All about Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters

He slipped out and fell onto the mattress beside her. She was smiling and so was he.

“You really can go on top next time if you like,” he said.

“I’m too big,” she said, with a sly smirk. “I’d be frightened I might crush you.”

“You’re no taller than me, I don’t mind telling you that I absolutely love your body. It is so smooth and soft. You’re not fat. You’re just a lot of woman.” Was he teasing her. She looked over at him to check.

“I suppose after three dates and two nights in your bed … and God knows how much sex, I must tell you something,” she said. “Have you ever heard of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome?”

“No,” he replied honestly, but with a little nervousness.

“Well, it is fairly rare, but there are still a lot of people who live with it. It is a condition where the person who has it cannot be affected in any way by androgens – the male sex hormones. They are only shaped by female hormones. Men have female hormones and women have male hormones, but their bodies are shaped by the dominant hormone – androgens for men and estrogens for women.”

“So why are you telling me this,” he leaned over to her and pushed a lock of her copious soft dark hair away from her face.

“If you could imagine a person unaffected by male hormones they would develop to be more of a woman than others, because their womanliness would be unaffected by any male hormones. Even if that person had XY chromosomes that would normally signal that they develop as a male, even from inside the womb they would not. They would be born with the appearance of a woman – they would appear to be a girl at birth and right through until puberty. People with XY chromosomes and Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome don’t have wombs, you see – they don’t menstruate and they can’t have children.”

It struck him that there was a tinge of sadness in her voice. He heard and understood everything that she had said, but what concerned him most was that sadness.

“Are you telling me that this is what makes you a big woman?” he said.

“A stature driven by the XY set up, and the absence of any real puberty have an affect, like a gelded stallion, but so too would be massive doses of estrogen with no androgens to neutralize them. The feminine features of the adipose in the skin and feminine fat distribution … androgen insensitive women can appear more womanly than XX women.””

So what you are really telling me is that you don’t have a womb and you can’t have children?” he said.

“That’s right,” she said.

“Well, like I told you I have five children out of two ex-wives so I have no plans for more,” he said. He added the period by kissing her full on her soft cushion lips.

“So you have the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome?” he said.

“Did I say that?” she said. “It just seemed easier to explain it that way than tell you that I spent the first ten years of my life as a competitive jock called Brad who finally plucked up the courage to get himself denutted, cut and tucked and go through ten years of hormone therapy.”

“You’re teasing me?” He pulled back a little. She was grinning.

“Would it matter?” she said.

He looked at her with her hair across the pillow, and that smile that drew him to bed with her every time he saw it. Even now he was stiffening – something that appeared almost unnatural as it had only minutes since he last orgasmed.

“No,” he said.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2023

Hanne Gaby Odiele, Belgian model with XY AIS