The first couple of days after my diagnosis, my alarm clock would go off like it always did and I’d stumble to the bathroom half asleep. Then there’d be a moment—as I was brushing my hair or going to the bathroom, for instance—when I remembered that I was a hermaphrodite, or intersex, or whatever people chose to call me. The day after I realized I would never die of cervical cancer, though, I woke up knowing what I was. It had settled into my bones, heavy and uncertain.
