Victor was born with a micropenis and a vagina. But the doctors decide: he's a boy. Several operations later, he still does not know what is his sex.

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"I have feminine features, long hands, a big carcass, I'm dressed as a man, with varnished nails and barrettes, I was born forty-eight years ago, in a large family, practicing Catholic: My parents are told that I am "not compliant." In fact, I was born with a micropenis, no testicle, and a vagina.I am a so-called hermaphrodite. the term "intergenre".

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Neither man nor woman, or both at the same time. The doctors decide: I am a boy ... but a boy "missed", it will "fix". My parents do not ask questions, they name me Victor and rise like a boy. For them, I am above all a child of God, and that is enough for them to love me. When my father offers a cowboy pistol to my older brother, he offers me one too. And when my sisters apply nail polish, my mother lets me do the same, even if she asks me to remove it right after.

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I'm 5 years old the day my mother comes home with my little brother. When she changes her diaper in front of me, it's the shock. Suddenly I discover that I am not a boy: my zizi is smaller than his and I do not have these curious bells underneath. I feel betrayed. As I do not have the words to express my dismay, I am having a nervous breakdown. My parents do as usual: the round back. Patiently, they wait for the "reparation" promised by the doctors at my birth. She arrives the day of my 7 years

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My stomach hurts, I have to have appendicitis.

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My parents are almost happy. Finally, we will know what is "inside". The old surgeon who works writes me that further examinations are necessary. The infernal machine starts. For ten years, I go to the hospital every three months. They open me, shut me up, to practice what white blouses call "functional explorations". But no one ever provides us with a medical report.

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I'm 14 years old when my mother says stop: "You do not stop opening my child, you say you can not find anything, so leave him alone!" The doctors treat her as a bad mother, say that I'm at risk of cancer and that I have to switch to billiards again. It gives way under pressure, and it is then that the biggest operation takes place, which leaves me a large scar on the whole belly. I can not be sure, but I think it was that day that they removed my uterus. I do not know exactly what was transformed in my body.

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Over the years, the medical discourse is invariable: one must continue to "repair" me.

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In fact, doctors never question my sexual identity to reinforce my "breeding gender," as they say in jargon. I am a boy, no point. In our society, there is no space outside the masculine and the feminine. There is no word for children like me. As what I am does not exist, I resign myself. I have to become a boy "100%". I'm stuffed with testosterone. With hormonal injections, I metamorphose. I, who was a calm, kind and good student, discovered irrepressible anger, terrible headaches and problems of concentration. So I am treated for bipolar disorder with antidepressants. We multiply the medicalization, without any doctor questioning the testosterone injections. These substances are made to produce super-men, strong and bandage, that's all. My body does not support it. I end up interrupting the treatment, against medical advice.

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When I go through adolescence, when boys become men and I remain indefinable, my sisters answer questions and attacks in my place. The love of my loved ones saved me. I'm lucky, I can count on a loving family and understanding friends. Nobody makes fun of me during my schooling. My classmates are talking about masturbation, girls and mopeds. For me, it's another world. They understand it and say, "That does not interest Victor."

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At my majority, I must pass the selection for military service. The idea of ​​getting naked in front of everyone is unbearable. I speak to the doctors who operated on me, to obtain an exemption. It's a question of survival, but it's also a pretext: I want answers. But I am not prepared. I run into a wall, nobody tells me what really happened.

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To reassure me, I ask to meet other patients like me, but I am told that I am the only one. And I'm done by giving me the coordinates of a surgeon, to make me testicular and perfect my famous "repair". I accept, but I feel that it extorts my consent. I throw myself into the hands of my executioners. In hindsight, I tell myself that I was an actor of my own mutilation, and that is a terrible burden.

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At the approach of my twenties, I still have no sex life.

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But I do not miss it, my education with the priests is undoubtedly not foreign to this disinterest. My parents also dream of seeing me embrace an ecclesiastical career, as is the case for many intersex families. Then, one day,

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A woman falls in love with me.

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At first scared, I catch myself loving her. She has a very heteronormed sexuality, very classic. Only testosterone will allow me to meet her expectations, so I resume treatment during our relationship, which will last fifteen years. I masculinise, make love to her like a man and conform to the image of manhood that is expected of me. We even have a child, Max, born by artificial insemination. I love my role as a father, I put my career aside to take care of my son. We build a life of a couple on a misunderstanding. We are two lost who found each other. It ends necessarily in water of bounding.

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One day, I fall in love with a man.

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It's the people who interest me, not the sexes. My wife throws me at the door, I become homeless. Max is then 10, he needs me, but she discredits me to him, tells him that I am a monster, a "castrated cat".

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I cling, bounce quickly, find work and fight for the custody of my child. I only get a meeting permit once a month, in the presence of an educator. As for violent fathers or pedophiles. I refuse, although I know that this decision condemns me to never see my son again. For years, I have no news.

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And then one day in July, last year, Max calls my parents. My mother announces it to me, like that, the air of nothing: "Devine who called?" For me, the world collapses. I have to sit down. We see each other for the first time a few months ago. A very moving meeting for both. Subtly, he asks me questions, but I do not really know what he knows about my "peculiarity". In public, he shows me affection, calls me "My daddy". He comes to spend a week at home, I'm thrilled. Max gets along very well with my companion.

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Depending on the day and the interlocutors, I speak of myself as feminine or masculine. I did not change my name. For you, Victor is necessarily masculine, but for me it's just the name that my parents chose and with whom I grew up.

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Today, my fight is to fight the excessive medicalization of people like me.

We can not escape unscathed from that. It is simply necessary that society and parents learn to love these different children, to accompany them to the age when they can choose. Until the day they decide to be a man or a woman. Or a little of both.