersex person. I feel like the rates of finding intersex people would be much higher if we really did studies on everybody, you know? I feel like a lot of intersex people don't find out 'til later in life, if ever. - So, some people watching right now could be technically intersex but be living a life where

it doesn't affect them at all? They would never even know? - Yeah. - When did you find out that you were intersex? - It was sort of best practices from the medical doctors to keep it a secret until I'm at an age where I can comprehend what happened, which is 18 because I'm going off to college and probably going to start having sex with boys. That never happened. [Anthony laughs] - They were told that 18 is the age to tell someone? - Yeah. I started hormone replacement therapy at the age of 12.

- Is that when you knew that, "Oh, I'm different. I need to take this so I fit in?" - I knew I was different. My parents still didn't tell me why. It was still sort of shrouded in, "This is just a medicine that you need to take to stay healthy, and you don't really need to talk about it." I had a surgery at two, which is when my parents found out. They did the karyotype, they learned about my XY chromosomes. I had that surgery that removed those internal gonadal streaks is what they call them.

I had another surgery when I was 12. That one was for cosmetic reasons. I mean, we could go into it, but it's a little intense— - Okay. Only as much as you're comfortable with. Yeah. - Because it's so secretive and it's shrouded in so much, "Don't talk about it," we don't actually know the exact parameters of the surgery, either. It's hard to get your medical records. They might classify one thing as gonadal streaks when they could be fully undescended testes. They're not documenting it correctl

y. - So, you don't know exactly what was done? - Not exactly, no. - You don't know what was there and what's not anymore, or anything? - No. So, that's another one of those— That's another part of the trauma surrounding being intersex is so much unknown, you know? Not knowing that is weird. Like, what was done to your body, you know? It's losing that autonomy. - You don't remember the surgeries either? - No, I was 2 and 12. I remember being in the hospital for the second one. You know, you liste

n to your parents. I was the good kid, too, so I'd listen to my parents, "This is what we're doing, you have to have this. Keeps you healthy." The norm for people who are born noticeably intersex at birth, the advice was, "Oh, to save them from this social turmoil, let's reassign them to look either male or female." First one is just visually. It's just like, "Well, it's easier to be more female in this case, so let's do that." Or, if you have more of an opening, it's like, "Oh, it's just a litt

le close," and they do that close. - And that's non-consensual surgeries that are being performed on babies before they have any way to express how they feel? - It's just so sad because when you do surgery on an infant, scar tissue does not stretch like normal skin. So, as a child is growing, things are tearing, you have continual surgeries. If you were to lean towards male, it starts ripping apart [and it's] very painful. Let's say you chose a female anatomy, then you have to dilate to maintain

the depth of the vagina. It's very traumatic for the kid as well. They don't know why that's happening. Sometimes they're even told scarier things, like, "Oh, we had to remove this because you had cancer," or something. So, it's just very sad. Once you're an adult, sometimes you do want to go through with those surgeries, but then it was your choice to make. - Why do parents care so much about their child's genitals? Is it to prevent bullying, or to make them fit in, find partners? - You could

say, "Oh, it can prevent bullying," but ultimately, the damage that is done when you force a child to have these normalizing surgeries is far more detrimental than actually having the surgery. - What do you wish your parents would have known about intersex people before you were born? - I wish they knew that they had more than one choice, that it wasn't so scary for them to hear the options that had and to have to make that choice. Prioritizing your child's health and happiness I think is best d

one when you are making an informed decision, and that's finding doctors who have experience with this kind of thing, and educating yourself. There is a need to medicalize it in some ways, but we have to not pathologize it as disorder in that there's something wrong. Our bodies are different. It's a natural variation. There are intersex activists on the ground, protesting at hospitals and trying to get them to change their practices, to not use surgery as the default. We're not saying that all s

urgeries are bad, it's just that non-consensual normalizing surgeries on an infant child— - It's not even getting a circumcision. - Well, oh, my gosh, we could— - It happens. - Episode two. - Episode two. You know what I find really interesting is how this compares to the conversation with trans people. - Mhmm. - You know, a kid might say, "Hey, I'm 16/17/18, I wanna get this surgery done to have my body look like how I feel it should," and there's a lot of discussion about, "Oh, I don't know. L

et's wait 'til you're older." Even if you are 18, sometimes it's, "Wait 'til you're older," but yet, with intersex people, it seems almost the opposite where it's like, "Well, this decision needs to be made, this decision needs to be made while you're still young because it needs to happen now so that it doesn't become a problem when you're older." - Yeah. Intersex issues and transgender issues are both enforcing a binary, right? - Yeah. - So, doctors are— The same surgeries that intersex people

are fighting against, trans people are fighting for. In these anti-trans legislations, you'll often see an addendum for intersex people that'll say, "In cases of intersex, these normalizing surgeries can continue to happen." Also, some intersex people identify with the trans experience. I knew since I was small that I was a boy. You know in Spanish how we use personal pronouns to each other? I always used the male ones so I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I'm this." My mother would always correct me, "No, y

ou say this." When I labeled it when I thought I was trans, I was eight, you know? It wasn't until I was 18 that I had to medically transition. The whole reason that it took so long if I knew it early in my teens is that in Puerto Rico, where I grew up, all the doctors there would not treat me for hormone therapy. They wanted to force me to take estrogen. I grew up in a religious town, so I felt like from my community, even when I would go to town and hold hands with my boyfriend, people would t

hrow stuff at me. Very small town. I can understand where that comes from because in religion, we have certain— You know, you have rules. Sometimes those rules are your covenants, so they're gendered sometimes. But, when you have a person who doesn't fit, like you don't know what category they go to, it's kind of scary to not know where you fit. Even as a person who is religious, you're like, "Well, where do I fit in?" - So, how did your parents react to all of this? [snaps] I almost forgot to m

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s about beginning therapy is finding a therapist that you actually connect with, which is why BetterHelp offers a more affordable alternative to in-person therapy where you can start communicating with your therapist in less than 48 hours. That is why I want to thank BetterHelp who are giving "I spent a day with—" viewers and listeners 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/padilla Now— Back to the world of intersex people. So, how did your parents react to all of this? [Hayden laughs] Well

— I felt like I had to come out like four times. [laughs heartily] - Wait, what was the first time? - Well, one was when I thought I was just trans. [laughs] You know. - Okay. - My dad was like, "But you make such a pretty girl." - Oh, god. - Yeah. My mom— bless her. Now I've come to the point where I've forgiven her, too, but at the time, she said, "I would rather die than have a freak for a daughter." - Mmm. - Um— [chuckles] Yeah. So, hard words. The other [time] that was coming out to other p

eople was me being gay, which for a lot of people— [It] confuses a lot of people because they're like, "If you were a girl, wouldn't it be easier if you liked guys?" But, I always explained it like who you are is not who you love. How people interact when I come out as intersex to my family, too it's, "Oh, that makes sense, all this." So, I came out as gay, trans, intersex— I just wanted the whole quilt bag. [laughs] - You were like, "I love coming out. I'm gonna keep coming out." [Hayden whoopi

ng] What was the fourth time you came out? - The fourth one was because I wasn't always gay. I used to identify as a bisexual, but funnily enough, I feel like testosterone made me gay. [Hayden cackles] - What, testosterone made you gayer? - Yeah. [Anthony cackles] I think it's that once I started hormone replacement therapy, I'm like— I don't know. [sighs] - You were not into those women anymore. - No, I— Yeah. I don't know. - Confirmed— Testosterone makes you gay. [Hayden laughs] Do you remembe

r the first person that you told? - When you start dating, things will naturally come up about your body, and you have to learn how to explain it then. I think the first time I was ever really nervous about it was telling a partner. That was one of the first times I feel like I really educated myself on it. - You educated yourself in order to tell your partner? - Yeah, I had to kind of break it down for myself and was able to sort of tell this person what was going on. My first boyfriend, I thou

ght he was the queer. I've learned not to make assumptions. Just 'cause you talk feminine, that doesn't make you gay. - The kids in my high school would highly disagree. - Yeah, exactly. We were together eight, almost nine years. That's when I started looking more male. I felt that he got more uncomfortable with that. It was a time where he went into the army and I feel like that culture there, it's very macho. - Very straight. [Anthony laughs] Unless you're in the Marines. [laughs] I'm sorry. [

Anthony laughs] Don't cancel me. [Hayden and crew laughing] - No shade, no shade. - I get people who are curious, very fascinated and want to try it. [laughs] Just the closeted people that feel like intersex is the easiest bridge, so it's hard to sift through those people and find genuine connections with somebody. - There are bound to be many hundreds, if not thousands of people watching this that are intersex. Is there anything that you want to say to them? - there's not a script for what a wh

ole intersex person can be, so that can feel isolating, and I get that, and I do feel alone sometimes, but if you flip that, it can be incredibly freeing to know that you are not bound to the binary, patriarchal ways that society thrusts you into from the moment that you're born. One of the original intersex organizations that I got connected to and some of the first intersex people that I met is Interact. If I said something that you want to dig a little deeper on, it'll all be on Interact. - I

f you could say a message to your younger self when you were confused about what was going on with your body and your sexuality, do you think that you would have anything you would want to say? - Love yourself first because once you have that self-love, the rest falls in place. You're going to lose people, but the people that you would gain are so much more genuine that it makes up for the loss. [captions by Davy Gerichten] People don't even know, even though it is the 'I' in LGBTQIA. - Yeah. Th

e 'I' is for invisible to many. [both laughing] - Okay. - So, when you put it in the LGBTQ— Oh, my god. You messed up the acronym. - The quilt bag. [laughs] That gets most of the letters. - Quilt bag? - The quilt bag, yeah, the queer— [laughs] - Oh, shit. undecided, intersex, lesbian— - Oh, shit. What's the 'G?' - Gay! - Oh, shit! Quilt bag. That's a lot easier than LGBTQIA plus. - Yeah, plus. Quilt bag plus. [laughs] - Hmm.