Ana Lippert tells about her experience in Chapter 6 THOUGHTS FROM FELLOW PARENTS AND FROM ADULTS WITH DSD. The first picture shows Ana and her husband, Dennis, and their daughters Angela and Michelle when the girls were young. Angela has partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS). The second picture is a recent photograph of Angela and Michelle. The third picture shows Angela and David Cameron, both members of the board of directors of the Intersex Society of North America, a patient advocacy group. Angela works in hospital administration and as a professional chef.

In 1993, Cheryl Chase kicked off the peer support and patient rights movements for people with DSD by founding the Intersex Society of North America. Cheryl was born with ovotestes and with genitals in-between the male and female types. The first picture shows Cheryl at seven months, when she was being raised as a boy, according to doctors’ advice. The second picture shows her as a little girl, following doctor-recommended gender reassignment when she was 18 months old. The third picture shows her with her spouse, Robin Mathias. Today, Cheryl works full time to improve the standard of medical care for people with DSD. She and Robin keep horses, chickens, an Aussie sheep dog, and sometimes pigs on their hobby farm in Sonoma County, California.

Esther Morris Leidolf reflects on her experiences in Chapter 6 THOUGHTS FROM FELLOW PARENTS AND FROM ADULTS WITH DSD. The first picture shows her at age five in the first grade. The next two show her with her son, Jake, and the fourth shows her on her honeymoon at age 48. Esther founded http://www.MRKH.org, a group that provides information and education about MRKH and vaginal agenesis.

Herberta Smith is a retired missionary who now lives (and dodges hurricanes) in Florida. She recounts her experiences and gives some advice in Chapter 6 THOUGHTS FROM FELLOW PARENTS AND FROM ADULTS WITH DSD. The first picture shows Herberta in 1995 when she was a medical missionary in Uganda, in East Africa. Nine years later she became a guardian for a Ugandan child with a DSD. The second picture shows her in 2002 speaking at a Senior Conference.

Howard Devore is a psychologist living in California. Howard is shown here first swimming, then with his parents while on vacation together. Howard had ambiguous genitalia at birth, and had 18 surgeries between the ages of three months and 44 years to alter his genital “difference.” The third picture shows Howard and his partner Tim Shannahan, who was also born with ambiguous genitalia. Tim had no surgeries.

Iain Morland is a university lecturer, musician, and audio designer for film and multimedia. The first picture shows Iain when he was a baby. The second shows Iain at age 25, at home in London in late 2003, halfway through his Ph.D. on medical ethics. In 2002 Iain earned an M.Phil. degree in psychoanalysis. For both degrees, he looked at what happens to people born with DSD. (He has published widely on these topics.) Because his eight childhood surgeries for hypospadias were unsuccessful, Iain elected to have three further surgeries in his late teens. However, these also produced poor outcomes, and led to three extra unplanned surgeries. He then realized that a far better way to make DSD less scary and shameful was to talk and write about them.

David Cameron expresses his retrospective wishes in Chapter 6 THOUGHTS FROM FELLOW PARENTS AND FROM ADULTS WITH DSD. David has Klinefelter Syndrome; he found that out when he was an adult. The first picture shows him as a little boy during his happy childhood. The second picture shows David as a young man, around the time he became a schoolteacher in Alexandria, Egypt. The third picture shows David and Angela Moreno Lippert during a retreat of board members of the Intersex Society of North America. David now lives with his partner in San Francisco, where David is a community organizer and a philanthropist.

The first picture shows Max and Tamara Beck and their daughter welcoming their new baby to the family. The second shows the whole “Incredibles” Beck family on Halloween. Although Max is not able to have biological children, he and his wife, Tamara, were able to have a family with the help of a sperm donor. Max was born with a condition known as mixed gonadal dysgenesis. He was raised as a girl, but opted to transition into a male gender role and legally become a man in his early 30s. He and Tamara were a couple before the transition, and after the transition, they were able to legally marry. Max and Tamara are both legal parents of their two children.