An Australian man who discovered he was intersex in his 50s has revealed the main symptom he experienced before diagnosis.
Intersex describes bodies that don’t fit the typical male/female categories, affecting about 1–2 in 100 people. It can involve mixed genitalia, internal organs, or chromosomes like XXY instead of XY or XX.
Rob Wilson, a poultry farmer, was born with both male and female genitals. At three days old, doctors operated to close his vagina. He lived as a man, taking testosterone from age eight and undergoing multiple surgeries, but suffered back pain and unknowingly menstruated internally, causing dangerously high iron levels.
Rob only learned the truth when his dying aunt revealed he was born with a rare chromosomal condition, 48,XXXY, found in 1 in 17,000–50,000 males. The revelation explained his lifelong symptoms.
“My parents never spoke about it,” Rob said. “Dad just said, ‘Rob’s different, but there’s nothing wrong with him.’”
He now travels to Ukraine for hormone treatment and believes his condition may trace back to Nazi experiments on his father, a WWII prisoner of war.