this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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I was assigned male at birth but have increasingly started to notice over the years that other guys don't have a big notch on either side of their torsos like I do. It's my pelvic bone. I would go to a doctor to see what they had to say but they've seen me plenty of times and said absolutely nothing about being intersex and now I live in a rural conservative area and they don't seem to diagnose the same way in hardly anything that is a conservative third rail. I just seem to have a really wide pelvis just like a female. Everything else seems male. I am a very normal weight so it's not fat tissue - its clearly bone. I just feel gaslit over it and have been trying to gauge perceptions people have of me in my life in order to get on with things. I hate to turn to the internet but this is driving me crazy. I need something to work with, somewhere to start.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (2 children)

1 or 2 in 1000 people are xxy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome

But even if you're XY, hormones aren't binary, you might just have a lot of estrogen, or it could be something that isn't related at all to gender or hormones.

There's a shit ton of human variation

[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago

This. There is a lot of variation in normal. We all don’t look exactly the same

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Something to keep in mind when dumbass say "there is only two genders".

[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Oddities in your bones don't really mean much. I have a 13th pair of ribs, "people" are only supposed to have 12, but there's a lot of variability floating around.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

I sort of knew but didn't properly understand this is my early 20s. I always thought that transitioning would be easy and I put it off, since I had a fairy femme figure... Of course then I hit 25 and out of nowhere seemingly my whole torso changed shape. Really surprisingly suddenly!

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago

I think you might want to give these a read:

https://psmag.com/social-justice/our-bones-reveal-sex-is-not-binary

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/13/pelvic-bone-unreliable-in-identifying-gender/

This isn't to dismiss your concerns, but instead to let you know that your pelvis being one way or another, on its own, probably isn't an indication of anything at all.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't consult a doctor to see if they can help you confirm or dispel your worries since this is clearly bothering you, but most importantly, remember - whatever the outcome, there's nothing "wrong" with you.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago

Is it likely? No. Is it possible? Yes.

It's worth getting checked out at some point though, because some intersex conditions can impact fertility

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

What you are is a guy with a wide pelvis.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Biology isn’t binary. I would stop looking for labels and just be you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

This is the correct answer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Biology isn’t binary.

correct

I would stop looking for labels

why, when a label can not only confirm to the person themselves all of the feelings and doubts they may have been having, but also finds them a supportive community of people like them they can relate to and share experiences with?

and just be you.

correct, but can only happen by knowing who you are first, aka finding the correct label/s for yourself.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

💯 💯 💯 💯 💯

Finding a label and understanding yourself after a lifetime of confusion and self hatred for not being normal is immensely satisfying.

Sure, in an essentialism way we all transcend labels since an individual is so much more, but we live in a language based society. Having a label is the best way to communicate to another human "This is my experience".

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I would stop looking for labels and just be you.

I wish I could tattoo this on the retinas of every Gen Z kid so they'd be forced to see it literally all the time.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

And I wish I could convey to people like you what an absolute privilege it is to not feel the need to label yourself because society already not only recognises and accepts you as the default, but caters to you as such.

Those of us not so lucky like to find our people, those who can understand us and what we've been through, those we can relate to who can relate to us, and act as the community society never was for us (your comment being a perfect demonstration of the massive blind spot so many people have to the struggles of marginalise people).

Check your privilege instead of expecting those who don't have it to be as comfortable as you are (which literally requires you to just not give your uninformed opinions of people whose experience you clearly know nothing about and the actions we take to feel less excluded).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Do you really care about people who will only accept you if you only have a label? I think gen Z cares to much about finding "your people". You know who your people are? People who accept you because you are you, not because you're a X, Y, or Z.

Why would you give a damn about the opinion of someone who only accepts you because you label yourself as whatever? That's a shitty person.

Edit: actually, thinking a bit more about this, that could be pretty lonely depending on your circumstances, because most people are absolute shitbags. So I can understand the appeal of being able to say "I IDENTIFY AS FKLDS;AME" and finding a ready-made community of FKLDS;AME to act as a societal support, since the cishet society you happen to be born into hates anyone who isn't cishet.

Still far from ideal.

I think my privilege is not so much my own cishet identity but simply a geographic one: no one here gives a damn what you identify as, all are equally valid. You don't need to find a new community of FKLDS;AME people or FKLDS;AME allies. Everyone is just groovy about whatever. Less pressure to label.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

just not give your uninformed opinions

Someone forgot what community they're in

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Checking

Edit: yep it's still there

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

There is plenty of overlap in body types between men and women.

If you are thin, you may just be more aware of the bones. Unless you start putting on fat in a more female pattern I wouldn't even consider intersex a possibility, much less a probability. But it's YOUR body, and your worry, talk to your doctor.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

Other comments aside, humans have at least 4 different kinds of pelvis shapes (Caldwell–Moloy classification). If you decide to look further into the research, we actually have no idea which pelvises are most common for any sex. Any research done has largely been "which best for woman give birth" and that's it.

We have no data to give a proper average of what should be expected for those assigned male at birth. We have no data for those who are intersex either but worse because even many modern practices do their best to hide everything.

No idea where you live, but to give you a start:
https://isna.org/
http://www.ukia.co.uk/

Best luck to you finding your answers.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Do you mean your iliac furrows, also known as an "Adonis Belt"? Some people work hard for years to define them with workouts.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

I prefer “cum gutters”, makes the heteros upseteros

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

People come in many shapes and sizes and your bones are still configuring themselves if you're under 25. I wouldn't concern yourself with stuff like this.

Although I've heard thoughts like these are connected with transgender stuff if that's on your radar.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

I am pretty skinny, my pelvis protrudes in the way you describe but I wouldn’t considered this a sign of intersex

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

I have webbed toes. Doesn’t mean anything it’s just the way you’re built.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

We humans are fortunately all shapes and sizes.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Human variation means you can be a male with a natural "male" wide pelvic bone. When determining the sex of human skeletons, they use a whole array of measurements besides just the width of the pelvis and still get it wrong sometimes. Unless you have other indications or feel you might be a different gender than you present as, you have nothing to worry about.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Anything that relates somehow to the X and Y chromosomes being spontaneous would be, if you ask me, intersex by definition. But you'd need to do a DNA mapping.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Possibly but possibly not. If it were fully considered an intersex condition it would be even more common to be intersex than previously believed. Though as someone intersex (urogenital structure and chimerism) who had that trait you may have other small stuff

[–] [email protected] -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Like what? What else might I have? I'm going mostly by appearances. I guess my voice never completely broke and I'm already 30 but I thought that might be kallmann syndrome or similar.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

You probably just have a little bit of an anterior pelvic tilt. The boney prominence that you are talking about, the one that is more commonly visible in women is just the iliac crest.

Everyone have them, but your weight and pelvic tilt determine how visible they are. Women typically have up to 4 degrees of anterior tilt, while most men are in a more neutral position.

Men can have anterior tilts and be perfectly healthy, but It can also be a symptom from anything from bad posture to a limb length discrepancy. It should be fine, but I would consult a physician if you start losing range of motion or start having hip or lower back pain.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, one of the most common intersex conditions amongst male folk is Klinefelter syndrome. It's basically where you end up with an X and Y chromosome, but also have a second X chromosome (so XXY).

The symptoms are subtle, and most people are never even aware they have it. But symptoms include wider hips, taller than average height, reduced fertility, reduced puberty (so not as much body hair, voice doesn't drop as deep etc) and sometimes, slight development of breast tissue

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I have this pelvic bone thing. I'm 5' 10.25", I think average for men is 5' 9". A lot of puberty things have been lagging including my apache beard, virtually no hair on torso or arms, squeaky crackly young sounding half broken voice, and yeah exactly slight development of breast tissue. No one has ever said anything about my chromosomes though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Well, a doctor can test for it by requesting a karyotype, which will show your chromosomes, including if you have XY or XXY

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

its up to you if they are to be love handles.