When you're intersex and you have both parts, where are they located?

It really depends on the person, what exact condition they have, and how the body develops. True hermaphroditism is quite unusual. Usually it’s something further toward typical female or male.

As a kid, I was 3 on the Prader scale, though I did not have any urethral abnormalities. I was put on a cocktail of androgens and I’m not even sure what else for about 4 years to cause virilization of the genitals and development of secondary male sex charactistics. It wasn’t super successful, other than causing me to grow muscle. I ended up looking like a muscular girl with short hair. But they did manage to make my genitals grow to around the 4 category on the scale, which was enough for me to be able to have kids many years later.

I also have a nephew with this condition. He was born with roughly 4 on the scale, but did have the urethral abnormality called epispadias. I don’t really know why my nephew has a similar condition, as far as I am aware conditions like this are not hereditary. Maybe there is some unknown environmental factor at play. Hard to say.

I don’t have a full uterus. There is kind of a partial uterine structure that never fully developed and abdominal imaging indicates what might an abnormally small ovary on the right side. I never had any biopsies or anything done besides imaging to know more about either of them. I do have a functioning prostate which seems to be healthy though undersized. I also had fairly small testicles that sat very high in the scrotum. I have had those removed. The left was about 50% larger than the right before I had them removed, and always had been.

I had a bunch of urological problems as a kid and it was very embarrassing. I feel more comfortable writing on here about my journey from living as a man to living as a woman than I do writing about my experiences with having an intersex condition due to how it impacted me when I was young. I had no choice in it, and I suppose that is why I feel more open to writing about transitioning. I had a choice in that feel more positive emotions about it.

I hope that this is informative and helpful, because I am not likely to write much more about it. Also please keep in mind that very few people with intersex conditions are transgender. The two are not the same, they just happen to overlap in my case.

Writer: Casey Jones on Quora.com