Does anyone know anything about the medical techniques used to assign sex to intersex babies in the early 1950's? I have more than a passing interest in this.

First let me get a few facts out in the open. I have never really felt like I was a woman in a man's body, but there have been a number of psychological, sexual, and health anomalies in my life. Here are just a few of them.

1) I have always had a strong connection to my feminine side. This is not my opinion, but my wife's and a number of female friends. I have often thought that I might have been happier if I'd been a woman.

2) I have always made friends easier with woman than men.

3) I am not interested in transitioning, nor am I a cross-dresser, but have frequently been envious of the variety and colors of clothes and jewelry available to women but not men. I have thought about cross-dressing, but at my weight I think I would just look ridiculous.

4) I was never an alpha type male.

5) I have always fought weight problems, mostly gaining weight in areas frequently associated with menopausal women. I currently weigh over 300 lbs in spite of constant dieting, exercise, weight loss drugs, etc. etc.

6) I was pretty much a normal teenage boy, although I was extremely shy and lacking in confidence. I mastrubated frequently and eventually married and had a reasonably normal married life for the first 20 years. I have been married for 35 years. My wife never became pregnant, which was OK as neither of us felt a driving need for children. It should be known that my wife is a very understanding person, especially since we haven't been able to have normal male/female sexual relations in over 15 years.

7) In my late thirties, I began to suffer from various health problems including depression, abnormal weight gain, sleep disorders, osteoporosis, severe Erectile Disfunction, and severely arthritic joints. After 2 years of endless testing, they eventually discovered that my testosterone level was 39 nanograms/deciliter. (Normal for men of that age is 170-650). I have been on testosterone supplements ever since. They called the condition andropause. I have reason to believe that I always suffered from abnormally low testosterone levels. I had low sperm counts and low sperm motility.

8) I also suffer from gynecomastia. I have breasts that are the equivalent of a B or C-cup. I have never taken female hormones, however, one doctor told me that my estrogen levels were similar to that of a girl entering puberty.

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Now having said all of that I will finally get to the purpose of this blog entry.

When I was 8 days old, I underwent surgery to "remove tumors" from my lower abdomen. This was the only explanation my parents ever gave me. When I asked about it (and I did several times over the years) this was always the sum total of the explanation given for the scar that reaches from the base of my penis to just below my navel and slightly to the left of center. They always seemed embarrassed when I asked about it, and a time or two my father actually became angry (very unusual for him) when I tried to pursue the issue. The doctor who performed the surgery died when I was 10. All his records were supposedly lost.

I had never heard of the condition of intersexed children until a few years ago. Unfortunately, by that time my father and grandparents had passed away and my mother is unlikely to be able to tell me much even if she was willing.

I now suspect that there is a possibility that I was an intersex baby, who was assigned as a male. I think that this may have been responsible for many of my health problems over the years.

If anyone knows anything about the procedures used to assign sex in this time period, I would appreciate the information. I am also interested in later life complications resulting from this operations.

Waterdog