Well, initially, I mean, my family did not know. I think what people need to understand is in the early 70s it was lot different then it is now. People back then didn’t even talk about gay people, let alone inter-sex or any kind if birth anomaly. Until I could really walk or talk no one was really aware of what was going on. At that point it was very clear, very evident. I have always been a very vocal, extroverted child/adult. I never said I wanted to be a girl; I just was. It wasn’t until I went to pre-school – and I remember that day specifically – they said girls line up over here, boys line up over here and I instinctively got on the girl line. So that it what started the dialogue and craziness of my upbringing.

Well, I mean, my mother died when I was three months old ,so my grandparents raised me, so I’m dealing with an even further back generation. Initially, I think they thought it was something psychological, so they’d take me to the doctor and it was kind of like a “screw his head on straight” kind of thing. But then, through a lot of trial and error and a lot of psychologists telling them, “No, this is clearly evident to find this child, no matter what kind of test we use, Mocha, the tree, the house, the person, she identifies as a girl, completely.” At that point they realized there was something wrong. My testes never dropped and that started the process of trying to figure out what was going on. Even then, though, my grandparents were struggling with that letting go of the grandson that they had. It was like a loss to them. I remember conversations of doctors were quacks, and even with medical evidence sitting right there in front of them it was still difficult for them to believe. That was where the challenges started. From kindergarten to third grade I pretty much went to school as a girl, even though my name wasn’t changed. Then the end of third grade, summer before I went to fourth grade, I had been molested. That ended and I kind of had a mini breakdown, and when I went back to Florida they cut all my hair off, switched me to private school and forced me to wear a boy uniform. That’s why, in interviews, when I’ve said I was pretty androgynous when it was forced upon me, that’s what I’m referencing. So, even in that uniform I pushed all the limits and when not in school I still was me, and during the summers. But it was just challenging, no one should have to live like that. The transition is very similar for someone that’s been mis-gendered due to intersex as someone transgendered. The major difference is they’re classified in the DSM 3 as a psychological disorder, whereas we are a physical condition. It’s the ICD, I can’t remember the initials. So it is different to some degree because mine was a medical and physical ailment, which intersex people get very upset with me when I say that, but this is my experience, my story. I clearly identified as female. I wanted everything fixed. My birth certificate was modified and changed prior to any surgery, because when you are intersex you don’t have to have surgery to be reclassified.

Believe it or not, it’s not as complicated as people may think. We all start off as female in the first trimester and we go from there. All it is is a reversal. They do penal inversion and reconnect to your cervix and your uterus. That’s what they do. I didn’t have testicles, so there was nothing to remove. It’s still considered sex reassignment surgery because they are reassigning a gender. For me, it didn’t really matter because my gender had already been reclassified on my birth certificate, so I didn’t need anything legal from them. My name was already changed as a child so I kind of just went on my merry way.