After a urinary tract exam, 18-year-old boy-born Mikey Chanel discovered that he had internal female reproductive organs. This exam revealed that he had fertile ovaries, uterus and fallopian tubes.
Müllerian duct syndrome is a very rare form of abnormality in sexual development. By popularizing, it is a kind of malformation that occurs in the sexual organs. An individual affected by this syndrome will have male external genitalia, but female internal reproductive organs. It only occurs in men, usually at puberty. The syndrome does not affect sexuality, but fertility is compromised.
Mikey Chanel, a teenager from the city of Boston, Massachusetts, discovered he had this syndrome at the age of 18, during a simple medical check-up. The boy complained of a "weird feeling"After urinating, or after sex. Doctors, after doing an ultrasound of his urinary tract, told Mikey that he had ovaries, a uterus and fallopian tubes."I thought it was a joke. I didn't even know it was possible. I was like "haha where are the cameras”” The young boy told 7news.
Some information about Mikey
Coming out at the age of 13, Mikey never felt like a boy, although he was always brought up as such. Often brutalized in school because of his body "effeminate, with hips and buttocks"And low facial hair, he was called horribly"pedal" and of "tranny”.
Very brave, Mikey was never ashamed of who he was. Several times he wondered if he was transsexual. He said at the age of 5, he played with his aunt's bags and put on his mother's lipstick. “It was obvious to everyone that I was different from the start".
© SWNS Mikey Chanel / SWNS.COM
His Müllerian duct syndrome
For people suffering from this syndrome, only a surgical act can separate the different channels. Indeed, this syndrome can in some cases be dangerous, and develop testicular cancer, as well as degeneration. The precocity of the intervention considerably reduces these various risks.
After doctors advised Mikey to have a hysterectomy to curb cancer and tumor risk, they told him he could get pregnant if he wanted. Even though her male genitals were sterile, her ovaries were functioning. This news deeply moved Mikey, who thought he would never have children.
“I always knew I wanted to be a parent, I played with dolls when I was little and always saw kids in my future, so I decided it was now or never that I had to try to get pregnant”. Mikey then underwent a series of fertility procedures, including ICSI, in which a donor's sperm is injected directly into a woman's egg to create a fertilized embryo. Since Mikey does not have a vaginal opening, three fertilized embryos were implanted into his fallopian tubes through his abdominal cavity.
With only 20% success, the chances of pregnancy were slim. So Mikey was overjoyed when she found out she was pregnant. She is now 4 months pregnant.
We now use the pronoun “she”, because Mikey delivered with great pride: “I feel more like a woman than ever ”.
A wonderful message
Mikey decided to share his experience, in order to give visibility to this syndrome, unfortunately very little known. “Nobody really talks about it, most people haven't even heard of it" did she say. She fights to help people understand that this disease shouldn't be a shame, that it is normal and can affect anyone from birth. “There isn't a lot of research on this and there isn't a lot of testing, often it is found accidentally, like in my case”.
Its fight is based on the social stigmas linked to the non-conformity of the sexes. Mikey raised a very interesting point. Male bodies are seen as tall and strong, square and imposing. Female bodies are seen as generous, delicate and sensual. Unfortunately, the reality is very different. A man can have shapes, a woman can have square shoulders. Either way, they didn't choose him, it's natural, it's like that. Let's accept it and stop imposing an 'adequate morphology' on a sex or a gender.