Thanks to @Tannice_ for the prompt. Not an area I know loads about, so peer reviews welcome!
(Note: I am told that people with chimeraism wouldn’t experience it like this. It’s intended as a metaphor for the pathologisation of intersexuality)
It was strange, finding out that he would have had – did have a sister.
The doctor explained it as if he were five, which helped, as his teenage self threatened to dissolve, the sister he’d always been surfacing, screaming.
“Back when you were first in the womb, you were going to be twins. Non-identical; two different eggs. But the clusters of cells merged. Now that puberty’s hit, you have some female traits. We’ll give you drugs to stop that”
He winced; she screamed, nameless and angry.
She was shaking his head.
“No treatment. We’d much rather be who I am. “
Tom Juniper Poetry 