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English Translation: Brújula Intersexual

[E N   E S P A Ñ O L]

Unique

By Amiel Vieira

I was born at the Maternidade São Paulo, Brazil. I was born with “atypical” genitals and hypospadias. According to my medical records, I had a 1-centimeter penis, testicles, and scrotal sacs. Initially, I was named Luiz Henrique Modesto Vieira.

While I was hospitalized, all the doctors and nurses wanted to see me because everyone in the hospital talked about the “hermaphrodite” or “exotic” child who was hospitalized there.

In my medical records, it is noted that there was a discussion among the doctors because they didn’t know how to handle the situation of the “atypical” genitals. It also mentions that my parents didn’t know what to do and told the doctors: “Whatever you decide is ok. Son or daughter, we leave that decision in your hands.” This shows that parents are not at all prepared to receive this kind of news and make decisions. It’s not just about receiving the news, but about receiving it and knowing how to handle the situation.

Seven days after my birth, I was transferred to the maternity ward of the Instituto da Criança at the Hospital das Clínicas de São Paulo. In this hospital, they performed several medical exams, including a karyotype. The results were: “karyotype 46 XY, penis 1.5 cm, urethra with hypospadias, labio-scrotal sac with folds.” In my medical records, it is mentioned that “the fact that the baby’s karyotype is 46 XY was not revealed to the parents.”

Upon receiving the results, the medical team decided to perform an androgen sensitivity hormonal test, which involved the application of testosterone ointments (Pregnyl) for 14 days. It was observed that there was an “increase in testosterone levels with little skin reaction,” and regarding the genitals, it was mentioned that “there was not a significant change.”

Due to these results, the doctors decided to perform a “normalizing surgical intervention for the female sex,” and my parents changed my name to Anamaría.

For this, they indicated that the intervention would be carried out in two stages. The first surgery was performed when I was 7 months old, consisting of the removal of my penis and testicles. The second surgery was planned for preadolescence and would consist of constructing a “neovagina.”

After that first surgery, my life continued, and I was never informed about what had been done to me.

My memories of school are always being among the girls, not knowing who I was. I remember not feeling well at home, not feeling alive at home, but also not feeling alive at school. I didn’t belong anywhere.

In my medical records, there is a record of a consultation I had with a psychologist when I was 10 years old, during which my parents were present. To this day, I remember what that record said: “The evaluation of Anamaría has begun. It is clear that the parents have difficulty dealing with the problem, as well as the anguish it causes them and Anamaría, who cannot talk about herself.”

That’s how I felt as I began my teenage years and couldn’t talk about myself, couldn’t understand myself in my own body, nor knew my own story. I remember that at 12 or 13 years old, when the girls started talking about their first periods, my mother told me that I couldn’t have children, that I didn’t have a uterus or ovaries. She also said that I had the option to adopt a baby, that I could have “children of the heart.”

I grew up in a complicated environment. My parents were Catholics, and when I was 2 years old, they converted to the evangelical church. In the evangelical/Catholic environment in which they were raised, sexuality had a single purpose: reproduction. One of the objectives of marriage was also reproduction, to leave descendants. So I thought, “Anamaría will one day have to get married, will have to have children. And one day Anamaría will have to talk to her husband and say: Well… I can’t have children.”

The second surgery, originally planned for preadolescence, was performed when I was 20 years old. This surgery did not transform me into a woman; the “neovagina” only changed my genitals to give them a “more feminine appearance.” In short, my genitals only became a penetrable hole.

My relationship with the mirror was terrible; I always thought my body was a body that belonged to the doctors. The first time I managed to see myself naked in front of a mirror was when I was 35 years old.

At 33 years old, I still didn’t know anything about myself, nor did I understand why the surgeries had been performed on me. That’s when I discovered a letter from the Hospital das Clínicas de São Paulo addressed to my mother, dated 1996. It said the following:

“São Paulo, May 30, 1996

Patient Anamaría M. Vieira […] with a diagnosis of partial androgen insensitivity syndrome […] has been receiving hormone replacement therapy with ethinylestradiol since November 1992.”

The letter was something that shocked me because I started researching the matter and began connecting what I had experienced.

I had undergone surgery when I was 7 months old and didn’t know why. I spent my whole life distrusting my mother, always suspecting that she was hiding something from me.

I never felt like the person I was told I was; I was not Anamaría, I never was Anamaría. Anamaría was an attempt to exist, to make me fit into the world.

After discovering the letter, I managed to obtain my medical records. On the first page of the records, there was a name: Luiz Henrique Modesto Vieira, which was crossed out and below it said: Anamaría Modesto Vieira. Additionally, on one of the first pages, it said: karyotype XY.

In 2016, I started my political activism for the LGBTI cause. The Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s March in São Paulo was something that marked my life. It was when I started to realize that my sexuality was not an abnormality. It was the first time I admitted, in front of other people, that my sexual orientation was towards women and I was also able to tell my story.

I also learned about the existence of Trans people, heard someone say that “these were people who felt they were born in the wrong bodies.” Now I know that the correct definition is that we are people who do not identify with the gender assigned at birth; however, at that moment, the feeling of “being born in the wrong body” was very similar to what I felt.

Through the surgeries, the doctors had tried to construct a female body that did not represent me, but I also felt that I had no experience being male. So I started saying that I was no longer a woman and identifying as a non-binary person. That was when I decided to change my name to Amiel.

I was always marginalized; I was never present in this whole story. When they mutilated Luiz Henrique, they didn’t give him the opportunity to live with the body he was born with. A question that accompanied me for much of my life was: Are there other people like me? Or am I the aberration that the doctors say I am?

When I discovered that I was intersex, I answered that first question, but at that moment, I only knew people virtually through the internet. In 2016, I was invited to participate in a panel on intersex and lesbianism. That panel was organized by the Lesbian and Bisexual Women’s March in São Paulo. There, for the first time and in person, I could answer that question: I met two intersex people. This marked the beginning of my activism because it was at that moment that I, along with the two people I had just met, decided that we wanted to do something about intersex in São Paulo.

One thing that bothers me a lot is that when children are mentioned in Brazilian law, the child is considered incapable. Incapable of making decisions, incapable of speaking, incapable of reacting. This gives power to both parents and doctors to decide about the child’s life. For me, intersex children are the ones who more frequently experience the feeling of not belonging because it is common for us not to be accepted by either our parents or society.