Alternate Title: Perhaps I don’t understand my body the way I thought

Heads up this blog post heavily discusses topics related to menstruation/periods and just other things related to the human body in general. If those topics bring you discomfort I recommend reading a different blog post!

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The body is fucking confusing man. You spend so much of your life being explained a specific way it’s supposed to function or features that you are supposed have or not supposed to have once you hit puberty; even puberty itself is something that has expectations for when it’s supposed to occur, and for people raised as female the expectation of when you’re supposed to get your first period usually from like 12-14. My puberty has always felt- off. Given this is also probably due to my experience as a transmasc person but even then things were always really strange for me regarding it. I got my first period when I was 10 and it’s like puberty hit like a fucking truck from there forward. I ended up experiencing a fairly early puberty in comparison to pretty much everyone I know. A lot of the events of that puberty also felt different than my peers.

I never paid much thought to it, I kinda just thought I was exaggerating tbh, I thought that “most people just go through this too so it’s not just a me thing”. The reexamining of my puberty has been kinda pushed back into focus for me after spending virtually this entire year having extremely irregular periods. I have had maybe 1-2 “regular” periods this year, the rest have been extremely delayed; most of my cycles have been 40 or more days (as of me writing this it took a cycle of 55 days for my current period to arrive) and it’s caused me to be very- curious and a bit concerned. My cycles have been fairly average prior to this although every year they would at skip at most like a month or two but this is the first year where there has been a considerably small amount of periods. And given some other signs I’ve been experiencing it prompted me to look into a few things again, namely PCOS

I’ve questioned if I have PCOS for a while now but I’ve never really considered it as something I have 100% till this year. Even outside of my irregular periods I’ve had excessive/thick body hair for years and around the time my periods became irregular I’ve been experiencing unexplained weight gain, as well as an increase in acne around my back/shoulders. Enough of the things I was experiencing aligned with the signs of PCOS so I took it upon myself (after begging my mom to let me) to go see a gynecologist.

I initially started writing this section with the intent to end it on the fact that I hope the appointment goes well because I’ve had past experiences where doctors (especially my past neurologist) refused to listen to me, shut me up, and put me on pills so I can be told “come back in 3 months!” And I didn’t want to experience more of that again. And then college finals and life happened and by the time I got around to being able to write this it was the day of the appointment. Thankfully, the specialist who saw me was actually respectful and listened to my concerns I had and did a be try brief examination, and based on her assessment she ruled that it may be possible that I have PCOS. I won’t know for certain till I have my hormone test and ultrasound but she says it’s a likely possibility which both reassured some of my suspicions me but also showed that I really didn’t know much about myself like I thought.

I’ve never considered this till this year and it’s kinda crazy to find that out, even if it’s not confirmed just that possibility alone. While I spent my time researching PCOS and looking into other people’s experiences with PCOS (especially the experiences of other trans people) I came to learn that PCOS is a condition widely seen as intersex among the majority of the intersex community due to the ways in which it impacts hormones and secondary sex characteristics. A lot started to make sense and add up from there. My experience with an abnormal puberty, the experiences i have had with my body, and now PCOS; it showed me that maybe I wasn’t alone in what I was dealing with when it came to my understanding of my body. And so as it stands, I am currently considering myself inter-questioning. It will be after till tests occur and results are delivered so till then id like to wait and see. It’s kind of scary to really figure things out about myself and to share what I feel about myself and my identity out somewhere but I want to try and see if there’s other people out there who feel this way. Even if my results don’t come back showing I have PCOS I still stand in solidarity with the intersex community from my experiences with my body and puberty as a transmasc person. I hope someday I’ll be able to understand my body better, and maybe this will be the first step in that understanding.