Why I'm Stealth

I am a 25-year-old woman. When I was born my parents gave me the name Samuel and raised me as a boy because to them I was a boy. I had a male phenotype, i.e., p.enis and t.esticles, but from early childhood I knew I wasn't a boy. I knew I was a girl, or at least should have been.

I told my father when I was 7 that I was a girl, he said I wasn't because of my my genitals, I disagreed, and he beat me. I didn't try again until I was 17. He beat me, and kicked me out.

At 17 I was far from being like other boys. My facial hair was sparse, my voice more feminine, my laryngeal prominence wasn't at all prominent, I had small breasts but wasn't at all fat, and my behavior was certainly more stereotypically feminine. I got 'mistaken' for being a woman more than anything, and this was without trying.

So, he kicked me out. I was homeless. I did a lot during my homelessness that makes me sick thinking about now. I had to do what I had to do to survive. I survived. I survived a brutal rape and beating brought on only by the fact that I was 'transgender'. I started to get my life back together but the town I lived in was small enough that everyone knew of me and most harassed me. I was banned from almost every business in town. I had to move, and I had to make a decision.

I decided to be stealth. This decision meant that no one in my life could know the real me or know my past. I made up a past. I rehearsed it in mt head and looking in a mirror over and over again until I started to believe it and connect to it emotionally. I did this by taking real events of my life and altering them only enough to fit a story in which I'd always been a girl. I was reborn.

In my new hometown there is not one person who even suspects that I have a male phenotype. I have not had any surgeries. I am just lucky, or at least I thought I was lucky until I started seeing an endocrinologist to start my hormone therapy. It was at this time that it was discovered that I had the female genotype, i.e., XX chromosomes, but that attached to one of my X chromosomes was the SRY gene that induces male-type genital development. I was diagnosed three years ago with XX-male Syndrome (de la Chapelle Syndrome).

Most XX-males are not like me, or so I was told. Most are happy with their manhood. I am a minority. I don't know why. I only know that for all of the life I can remember I knew I was a girl and I know I ama woman even though I have something between my legs that shouldn't be there. Someday that will be fixed. Until then I will be stealth.

I will be stealth because as a stealth 'transsexual' woman I am at a reduced risk of being murdered.

I will be stealth because I refuse to let the ignorance of a sexually-uneducated society tell me what gender or sex I am or can/should be.

I will be stealth because I don't have to deal with the confused or disgusted facial expressions of people who think I'm a man.

I will be stealth because I will not face the same discrimination in employment that transgender people usually face.

I will be stealth because my birth certificate, drivers license, and my social security information all show my female gender and that is not wrong.

I will be stealth because I am naturally a beautiful woman who has had no surgeries yet. The only surgery I will ever have is the one that will make it so I can finally lose my virginity.

I will be stealth because I am a woman. It doesn't matter what anyone says besides me. I am a woman. I was never a boy nor a man. I tried to act like a man for awhile. It felt alien and demeaning to my true nature.

I will be stealth because I want to live my life without fear.

This will be my only post on this account. I am only writing this because recent events in the transgender community have led me to feel a sense of guilt though I am truly intersex and not transgender. I feel guilty and sad because I want every transgender and intersex person out there to be able to live their lives without fear, and maybe you knowing at least this small part of my story will cause you to respect people similar to me for the human beings we are and you will not try to force us into your tiny little gender-binary-containing box.

Because I am here. I am human. I am a woman. When you pass me on a sidewalk you see a woman. When you pass by me in your car you see a woman. When you hear me speak you hear a woman. When you check out my assets you see a woman. Genetically I am a woman. Phenotypically, well, that can be fixed and you can't see it anyway as I don't walk around nude in public.

I have given you only a few details of my life story. My entire life story with all of the detail is irrelevant to the purpose of this post which is only to say:

Hello. I am here. I am happy. I am human. There is nothing you can say or do to make me believe otherwise.

Goodbye. Be good.