{ "id": "p16022coll97:91", "object": "https://cdm16022.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/p16022coll97/id/91", "set_spec": "p16022coll97", "collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_name_s": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_description": "
The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (TTOHP) collects, preserves, and makes accessible oral histories of gender transgression, especially as theyintersect with race, age, sexuality, citizenship, class, and ability. The project seeks to document the power and vision of trans movements for justice through the stories of activists working to imagine another world.
\n\nThe first phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project was led by poet and activist Andrea Jenkins—who became the first Black transgender woman to serve in office in the US after she was elected, in 2017, to the Minneapolis City Council. This phase of the project sought to document the life stories and experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming people, with a focus on people living in the upper Midwest as well as those often excluded from the historical record, including trans people of color and trans elders.
\n\nThe second phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project is led by trans studies scholar Myrl Beam. This phase of work seeks to document histories of trans activist movements and politics in the US, and is grounded in the belief that trans movements for justice are about more than rights: they are about survival, and about creating a new, more fabulous, more livable, and more expansive world––one not structured by racialized gender norms. The oral histories collected during this phase document the transformative power of trans movements, and the stories of trans activists who are building them.
\n\nFor more about the project, visit: https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter/transgender-oral-history-project.
", "title": "Interview with Ashley Meyers", "title_s": "Interview with Ashley Meyers", "title_t": "Interview with Ashley Meyers", "title_search": "Interview with Ashley Meyers", "title_sort": "interviewwithashleymeyers", "description": "Ashley Meyers is a white intersex woman. She talks about growing up and being diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disorder. She shares her experience being diagnosed and receiving treatment/medical interventions for Turner’s Syndrome, and what she has learned about other intersex conditions and the community. She recognizes that trans people and intersex people have some similar experiences, and wishes there was a more visible intersex community.", "date_created": [ "2016-01-13" ], "date_created_ss": [ "2016-01-13" ], "date_created_sort": "2016", "creator": [ "Meyers, Ashley" ], "creator_ss": [ "Meyers, Ashley" ], "creator_sort": "meyersashley", "contributor": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "contributor_ss": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "notes": "Forms part of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, Phase 1.", "types": [ "Moving Image" ], "format": [ "Oral histories | http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595" ], "format_name": [ "Oral histories" ], "dimensions": "1:04:48", "subject": [ "Intersex", "Disability", "Family Relationships", "Health and Healthcare", "Education", "Midwest (United States)", "White", "Ableism", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "subject_ss": [ "Intersex", "Disability", "Family Relationships", "Health and Healthcare", "Education", "Midwest (United States)", "White", "Ableism", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "language": [ "English" ], "city": [ "Minneapolis" ], "state": [ "Minnesota" ], "country": [ "United States" ], "continent": [ "North America" ], "geonames": [ "http://sws.geonames.org/5037657/" ], "parent_collection": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "parent_collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "contributing_organization": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name_s": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contact_information": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. 111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 - 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455; https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter", "fiscal_sponsor": "This project is funded through the generous support of The TAWANI Foundation, Headwaters Foundation and many individual donors.", "local_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp106" ], "dls_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp106" ], "rights_statement_uri": "http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/", "kaltura_audio": "1_odqh7m49", "kaltura_video": "1_v3n2zgh1", "kaltura_combo_playlist": "0_wixedmd8", "page_count": 0, "record_type": "primary", "first_viewer_type": "kaltura_combo_playlist", "viewer_type": "kaltura_combo_playlist", "attachment": "93.pdf", "attachment_format": "pdf", "document_type": "item", "featured_collection_order": 999, "date_added": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_added_sort": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_modified": "2020-05-22T00:00:00Z", "transcription": "Ashley Meyers\nNarrator\nAndrea Jenkins\nInterviewer\nThe Transgender Oral History Project\nTretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nJanuary 13, 2016\nThe Transgender Oral History Project of the Upper Midwest will empower individuals to tell their story,\nwhile providing students, historians, and the public with a more rich foundation of primary source\nmaterial about the transgender community. The project is part of the Tretter Collection at the\nUniversity of Minnesota. The archive provides a record of GLBT thought, knowledge and culture for\ncurrent and future generations and is available to students, researchers and members of the public.\nThe Transgender Oral History Project will collect up to 400 hours of oral histories involving 200 to 300\nindividuals over the next three years. Major efforts will be the recruitment of individuals of all ages and\nexperiences, and documenting the work of The Program in Human Sexuality. This project will be led by\nAndrea Jenkins, poet, writer, and trans-activist. Andrea brings years of experience working in\ngovernment, non-profits and LGBT organizations. If you are interested in being involved in this exciting\nproject, please contact Andrea.\nAndrea Jenkins\njenki120@umn.edu\n(612) 625-4379\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 3\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: My name is Andrea Jenkins and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral 1 History Project\n2 at the University of Minnesota and today is January 13, 2016. I am here today with Ashley\n3 Meyer . . . is it Meyer or Meyers?\n4\n5 AM: Meyers with an “s”.\n6\n7 AJ: With an “s”. All right. So Ashley, I’m going to ask you to introduce yourself. State your name,\n8 your preferred pronouns, your gender identity and your gender assigned at birth.\n9\n10 AM: OK. My full name is Ashley Elizabeth Meyers. Let’s see . . . my preferred pronouns are she, her,\n11 hers.\n12\n13 AJ: Great.\n14\n15 AM: And my gender identity, I usually describe it as intersex woman. That’s probably the simplest\n16 way of putting it. And my gender assigned at birth was female.\n17\n18 AJ: All right. Thank you. Can you share with me, Ashley, what’s the earliest thing that you\n19 remember in life?\n20\n21 AM: That’s an interesting question. I guess the earliest thing I can remember distinctly in actually\n22 place and time is probably when I was pestering my mother for a dog. One day dogs were just\n23 appearing on cartoons and I really wanted one, my mother is allergic to dogs so she kept on\n24 having to say no, and one day I finally broke her resolve because she kind of wanted a dog too.\n25 And my dad didn’t really want one, he’s more of a cat person, but my mother is also allergic to\n26 cats - basically any pet with fur that sheds she’s allergic to. So he didn’t really want one and\n27 eventually my mother broke down and was like, “OK, talk to your father.” And got him on the\n28 phone, at work, and instead of asking him for a dog, I said, “Dad, don’t you think it’s weird that\n29 we don’t have a dog?” It just seemed to be the thing that people just did – the parents, the kids,\n30 and the dog. That’s what I kept on seeing at age five – or four . . . yeah, age five or four. And\n31 then my dad said, “I’ll think about it.” My mother knew in my dad-speak that means, “Yes.”\n32\n33 AJ: Oh wow, OK.\n34\n35 AM: Yeah, in his speak that means yes. And so she was all surprised and then got on the phone with\n36 him and was like, “Are you sure?” and everything. I told her, “Mom, get off the phone because\n37 dad has to think.” So that was one of my first memories.\n38\n39 AJ: Really.\n40\n41 AM: Well at least one I can place in time. There might be ones that are earlier but again, they’re not\n42 very . . .\n43\n44 AJ: Super fuzzy.\n45\n46 AM: Right, they’re kind of fuzzy and I don’t remember it too well, but that’s one I can say was when I\n47 was four or five. So that’s probably the most distinct, early memory I’ve got.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 4\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AJ: Interesting. Did you get the dog?\n3\n4 AM: Yes, I did get the dog and unfortunately had to be put down about a year ago.\n5\n6 AJ: Oh, wow. So you guys kept it for a long time.\n7\n8 AM: Yeah, 16 years. He was 16 and just wasn’t doing very well. We think he might have been having\n9 small strokes. He didn’t seem to know what was going on and confused all the time, just felt like\n10 he would break if you picked him up. But his name was Tommy. I still do not know why I named\n11 him that, I picked the name.\n12\n13 AJ: You picked the name.\n14\n15 AM: Yeah. And whenever somebody would ask, I would just put my little hands on my hips and say,\n16 “I just thought it was a good name for a dog.” And later I wish I had been more explicit because\n17 I asked mom, “Were we watching Rugrats at the time?” Because Tommy Pickles, I know at one\n18 point in our childhood my brother and I did watch Rugrats sometimes and so was it that, was\n19 there a boy at preschool named Tommy, where would I have even heard this before? And she\n20 was like, “Nope,” you would have watched Rugrats later and she didn’t remember any boy\n21 named Tommy or how I would have known the name. So I guess I must have picked it up from\n22 somewhere and just thought it would work, but I can’t imagine him being by any other name.\n23\n24 AJ: That is quite an interesting name for a dog.\n25\n26 AM: He was a little white fluffy Bichon Frise, my mother could handle him because he didn’t shed,\n27 which was a blessing because we wouldn’t have to . . .\n28\n29 AJ: Yeah, I’ve heard they’re the hypoallergenic dogs.\n30\n31 AM: Exactly. My mother didn’t have to worry about it. Well, OK – she’d have to make sure after\n32 playing with him or petting him, she washed her hands before touching her face because her\n33 eyes would get itchy and everything. But other than that it was fine and we didn’t have to pick\n34 up dog hair.\n35\n36 AJ: Yeah, that’s kind of nice.\n37\n38 AM: So that was good.\n39\n40 AJ: Bichon Frise. What about elementary school? Where did you go to elementary school?\n41\n42 AM: I went to elementary school at Oxbow Creek. It was an elementary school not too far from my\n43 house. It was a good place.\n44\n45 AJ: How do you spell that? O-x . . .\n46\n47 AM: O-x-b-o-w.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 5\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AJ: Oh, Oxbow.\n3\n4 AM: Oxbow Creek. Yes. I had some good teachers there, I especially remember my first grade\n5 teacher, Mr. Kohvik and we called him Mr. K. He was the one who kind of noticed I was having\n6 some learning difficulties. My kindergarten teacher had noticed but felt that it was too early to\n7 really do much about it or bother with a diagnosis, but by that point Mr. K was like, “Well maybe\n8 we should check this out.” At first they kind of thought maybe I had dyslexia but we didn’t\n9 bother doing a whole diagnostic at that point but they got me in touch with a reading teacher\n10 and I would go out with her a few times a week and we would sit together and she would have\n11 me write out these little booklets with stickers and then we would have to go through a lot of it\n12 with white stickers so that way I could fix the backwards letters and things. B and D were a\n13 nightmare.\n14\n15 AJ: Oh really.\n16\n17 AM: Yeah, well the lower case ones look so similar and trying to remember which one is in which\n18 direction.\n19\n20 AJ: Which direction, yeah.\n21\n22 AM: Right. And eventually I got the strategy of during a spelling test writing the word bed at the top\n23 and remembering that when you write it out it kind of looks like a bed and you can draw a little\n24 person right there. In fact one of my . . .\n25\n26 AJ: And you came up with that idea on your own?\n27\n28 AM: Actually I can’t take total credit for it, one of my special ed teachers thought of it – Mrs.\n29 Paulsted. She was the one that I had in 2nd or 3rd grade. I really liked her, she was very nice and\n30 I was disappointed when she had to go to another school. And after that it was Mrs. Green and\n31 she was very good as well. So yeah, I was blessed with a lot of help in that area.\n32\n33 AJ: So there was a little bit of dyslexia?\n34\n35 AM: Yeah. Eventually we did do a whole diagnostic years later and they said that I had non-verbal\n36 learning disorder. So, in the end, I’ve just learned not to be too concerned with the label –\n37 mostly it’s looking at how it affects me. Even now sometimes when I’m writing by hand,\n38 sometimes the backwards letters will come up after I write for a while. I discovered this when I\n39 had to do a travel journal for one of my trips abroad and we hand wrote those. My mom looked\n40 at it later and was like, “Yeah, this reminds me of when you were little and doing all your\n41 backwards letters and things.” She helped me transcribe them all to show family members. But\n42 luckily when I’m typing it’s fine.\n43\n44 AJ: It doesn’t appear.\n45\n46 AM: Yeah. So that’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed as far as the letter thing. And also I’ve noticed\n47 that I tend to be a slower reader still. Even now in college I still have some accommodations –\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 6\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nthey’ll scan my books and I have a special reader on my iPad that will read it all 1 to me. And also\n2 it has like a little red cursor above the word to help me follow along and things.\n3\n4 AJ: Oh, so you can follow along with the audio.\n5\n6 AM: Exactly.\n7\n8 AJ: And read the words.\n9\n10 AM: And I can also adjust the pitch of the voice, which is good because I noticed one time I had to\n11 listen to the audio book of The Grapes of Wrath for my 10th grade English class. The voice on the\n12 audio book was super low and it made me fall asleep. So now I adjust it to be a higher voice\n13 because I don’t fall asleep to those.\n14\n15 AJ: So Orson Wells was reading The Grapes of Wrath or somebody.\n16\n17 AM: I think so. Yeah, somebody with a very low soothing voice. I just couldn’t stay awake. My\n18 mother would come by and shake me awake, just on the chair. “How long were asleep?” “I\n19 don’t know.” And then the voice would still be in my ear and I’d be like, “OK, where was I?”\n20\n21 AJ: That’s quite funny. You’re in this great elementary school and the teachers are really helpful,\n22 what about the kids? I know that sometimes . . . kids can be kind of cruel when there are\n23 learning disabilities present and that kind of thing.\n24\n25 AM: I think that the teachers kind of helped by . . . they acted as kind of a buffer and they were very\n26 good explaining why I would leave class. That was probably the biggest thing, otherwise I was\n27 able to hide it from . . .\n28\n29 AJ: Sure, nobody really knew.\n30\n31 AM: Those were the only times when maybe I felt a little awkward or the kids were wondering how I\n32 was different because I had to get up and leave. Again, luckily the teachers were very good at\n33 explaining what was going on. I was lucky that I was able to avoid that part and actually many of\n34 the kids were surprised when they discovered I had a learning disability because I’ve always had\n35 . . .\n36\n37 AJ: They couldn’t tell.\n38\n39 AM: They couldn’t tell. I always had a big vocabulary, which sort of masked it – because you don’t\n40 expect somebody with a big vocabulary to have a learning difficulty. Back when my mother was\n41 concerned, when I was really little, she brought me into the pediatrician’s office and I was\n42 talking to the doctor, just yapping away using all my $10 words. And he was like, “OK, why did\n43 you bring her here?” And she was like, “She still doesn’t know how to count or do her letters.”\n44 He was like, “Oh,” and was kind of surprised. So I think in the end the fact that it was pretty\n45 invisible sort of was a shield in the end and people would easily forget until I had to leave or I\n46 was struggling to read something and then they would remember. So I did have some friends\n47 who would have to do the same thing – go out to the reading tutor. I remember my friend,\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 7\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nMaggie, she also would have to go out to the same tutor sometimes when we 1 were in 4th and 5th\n2 grade. So that was good to have somebody else . . .\n3\n4 AJ: Somebody else who was experiencing some of the same kinds of things.\n5\n6 AM: Yeah, or at least similar things.\n7\n8 AJ: So no bullying then in school?\n9\n10 AM: No. I was very, very fortunate not to have to deal with that.\n11\n12 AJ: And you had lots of friends and good social interactions with kids?\n13\n14 AM: Yeah, I would have to say that making friends was always . . . that’s always been kind of a\n15 challenge, which I discovered is not uncommon. That’s something a lot of people might struggle\n16 with and also the neuropsychologist who did my test much later said it’s not even uncommon\n17 for people with non-verbal learning disorder. I think a lot of it is because we tend not to notice\n18 non-verbal cues as well as we notice verbal ones. So sometimes people would be giving me\n19 signals non-verbally and cues and stuff and I would just not be . . .\n20\n21 AJ: Just not be aware of it.\n22\n23 AM: Not be seeing them. Luckily most of the time a verbal cue comes pretty quick but sometimes . . .\n24 I can remember sometimes . . . what I would receive as a weird reaction and now I look back and\n25 it’s like oh, I probably just missed a verbal cue for sometimes – to stop talking or whatever. So,\n26 that was kind of a struggle. So, yeah, there was no bullying but still it was sometimes hard to\n27 make friends because of that. And that’s gotten better as I’ve gotten older and I’ve become\n28 more aware. I try to really be conscious of OK, am I receiving a non-verbal cue and just trying to\n29 understand that a little bit more.\n30\n31 AJ: Well it sounds like you grew up in a pretty intact home environment – both of your parents have\n32 been together for the entirety of your life, right?\n33\n34 AM: Right.\n35\n36 AJ: And, they were very supportive of helping you through some of the challenges with the learning\n37 disabilities and such. Tell me about your identity as an intersex woman and how does the\n38 learning disabilities play into that. And I want to talk a little bit more, as we get a little deeper\n39 into the interview, about invisible disabilities and how people just don’t recognize it and sort of .\n40 . . what are some of the challenges and getting help when people can’t see it. It’s clear when\n41 somebody is in a wheelchair and hey, I might need to hold the door open for them. Or, they’re\n42 blind or hearing disabled. So – we’ll talk about that in a little bit, but . . .\n43\n44 AM: Well, as far as the intersex identity, I became more aware of it as I started reaching the age of 11\n45 or 12. In fact, I believe it was my 12-year-old appointment with a pediatrician when something\n46 was noticed. I wasn’t growing, I was leveling off already on the growth chart and not going\n47 through a growth spurt.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 8\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AJ: So at 12-years-old, how tall would you say you were?\n3\n4 AM: Let’s see, I was probably a little over four feet at that point. My parents weren’t really\n5 concerned because they’re not very tall themselves, they’re pretty average height and so they\n6 weren’t really thinking too much about it but the pediatrician pointed out how I was leveling off\n7 and said, “We should probably have you see a specialist.” And so I was referred to an\n8 endocrinologist by the name of Dr. Creigo.\n9\n10 AJ: How do you spell that, do you know?\n11\n12 AM: I think it’s spelled C-r-e-i -g-o.\n13\n14 AJ: OK.\n15\n16 AM: I’m not entirely sure.\n17\n18 AJ: That sounds pretty close.\n19\n20 AM: We went to see her that July, so the appointment probably was May, around my birthday. So\n21 July sounds right anyway. When I got there they asked a bunch of questions, I can’t remember\n22 what they all were. I just remember being very nervous because we didn’t know what they\n23 were going to find.\n24\n25 AJ: And you probably had never been to an endocrinologist before.\n26\n27 AM: No, I didn’t even quite understand what she was. Later I figured out her specialty is the growth\n28 system and hormones – particularly with children and adolescents. So we talked for a while and\n29 she made this list of things that it could be, some sounded not too bad and others just sounded\n30 just terrible. I can’t remember everything – I think that I tried to block that out at the time. She\n31 told me that we would have to do some blood tests and by this point, 12-year-old me is freaking\n32 out because that’s a scary thing and I’d never had a needle in a vein before. So that was very\n33 scary. So they brought in a nurse with this numbing solution to put over my arm and that takes\n34 a while to work.\n35\n36 AJ: Like a topical anesthetic.\n37\n38 AM: Yeah, something like that. Yeah, so we had to wait a little while for that to work and meanwhile\n39 I didn’t get a very big breakfast before coming in that morning and my parents weren’t thinking\n40 about the fact that oh, she hasn’t had a lot of food and they were just trying to keep me calm.\n41 And also, we didn’t know they were going to be taking 12 vials of blood out of a really small kid\n42 – I wasn’t even 100 lbs. I was probably more . . . I don’t even know, maybe somewhere between\n43 75 and 80 . . . probably more like 80.\n44\n45 AJ: You were a tiny kid, huh?\n46\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 9\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAM: Yeah, I’ve always been tiny. Even as a baby I was 5 lbs. 5 oz. My mother was 1 surprised after\n2 such a long labor, she thought I was going to be huge – and she said I felt huge, but then she\n3 saw this tiny thing.\n4\n5 AJ: And out popped this tiny little thing.\n6\n7 AM: And the nurses called me peanut. So I’ve always been tiny. Again, they’re taking all this blood\n8 out of a very tiny kid and I fainted in the waiting room. Luckily I had already sat down in a chair\n9 so I didn’t fall or anything, but I started twitching and hitting the person behind me. My mother\n10 was like, “What are you doing?” and then saw my eyes and got a nurse. I remember waking up\n11 with my mom right in front of me and then the nurse on the other side. It didn’t take long to\n12 realize what had happened. I had fainted before once coming out of a hot tub from the\n13 temperature change. It was winter time up at my grandparent’s house and they have a hot tub,\n14 and so I got out of this warm hot tub into the cold and back to the warm, so I already knew what\n15 that sensation was like – to pass out. So yeah, I put it together and then they gave me this\n16 powdered orange juice . . . it was not good. Yeah, my mom was like, “OK, I’m going to get\n17 something better,” and went to the vending machine and got some Chips Ahoy cookies.\n18\n19 AJ: So that got your blood sugar back up a little bit.\n20\n21 AM: So I saw in a chair for a while until I was ready to walk out again and then I remember we went\n22 to McDonald’s right after that because there was one right by the doctor’s office. So filled up\n23 there and went back home. I didn’t really think a whole lot about it and it was going to take\n24 some time for the tests to come back. I didn’t know this at the time but my mother heard, way\n25 before I did, the answer and they explained to her that the test came back positive for Turner’s\n26 Syndrome, which is when somebody who is typically assigned female at birth, although there\n27 might be some exceptions to that rule, but most of the time assigned female at birth, is born\n28 with one X chromosome or one X chromosome and then kind of a partial, smaller second one.\n29 And so that causes the ovaries to be non-functional, it affects things like growth hormones,\n30 which is why I wasn’t growing, and we also discovered that besides that I also wasn’t going\n31 through puberty, which was another concern. They thought I was because apparently I got\n32 some baby fat on my chest and so they thought that oh, I must be starting.\n33\n34 AJ: Puberty is happening.\n35\n36 AM: Right. And the doctor looked at it and was like, “Oh actually, that’s just baby fat.” So that was\n37 kind of . . .\n38\n39 AJ: Disappointment.\n40\n41 AM: A little bit. Slight. And they expected then . . . that it was puberty because, also, my mother\n42 went through puberty early – really early, like age 11, so they expected I would be an early\n43 bloomer like her because kids take after their parents in this way.\n44\n45 AJ: But you were 12 and you weren’t menstruating or . . . ?\n46\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 10\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAM: No, nothing like that. And again, they thought that I was on track because of 1 my chest but . . .\n2 yeah, that turned out to be the case. And so the doctor had to explain some of this to her and\n3 further explanations were given at an appointment the next month, that my parents attended.\n4 In the meantime, my mother was going off into a room to cry by herself because . . . it kind of hit\n5 her hard.\n6\n7 AJ: So she didn’t tell you about it?\n8\n9 AM: Not at first. Basically she let my brother and I have free reign with the computer and we had\n10 just rediscovered his Harry Potter computer games that we used to play. So we were having the\n11 time of our lives with that, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that, “Oh wait, mom is letting us have\n12 more screen time than she usually will let us have and she’s going up into her room.” I didn’t\n13 even . . .\n14\n15 AJ: You didn’t make those connections.\n16\n17 AM: I was just having fun playing these games and was totally distracted.\n18\n19 AJ: You were 12.\n20\n21 AM: Yeah, I was 12. And so my mother’s tactic worked, she figured that would keep us busy. So I\n22 had just started middle school that September – yeah, I think it was September 5th when my\n23 parents told me after they had gone to an appointment with the doctor themselves for further\n24 explanation.\n25\n26 AJ: Oh, so you didn’t go to the second appointment?\n27\n28 AM: No. My parents thought it would be better to protect me because they didn’t know totally what\n29 she was going to say. They had some idea from the phone conversation but they wanted to\n30 hear more and explain it to me themselves, not in a doctor’s office. Which in a way was kind of\n31 better. I could be at home hearing about this instead of being in a doctor’s office, which can\n32 sometimes be an uncomfortable and intimidating place. Not that doctors are bad but . . .\n33\n34 AJ: No, but they’re an authority figure and the walls are sterile typically.\n35\n36 AM: Right, all that. I remember they had me stay after school with a friend of the family – in fact,\n37 their son was friends with my brother. So we were over there after school and they picked me\n38 up later that evening and then explained it to me. Yeah, I remember being very sad because I\n39 was hoping it was not going to come up with anything. And so that was difficult and some of\n40 the memories are a little hazy – of that first hearing.\n41\n42 AJ: Can I ask you this, Ashley? So Turner’s Syndrome, which is one aspect of intersexuality, right?\n43\n44 AM: Right.\n45\n46 AJ: Are you aware or familiar with other forms of intersex?\n47\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 11\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAM: Well, I’ve been slowly becoming more aware. In fact, I didn’t even hear the term 1 until my senior\n2 year of high school, which . . . that came about because my grandmother and I, who you know,\n3 is a transgender woman, and we were about to do this whole panel with some of the women in\n4 my family about transitioning and family and things like that. Always with these panels they\n5 have some information about each of the panelists. And so, she filled it out for me with what\n6 she thought would best describe me at that point and she put down cis gender female at the\n7 time and heterosexual and asked me, “Does that fit?” And I said, “Well, it seems to,” because at\n8 the time I didn’t know what other terms might be out there. And, of course, with the sexuality\n9 part I wasn’t thinking too much about that at the time. Yeah, so anyway . . . and I said, “Well it\n10 seems to be.” And she was like, “Oh, well, I was wondering if you might prefer intersex.” And I\n11 was like, “What is that?” And then she . . . I don’t even remember totally how she explained it\n12 but I think that she explained it as somebody who is born with ambiguous . . . well some\n13 ambiguous sex characteristics and we sort of left it at that. I remember being a little thrown,\n14 but eventually . . . I started doing my own research and figured out that there are a whole host\n15 of conditions and things that are out there. So that was interesting to hear about and to\n16 explore.\n17\n18 AJ: You know the most common type of intersex identities that most people think about is sort of\n19 this . . . the sex characteristics or genitals of both “sexes”. With Turner’s Syndrome, you didn’t\n20 necessarily experience that?\n21\n22 AM: No, not that part. Most of the ambiguities with me had to do with hormones and chromosomes\n23 than it did with anything external that people could see, which is why the doctor just looked at\n24 me and assigned me female at birth – because everything looked typical. I didn’t get any of the\n25 physical characteristics that some Turner’s women might get – you know, sort of droopy eyelids,\n26 naturally small fingernails is another one.\n27\n28 AJ: Really?\n29\n30 AM: Yeah, apparently. Or a web neck is another one.\n31\n32 AJ: What’s a web neck? I don’t . . .\n33\n34 AM: It’s when you have some excess skin right here. And often they’ll get that removed, as far as I\n35 know, once they get older. So doctors usually, when they see those things, will test right away.\n36 But, for me, that just wasn’t showing and so we didn’t really think about it. In fact, I later\n37 discovered when a lot of people hear the phrase intersex, like you said – they think of people\n38 with the genitals of both sexes or somebody who has something ambiguous that you can\n39 actually see if you took off their pants.\n40\n41 AJ: Right, yeah.\n42\n43 AM: It was interesting to hear stories – later in my sociology class we had to read an article about\n44 intersex people and identities. In fact, some of the stories I heard about were stories of people\n45 who were typically assigned female at birth but had an unusually large clitoris and then surgery\n46 was done to them because . . . I guess the doctors felt that that should be done. It wasn’t\n47 harming the infant at all or anything like that, talking about that aspect of what some intersex\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 12\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\npeople may experience. So those are stories I remember because quite a few 1 of those came up.\n2 There were others about other chromosomal variations – there may be somebody born with\n3 XXY or something like that, or people who had to take hormone replacement therapy like I did.\n4 Or you also did hear about androgynous sensitivity disorder, that was another one.\n5\n6 AJ: What is that?\n7\n8 AM: That is a condition where somebody who looks female externally has XY chromosomes and what\n9 happens is they don’t have receptors for androgens in their body, which is why despite the XY\n10 chromosomes they turn out looking like a typical female at birth and then later, as they go\n11 through puberty, it’s discovered that oh there is something different. There’s been a lot of\n12 stories that I’ve heard about and I don’t know if this is every case, but some of the cases I heard\n13 about there were internal testes and typically the doctor would tell them, “Oh your ovaries are\n14 twisted and prone to cancer and we have to remove them.” They wouldn’t actually say what\n15 they were or why they wanted to remove them. Yeah, in fact, I think I just recently read a book\n16 written by somebody with androgynous sensitivity disorder who had that kind of experience and\n17 didn’t discover what she had until she read her medical records for another reason years after\n18 she’d gone to surgery at 17. Yeah, I wish I could remember the name . . . but I think that the\n19 first name was Regina.\n20\n21 AJ: So a question, when you were doing this research, were there people who were “assigned\n22 female at birth” and had sort of extraordinary large clitoris, had it removed, but regretted that\n23 or were disappointed?\n24\n25 AM: Yeah, quite a few of them were very disturbed by all this and they had trouble sexually later.\n26 Also they didn’t consent to it, they were babies at the time and so that wasn’t a very good way\n27 to go about it. So they regretted that the doctors had done that once they discovered what had\n28 been done.\n29\n30 AJ: And doctors were pretty . . . up until very recently, sort of pretty much in control of that\n31 situation, right?\n32\n33 AM: Right. Exactly.\n34\n35 AJ: They sort of spoon fed the parents and didn’t include the children in many of the conversations.\n36\n37 AM: No, usually not at that time anyway. I have been hearing about changes . . . they’re good to\n38 hear about. But as far as these . . .\n39\n40 AJ: Like what kind of changes?\n41\n42 AM: Well, I’ve been hearing more about doctors who are now saying that they wouldn’t do surgery\n43 on an infant unless, of course, you have a situation where it’s actually life threatening. There is\n44 actually one condition that is that way that I read about in which the child is born with no\n45 genitalia and no way to pee. So they have to . . .\n46\n47 AJ: That’s a problem.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 13\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AM: Yeah, so in that case they would be like, “Yes, we would do surgery in that case but otherwise if\n3 it’s not hurting the child we’ll just leave it alone.”\n4\n5 AJ: Wait until they can sort of figure out which direction they want to go.\n6\n7 AM: Right, exactly. So that’s at least a good thing.\n8\n9 AJ: So what is the no genitalia called? I’m going to make a really bad joke here – is it the Barbie\n10 Syndrome?\n11\n12 AM: I think I have heard it called that as a nickname. But I wish I could remember. It’s a medical\n13 name, but it’s a long name that sounds kind of Latin.\n14\n15 AJ: X’s and o’s.\n16\n17 AM: I’ll have to look it up. But I didn’t even know that that was possible.\n18\n19 AJ: I’ve never heard of that before.\n20\n21 AM: And from what I’ve read it’s pretty rare, it doesn’t happen very often. I just remember it came\n22 up in a book I was reading about biology and gender and sex and all that.\n23\n24 AJ: But actually, intersex identity is much more common than many people think.\n25\n26 AM: Oh yes, for sure.\n27\n28 AJ: Do you have any idea of the numbers or the percentages of the population?\n29\n30 AM: I’ve heard widely varying ranges of estimates. I think the lowest I ever heard was one in 2000.\n31 In fact, women born with Turner’s Syndrome – that’s the rate just with this one condition.\n32\n33 AJ: That is actually a fairly good-sized portion of the population.\n34\n35 AM: Right. So that was interesting. With that estimate they were going by how many cases in which\n36 doctors will notice something with the genitalia right away, right at birth or are confused about\n37 what sex to assign the baby. So that was interesting and that’s still a pretty good size, even with\n38 that. And even with just my own condition. So that was the lowest estimate I’ve ever heard, it\n39 definitely seems to be more than that from what I can tell. The highest I’ve ever heard is like\n40 1%, but again I think it can be hard to tell – especially since a lot of people . . . if I didn’t have\n41 Jamie Ann as a grandmother I may never have realized that this description even existed or this\n42 identity was even possible. In fact, a lot of the women and girls who I’ve met who do have\n43 Turner’s Syndrome, like I did before, don’t really know about the wider intersex community – or\n44 even that the word exists, which is interesting. Again, without Jamie Ann I probably never\n45 would have heard it. So that’s another thing – and then also biology is so complicated, just in\n46 and of itself and there’s so many things that can happen and then also not everybody has had\n47 their chromosomes tested so if we’re going to go with “abnormalities”.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 14\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AJ: Air quotes, yes.\n3\n4 AM: With chromosomes or anything unusual with sex chromosomes, we would probably find a lot of\n5 people who maybe didn’t know but had something going on there. But yeah, there’s just so\n6 many things.\n7\n8 AJ: Is there a strong sort of advocacy community around intersex identities that you’re aware of?\n9\n10 AM: Well, let’s see. I did hear about . . . well, in fact the website that I went to to research this was\n11 the Intersex Organization of North America, which I know is no longer in operation.\n12\n13 AJ: Oh really.\n14\n15 AM: They shut their doors in 2008. But their website still exists, so that’s where I went to do\n16 research because they had a whole bunch of things and there was a whole page about Turner’s\n17 Syndrome and all the different ways it can manifest. In fact, now that I’m thinking about it,\n18 there is another way it can manifest in which a person might have some cells that have part of Y\n19 chromosome even so. So that’s another way, but it’s more rare than the other two I just\n20 described, but it’s still a thing. I didn’t know that until I read that page . . .\n21\n22 AJ: On this website.\n23\n24 AM: And that’s also how I figured out more about the androgynous sensitivity syndrome as well and\n25 other conditions. So I do know that that existed and their website is still in existence. The book\n26 that I read, Intersex: the Dubious Diagnosis, talks about the history of that organization and why\n27 it shut its doors.\n28\n29 AJ: Why was that?\n30\n31 AM: From what I remember from what I’ve read, it shut down shortly after this conference was being\n32 done with people from the medical community about intersex conditions and care. This\n33 organization was known for protesting in front of such conferences and not receptive to the\n34 medical community. And so, the leader . . . oh, I wish I could remember her name, the person\n35 who started it – her name . . . I think the first name was Christine . . . I think it was Christine\n36 Chase.\n37\n38 AJ: Chase?\n39\n40 AM: I believe so. I’ll have to look it up again . . . don’t necessarily take my word for it, but she\n41 decided that thanks to this organization’s reputation now, and the fact that doctors were not\n42 receptive, it would be best to shut the doors, start over, and she also supported the change for\n43 intersex language within the medical community to disorders of sexual development, which was\n44 very surprising for me to read about a bunch of people who are intersex themselves supporting\n45 such a change and saying, “Oh, it’s OK to call my body disordered.” So that was kind of strange.\n46\n47 AJ: Very interesting, because most people with “disorders” are not fond of that.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 15\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AM: No – no, not at all. And I didn’t even like the term when I first read about it, even though I know\n3 I probably have to interact with it every time and to some level when I go into a doctor’s office\n4 about my condition. Probably the doctor has heard this term and is operating with it, even\n5 though they may never say it to me. I know that they have probably heard it in medical school\n6 or probably have heard about Turner’s Syndrome under that umbrella.\n7\n8 AJ: Again, it’s a sexual . . .\n9\n10 AM: Development.\n11\n12 AJ: Sexual development disorder.\n13\n14 AM: Yes, disorders of sexual development. That’s their big umbrella term within the medical\n15 community to describe . . .\n16\n17 AJ: So that covers this wide range of intersex identities and genetic sort of “abnormalities.”\n18\n19 AM: Yeah, so that was interesting to read. And again, it seemed to be more about making\n20 themselves more receptive to the medical community so that way they would even listen.\n21\n22 AJ: So tell me this, Ashley, how was your diagnosis treated?\n23\n24 AM: Well, my parents explained it to me, and they didn’t get into all the complexities and all the\n25 different ways that this could manifest. They just explained that I was missing part of an X\n26 chromosome, and luckily I had heard about this in Biology class – just a brief tidbit about, you\n27 know, XX and XY. And so that part I understood and then they explained that my ovaries were\n28 non-functional and that later I would need to go through estrogen therapy to even go through\n29 puberty. They also explained that to make sure that I grew that I would have to take growth\n30 hormone injections. Now when they were first explaining this whole diagnosis and the\n31 treatment, my brain, of course, went straight to the injections again . . . needles. No.\n32\n33 AJ: The last time I had an injection I passed out.\n34\n35 AM: Exactly. So I was not happy with that news, but I still wanted to read 5’. And also I think that\n36 there, oddly enough, was some pressure to make sure that I got to at least the short end of an\n37 adult height. I have the feeling that if I had piped up and said, “No, I’m not interested in that\n38 part.” And I’ve even heard of Turner’s women who have said that and doctors are like, “Are you\n39 sure?” and would really want them to do it. Now, luckily I have no regrets about doing that –\n40 that’s one of the things I speculate if I had said something, but I didn’t want to . . .\n41\n42 AJ: That you may have been able to not do that.\n43\n44 AM: Right. And just wondering what would have happened in that scenario but we’ll never totally\n45 know. I’m just going off from what I’ve heard from other stories. But still, we did the growth\n46 hormone injections for three years – I made it to the goal of 5’. That was very exciting.\n47\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 16\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: You 1 achieved your goal.\n2\n3 AM: Yeah, and I’m glad that I did. In the end it’s good to have some more height. And, I remember\n4 the last injection too . . . I think it was sometime in . . . I think it was February of my 8th grade\n5 year . . . or maybe it was later than that, I just remember it was winter. My Grandma Peggy did\n6 that since she is a nurse she wanted to . . . every time she was over, she would just do it because\n7 she’s had experience with this. My parents were . . .\n8\n9 AJ: Also, these injections . . . you have to do these at home? You didn’t go to the doctor’s office.\n10\n11 AM: Yeah, we did them at home because they had to be done every day – every evening we did that.\n12\n13 AJ: For three years?\n14\n15 AM: Yeah, all through middle school.\n16\n17 AJ: Oh, you must have had a sort little bum.\n18\n19 AM: Actually they were done in my thigh and luckily the needle was tiny. But still, I remember seeing\n20 little red marks on my thighs. My parents were also not thrilled with the news that they would\n21 have to do these themselves. When the doctor first mentioned that there were growth\n22 hormone injections and they were like, ‘So we have to take her in from time-to-time to do this?”\n23 They were like, “No . . .”\n24\n25 AJ: “Here’s the needle, do it yourself.”\n26\n27 AM: Yeah. At first I was thinking maybe I can learn how to do it. In fact, I remember Grandma Peggy\n28 brought over an orange once because it kind of has a similar texture and everything and\n29 thickness to skin and it’s a good thing to practice on. So I practiced on that and then I remember\n30 once, after a few months of getting these injections, I tried it myself and my hand was shaking\n31 and my dad was just like, “OK, I’ll just do it.” And they pointed out, “It’s not like you’re a\n32 diabetic and going to have to do this all your life.”\n33\n34 AJ: Right, it’s going to end at some point.\n35\n36 AM: Right. So then I just let them and Grandma Peggy do it for the rest of those three years and that\n37 was fine. I even remember the first ones I had to do. It was MEA break and I was in 6th grade\n38 and my mother decided it would be a good idea to go and visit her brother in Cleveland. She\n39 had to do it on her own for the first few days because my dad couldn’t come because he still had\n40 to work. I remember being at my aunt and uncle’s house and crying and everything and my\n41 mother gave me a pillow because my cousin was a baby at the time and she didn’t want me to\n42 wake the baby. And then after a while I would be so anxious, just all day, about this injection\n43 and she suggested, “OK, for a while why don’t we do them in the mornings, just get it done right\n44 away and that way you don’t have to think about it all day.” I remember after a couple of weeks\n45 of that, I got up once and decided, “You know what? I’m just going to do it in the evening.” By\n46 that point I was starting to get used to it and it was becoming more like brushing my teeth. I\n47 also remember having this ice pack . . .\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 17\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AJ: To keep the swelling down.\n3\n4 AM: And to put it on before so that way my thigh was numb by that point.\n5\n6 AJ: You had to do it in the same injection site every . . . was that a part of the . . .?\n7\n8 AM: No. In fact there were a couple of options. It could be done in the arm, either side, and it could\n9 also be done in the stomach but I was so skinny at the time that the nurse did not recommend\n10 that. I was fine with that, I did not want that.\n11\n12 AJ: The needle going right into your solar plexus.\n13\n14 AM: Yeah, and so I felt most comfortable with either of my thighs. So we just alternated them – and\n15 to make me feel better, I’d put on an ice pack beforehand, for a while. I remember having my\n16 ice pack on me, sitting in my underwear in front of the TV watching The Suite Life of Zach and\n17 Cody.\n18\n19 AJ: Getting ready for another injection.\n20\n21 AM: Yeah.\n22\n23 AJ: So when did you start the hormone therapy?\n24\n25 AM: That’s harder to remember because that was just a pill. I think I was 14 . . . yeah, 14 at the time\n26 when they started giving me Premarin.\n27\n28 AJ: So after the growth . . .\n29\n30 AM: Yeah, the reason why they did it after the growth hormone is because if you start doing\n31 estrogen, the growth plates will begin to fuse and they wanted to make sure I would be able to\n32 get as much height as possible. So they waited until they saw the growth plates were fused,\n33 because by that time it’s just like injecting nothing – it’s not going to do anything. Yeah, and so\n34 once the growth hormones was coming to an end, then they started me on Premarin for awhile .\n35 . . I think for a year. I think it was Premarin. The start of it doesn’t stick out as much to me\n36 because it was just a pill every night so that wasn’t a big to do.\n37\n38 AJ: So around age 14.\n39\n40 AM: Yeah, it started them.\n41\n42 AJ: Do you still take hormones now?\n43\n44 AM: Yes, now I’m on a type of birth control and that can be interesting to talk with doctors because\n45 they assume that I’m taking . . .\n46\n47 AJ: That you’re sexually active and you’re taking these because you don’t want to get pregnant.\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 18\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1\n2 AM: Right, and that I can get pregnant because physically that’s impossible.\n3\n4 AJ: So you are not able to have children?\n5\n6 AM: No, and I discovered that when I was 12, shortly after diagnosis happened. My mother didn’t\n7 plan on telling me but when they were explaining the estrogen therapy . . . I don’t know where I\n8 got this idea but I figured it would help with that because it would enable me to have a\n9 menstrual cycle. And so it seemed that, well oh . . .\n10\n11 AJ: Everything is going to be . . .\n12\n13 AM: It seemed like I should be able to experience a pregnancy because of this and they want me to\n14 have that option and so that’s one of the reasons why we’re doing this and my mother\n15 corrected me and said, “No, it can’t do that because your eggs are not viable – they’re\n16 misinformationing you.”\n17\n18 AJ: How do you feel about that?\n19\n20 AM: Well now it’s not as big of a deal, simply because I’m not in a relationship right now or really\n21 anxious to get back into one. Also, when you’re 22 and you don’t want to have kids, but you\n22 may want to be sexually active, the idea of I never will have to worry about it . . .\n23\n24 AJ: Is a relief.\n25\n26 AM: Yeah. I remember early on in my first year of college my roommate had a pregnancy scare,\n27 luckily everything was fine, but the condom broke and she got really worried and got a\n28 pregnancy test and everything. I remember thinking, “Thank God.”\n29\n30 AJ: I don’t have to go through that.\n31\n32 AM: No, I do not. But when I first heard about it I was pretty devastated. It was an interesting\n33 reaction of people because they kept on saying, “Oh, don’t worry about it, you’re too young to\n34 even think about it.” It was like, “This is a pretty big deal. The way that I thought my adult life\n35 should go . . .”\n36\n37 AJ: It can’t happen.\n38\n39 AM: Right, it’s not going to happen – at least not the traditional way. There are things like IVF and\n40 there’s adoption but still a pretty big deal.\n41\n42 AJ: Would IVF be a possibility?\n43\n44 AM: Maybe. It would depend, I would need to have some tests done to see the condition of my\n45 womb. They didn’t really look at that so much when they did an ultrasound but my ovaries are\n46 mainly trying to see . . . there is a small chance, there’s like 5% of women with Turner’s\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 19\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nSyndrome who can get pregnant spontaneously, although usually it’s 1 not recommended\n2 because they’re more prone to have complications and things like that.\n3\n4 AJ: And ovaries, I think, have some connection to the womb and how the production of the\n5 hormones and all of those things is what sort of . . . in my unscientific thought process, helps\n6 that to develop.\n7\n8 AM: Right, exactly. So I would need to ask a lot more questions to try to understand how that all\n9 works. But I was told that some women with Turner’s Syndrome are able to go that route. In\n10 fact, when I went on a support website shortly after I was let in on the diagnosis, there were\n11 women who came and told me their stories about going through IVF and having children that\n12 way. But again, I would need to probably speak with a doctor when the time comes.\n13\n14 AJ: So you are on estrogen therapy for probably the rest of your life.\n15\n16 AM: Yeah.\n17\n18 AJ: Which is the same sort of treatment that transgender women deal with in terms of their own\n19 transition from male to female. Do you think that is one of the reasons why intersex identities\n20 are connected to the transgender community? Do you think it should be connected to the\n21 transgender community? How do you feel about that?\n22\n23 AM: Well, very complicated questions. I would say that would be one of the reasons why. It\n24 sometimes can be useful to connect them. In fact I even saw that when Jamie Ann first came\n25 out to me and we were able to talk about hormone replacement therapy.\n26\n27 AJ: So Jamie Ann is your grandmother and identifies as a transgender woman.\n28\n29 AM: Yup, that’s correct.\n30\n31 AJ: I just want to clarify that.\n32\n33 AM: Exactly. That was interesting for me because it was good to have another woman around who\n34 knew, to some degree, what that’s like. Because when I tried to talk about it with the cis gender\n35 women in my family, they were like, “Well, it’s basically the same.” And in many ways they’re\n36 right and certainly from an external point of view it looks very much the same and has similar\n37 effects. But, you know, still – it was good to have somebody who I could talk to about all that.\n38 And even though her experience as a transgender woman and estrogen replacement therapy\n39 differs from mine, there was a parallel there.\n40\n41 AJ: There is a parallel.\n42\n43 AM: What was interesting is when the rest of the family was like, “Well, why does she have to go\n44 through all these physical changes,” and particularly my great aunts were that way. To me, that\n45 just seemed ludicrous because I could . . . all it took for me was to imagine what if I ended up in\n46 some family who doesn’t believe in western medicine and forbid me from getting estrogen\n47 replacement therapy. Yet in my case, not doing it seemed . . . well, first of all, it would probably\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 20\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nnot be the best idea because from a health perspective, simply because 1 there can be certain\n2 risks in not doing it – like increased risk for early onset osteoporosis and there’s a higher risk of\n3 cancer, or at least as far as I understand it. I should check all this, but that’s how they explained\n4 it to me. Again, the only reason why I would imagine somebody with Turner’s not going through\n5 would be if they didn’t have a female identity and, in that case, we would have to go through a\n6 different set of procedures to manage all that. But in my case, that made sense.\n7\n8 AJ: Do you think that . . . well, have you ever met another intersex person?\n9\n10 AM: I actually haven’t met anybody who . . . at least not that I know.\n11\n12 AJ: Openly identifies.\n13\n14 AM: Right, who will openly say it?\n15\n16 AJ: Which is one of the reasons why I’m so thrilled that you’re willing to talk about this on camera,\n17 Ashley. I really appreciate it. It’s an identity that is just so foreign to people and so many\n18 misconceptions about it. So, just really appreciate your willingness to sit down and share so\n19 openly. Any thoughts about being engaged in activism or advocacy around intersex identities?\n20\n21 AM: Yeah. Well I would certainly love to get involved with something like that, it’s just the challenge\n22 of finding it – because again, I haven’t met somebody who actually will openly say. I very well\n23 could have met somebody and I know I’ve met other women with Turner’s Syndrome, but again\n24 – they were probably like me . . . well, how I was before Jamie Ann told me about it, knowing\n25 about their own condition but not about any others, and not even knowing that this word exists.\n26 At least I’m pretty sure that’s how with went with the girls with Turner’s Syndrome who I met in\n27 the support group that I went to over at the doctor’s office . . .\n28\n29 AJ: So there was some support – with your peers.\n30\n31 AM: Right, a little bit. However, it wasn’t as helpful as it could have been because . . . and it’s hard to\n32 describe. I think it was mostly that there was a lot of talk of normalization, a big focus on that,\n33 and while, again, I certainly do not regret going through estrogen therapy, it’s interesting to\n34 hear people talk about it because a lot of it . . . they’ll talk about, “Oh, well you can look\n35 normal.” Where it’s like . . . OK, what’s normal anyhow? What is that? And so that was\n36 interesting. I remember one time this one doctor came in and said something about how there\n37 are studies that show that women with Turner’s Syndrome don’t live as long and that freaked\n38 me out. And then of course right after he said, “But, those studies aren’t very good.” So I was\n39 thinking, “Why did you . . .?”\n40\n41 AJ: Even bring it up.\n42\n43 AM: Yeah. And I think the reason why is because in the more severe cases there can be heart and\n44 kidney problems. So what they’re seeing in those statistics is probably women with Turner’s\n45 Syndrome who have maybe something going on with their heart or their kidneys and that ended\n46 up resulting in their death – but that might not be the case for women like me who don’t have\n47 any of that. In fact, they did a whole . . . they did ultrasounds and all that stuff with my heart\nInterview with Ashley Meyers 21\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nshortly after my diagnosis – just to make sure there was nothing else happening. 1 I got a clean\n2 bill of health. I got it checked again recently because a doctor noticed a heart murmur, but then\n3 they checked it again and everything was fine. The technician told me actually it’s not\n4 uncommon for people under the age of 30 to have small heart murmurs. She said, “I often get\n5 kids sent in here about a heart murmur, but that’s not unusual.” So that made me feel better\n6 because here I was like, “Oh, am I not going to get off on that.” But then it was fine. But it’s\n7 been an interesting road with health. Sometimes whenever something happens I’m wondering .\n8 . .\n9\n10 AJ: Wondering is it’s related.\n11\n12 AM: Right. And most of the time it’s not. But I just remember for a while there I had episodes with\n13 back pain – right around where the kidneys are, and that freaked me out. But they checked and\n14 it was like, “No, you’re fine there.” And then . . . what’s interesting is the pain was kind of like\n15 severe menstrual cramps, and this is before I went on the hormone replacement. We asked the\n16 doctors who I went to see could this be related to Turner’s or anything like that and they said,\n17 “Well not that I know of.” Again, the pain would be so bad that I would throw up. And this\n18 happened for a while – sometimes through middle school where these random episodes of back\n19 pain and vomiting would happen. We have no idea why they happened. But then once I got to\n20 high school – it ended. We have never really bothered to investigate it. But still, sometimes\n21 when I feel a bit of pain there . . .\n22\n23 AJ: Do you menstruate now?\n24\n25 AM: Oh yes, now I do. Which is why, sometimes, when I wonder if it’s something to do with it\n26 because they stopped once that happened – which is interesting. I remember, I started\n27 menstruating at 16 and the episodes went away – they were gone. The doctor said, “Oh, well,\n28 you must have just outgrown it.” I’m sure I’m not being lied to . . . yeah.\n29\n30 AJ: Ashley, thank you so much for, again, being willing to be a part of this. We are a little over an\n31 hour so we’re going to have to end this now. But, you have brought some fascinating new light\n32 to this project. Thank you very much.\n33\n34 AM: Thank you.", "_version_": 1710339101803151360, "type": "Moving Image", "collection": "p16022coll97", "is_compound": false, "parent_id": "91", "thumb_url": "https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1369852/thumbnail/entry_id/0_wixedmd8", "thumb_cdn_url": "https://dkp5i0hinw9br.cloudfront.net/c84e2a8a9ecaed9c39147e4bb2b1396d32f3c536.png", "children": [ ] }