Do they have a “undecided” category?
If you suggest that, I’m certain they will embrace the idea with glee.....
Dawn Vago has grown up with the consequences of having surgery to “correct” an intersex variation as a child. Now 35, she is genetically male but has always looked entirely female. She has CAIS, complete androgen insensitivity syndrome: her body has XY chromosomes but is unable to respond to male sex hormones, so she developed female genitalia. Internally, she was born with testes instead of ovaries, and no uterus.
Warm and self-assured, Vago lives in Cheshire when she’s not working as an entertainer on a cruise ship. She is one of only a few British intersex people prepared to speak publicly on the issue. “My parents were told not to tell me, that I wouldn’t understand and I wouldn’t fit into society if I knew the shameful secret about myself,” she says. “They wanted me to live an open and honest life, so they told me when I was five years old.” Dawn’s parents were told by doctors that she would get cancer if her testes weren’t removed, so she had a full gonadectomy aged eight. “They said I would not survive puberty if I did not have the operation, and that wasn’t true.”
The advice regarding the cancer risk has since changed; it is now thought to be minimal and to affect adults, not children – meaning the decision to remove the testes or ovaries can be left until people are old enough to make it themselves. Vago says the synthetic hormones she now has to take have left her with a higher risk of developing breast cancer than she would have had of developing testicular cancer. “Because my body wasn’t receiving the healthy hormones that it would have produced, and through mismanagement of my synthetic hormones, my body started to deteriorate.” By the time she was in her mid-20s, Vago had developed osteoporosis and broken 11 bones. She believes choices about medical intervention, be that surgery or hormones, should be left until the individual is old enough to make an informed decision.
Doctors said I’d never find a man to love me and have my own family. I adore that I’m married and starting a family
Vago is living proof that intersex people can live successful lives while being open about being born outside traditional male and female categories. We’re speaking a few days after she has had a bid to adopt approved. “Doctors told my parents that I would never find a man who would love me, and I would never have my own family. I absolutely adore the fact that I am married and about to start a family. It proves you control your own life.”