Are people with MRKH—with mostly typical sex anatomy but born without a uterus and/or parts of the vagina—considered intersex? To get anywhere, we need to be asking completely different questions.
By Maddie Rose
As a teen newly navigating dating and sexuality, I received news that turned my world upside-down: a diagnosis of Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, or MRKH. I was born with no vaginal canal or uterus. I don’t have periods, but I do have ovaries that give me otherwise typical hormonal cycles. Most people with MRKH are raised as girls and are not diagnosed until their teen years when menstruation never begins.
So, are we intersex? Nobody can seem to agree.
When I first tried to find community, I found myself in MRKH support groups advertised as being for women and girls with my condition. Most posts started out with a friendly “Hey ladies!” I didn’t love these greetings, but I understood why those groups focused so heavily on womanhood. Our society suggests women are only “real women” if they can have penetrative sex to fulfill men’s sexual needs, and can carry and birth babies in their own uterus. This results in many people feeling put on the defensive about being “enough” of a woman. Group members shared heartbreaking stories of doctors, boyfriends and parents reacting negatively to our differences, especially infertility. They often avoided any language they thought could contradict womanhood—like “intersex.”
But what I’ve learned is, intersex doesn’t mean “not woman.”
Is MRKH considered an intersex condition?
Many years after my experiences in MRKH support groups targeted to women, I stumbled on the term “intersex” for the first time. I saw it used for many people who, like me, had unique and complex experiences around bodies, doctors, fertility and sex.
So, is MRKH considered intersex? Defining intersex is tricky. Many people imagine the term intersex to mean someone born cleanly betwee