CHENNAI: I identify as a male. I am attracted to the feminine gender. My assigned gender at birth was female. In all my certificates and documents, my gender is female. I was diagnosed with a condition called male pseudohermaphroditism where a person has mismatched external genitalia but matching chromosomal and gonadal tissue (ovary or testis). When I was in my mother’s womb, I was formed as male but when I came out, the organs were looking like that of the female gender. Doctors initially diagnosed that it was because my mother and father were from the same family (the eldest in the family married off their daughter to her brother’s firstborn.) Recently I discovered that this was not the case and I have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), a condition that affects sexual development before birth and during puberty. There are partial and complete AIS. I think my case is partial AIS even though I haven’t been able to confirm it yet. When I was formed in the womb, the testosterone necessary for the embryo wasn’t sufficient.
Currently, I am undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy (giving my body synthetic testosterone). I am in a better state mentally and physically but to achieve this, I had to cross a lot of obstacles.
Fighting the odds
I realised that I couldn’t fit into societal norms right from childhood. It was like I was a boy trapped in the body of a girl. There was a time when students would utter the word ‘onbathu’ and I would turn back to check if somebody called me. It was a derogatory and demeaning way of calling anybody who expressed queer behaviour and when I went to the staff room to complain, I heard my teachers speaking about me the same way my peers did.
At 13 when I didn’t get my periods, my parents took me to an endocrinologist who was a visiting doctor at my grandfather’s nursing home. The doctor told me that I didn’t have a uterus. I distinctly remember how my mother gasped at that piece of information. Later in the day, my grandfather, a surgeon, had gathered a team of doctors to diagnose my case and as a part of those tests, he told me to lie down on the observation bed in an operating room with my clothes loosened. He covered my face with a towel. I couldn’t see anything but heard footsteps passing by. A lot of doctors came and touched my body, examining it.
They were looking at how my physique had developed for my age and how unique it was. Tears were rolling down my face and my grandfather stood next to me wiping them.
After this procedure, I remember going back to my house where my mother was nervously watching TV. When I sat next to her, she asked me, “Ammu..Enna da aachhu? (What happened dear?)”. I was reminded of how my mother reacted when she found out I did not have a uterus. I started believing that my parents were feeling guilty that they were the reason for my condition. I looked straight at the TV, and replied “onnum illa, Amma (Nothing much Amma)”. From that moment on, in the name of sparing each other’s pain, my parents and I inadvertently started building a wall between us. It just made everything worse and instead of putting us together, it kept pulling us apart.
I was in my 8th standard when I underwent genital reconstruction surgery where they removed half-grown testes and penis from my body and re-arranged (parts) to help me lead as normal a life as I could have. After the procedure, I was put on a regimen of oestrogen tablets. The paediatrician took time to make me understand what he was attempting before my surgery. As part of that conversation, he explained there was a possibility of making me either a boy or a girl and also asked me what I wanted to become. Without missing a beat, I said, I wanted to be a boy. He answered that If I chose to become a boy, my parents would have to move away from their current place of stay, my dad would have to change his job and I would have to change my school. Our whole life would be uprooted. When he asked me if I wanted to make my parents go through that, it was the final nail in the coffin and I agreed to become the girl my family wanted.
After all these years, I realised that if I had been stubborn about my decisions then, my parents and I would have realised how insignificant things like jobs or places of stay would be. I never chose to behave the way I did or consciously decide to walk, talk and exude masculinity. After a couple of years, I stopped taking the oestrogen tablets as they made me feel incomplete and like I was being someone I am not.
Identity crisis
There was a constant clash inside me as I was trying hard to adhere to the gender identity I was assigned at birth. Even when I wore a sari and went to public places, people would refer to me as ‘sir’ because of my voice. The worst would be when people called me for loan verification, they would ask me in disbelief why I am attending the call when they were expecting a lady.
Slowly I became comfortable wearing shirts and jeans. People would yell at me for going to the women’s restrooms in public toilets. If I didn’t have my government ID, then I would get beaten up.
While I tell you this, I would like to tell you how a friend helped me overcome my anxiety and guilt about my voice. We had been in touch for a long time and had met for the very first time. During the topic of the anxiety over my voice, he said: “Are you kidding? Your voice is one of the best things about you. No other girl has such a bass voice and it’s a part of your identity. You should be proud of your voice”. That was the push I needed for my anxiety to break into a million pieces.
One of the most frequent questions I have been asked is, ”Why would you have to go through such difficulties? Why don’t you let your hair grow longer, wear feminine clothes and just behave like the girl you are supposed to be?”. To which I answer that it is just not my nature. I always questioned where my space was in this world. My cousin quipped, “Don’t worry about being a male or a female. Just concentrate on being the human you are.” I really hope this brings you, the reader, the peace and consolation it brought me.
I tried a lot of other things to pull myself out of the depressive phase. I used to read, write poems and learn swimming and other things. But, I couldn’t immerse myself into one particular thing as nothing succeeded in giving satisfaction bigger than my misery. But when I switched to photography, a few adjustments to the camera and the expected result at a click of a button gave me instant gratification.
Gender rules
Society has a set of rules for a particular gender. They are adamant that people belonging to a certain gender should behave a certain way. My partner’s parents have told me that God is against people being queer. I tried convincing them that everyone is created by the same God. But the most amount of pain I have faced is not from a stranger or society as a whole, it was from my dear ones. I have often thought that if they aren’t able to understand me, then who will understand me? If they had put in more effort to understand me, it wouldn’t have taken this long for me to be comfortable.
In 2017, I came out to my parents as lesbian when I realised that I am attracted to the female gender. My mother was welcoming about it and revealed how she and my grandfather were planning to introduce me to the LGBTQIA+ community and wanted me to explore my options.
Right now I identify as male and I’ve decided to change my name from R Madhuri Devi to R Madhan Dev. My application with the government is currently under review. Last year, I began to officially change my gender and name to male on all my certificates. As part of that, I had to get my chromosomes checked. The endocrinologist prescribing my test said, “I believe the procedure you wish to take can’t be categorised as sex reassignment surgery (gender-affirming surgery). I am confident that your results would denote you are a male with 46 XY chromosomes and you would actually be going back to your original gender. The brain commands the production of hormones based on what reproductive organ is present. A testes would make the brain produce testosterone and a uterus would make the brain command oestrogen.” As I have neither, my brain is confused. This resulted in diabetes and thyroid.
On September 3, 2022, I got my results that showed 46 XY chromosomes. I have decided to celebrate that day as another birthday. After months of testosterone injections every four weeks, my diabetes and thyroid issues are under control.
The best part of this is that all my fear of my peers and people around me thinking of me negatively was purely unfounded. Once they realised that I am not acting out or choosing to be the way I am and it’s just me, right from my birth till now, everyone (at least the people who mattered to me) started understanding me. Even though my dad took some time to process my coming out, he said, “As long as nothing takes you away from us, we are happy with whatever path you choose.” When I admitted how afraid I was to tell my mother about my sexuality, she told me that the world is filled with a lot of flowers and every flower is different, but each one is beautiful.