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How my article on Sex Determination applies to the author…

Christine Penn
3 min readJan 1, 2025

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If you have not read my article on this, read it here first to understand the information I am talking about:

There were no visual issues raised at my birth and I was assigned male. I found out much later that my genotype is that of a typical male (XY). However, when we start looking at my hormonal sex, neurological sex, and gender identity, we start uncovering an entirely different picture. There is some skeletal evidence (occurs during fetal development and later modified by puberty) showing that it was under different hormonal influences at times. However, these issues are not detectable at birth, and like others, I started having problems around when puberty should have been occurring. The result was delayed puberty, heart and lung issues, extended growth, weight issues and other problems.

Although many of the issues I was having at the time were consistent with someone who had Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, it was ruled out at the time. That is because they had not yet discovered all the variations that could occur with that at the time. Years later, however, I was officially diagnosed with it. Medical knowledge has increased and we have since learned more about those other variations that were not known. So, instead…

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Christine Penn
Christine Penn

Written by Christine Penn

Trans woman, parent, cyclist, software engineer, author, chef, and many other things.

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