This Woman’s Story Of Being Born Without A Vagina Will Seriously Break Your Heart
When Kaylee Moats was 18 years old, she went to the doctor to figure out why she hadn't gotten her period yet. After all, her 12-year-old sister had gotten it, so clearly, something was wrong. Doctors then gave her an MRI and discovered that Moats had Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome (MRKH), a rare condition that left her without a vagina.
Moats, now 23, has no cervix, uterus, or vaginal opening. Her condition, MRKH, is a genetic disorder that affects one out of 4,500 newborn girls. People with MRKH have normal-looking external genitalia, so they only discover that they have the condition when they don't get their period.
"It makes me feel less of a woman," Moats said in a video by Bancroft TV. "I'm still trying to accept myself, accept what I have, and not dwell on it."
Moats told Bancroft TV how challenging it's been to realize that she'll never be able to have her own children or provide her parents with grandchildren. Her friends and her sister Amanda have all offered to be surrogates, but she'd still love to have a baby with her own DNA one day.
She also struggles with not being able to be intimate with her serious boyfriend, Robbie Limmer, even though Limmer has been very supportive of Amanda and doesn't let her lack of vagina affect his feelings for her. "Knowing that he accepts me for who I am, and doesn't see me as less of a person or less of a woman, makes me feel loved," Moats says.
After spending years trying to cope with her MRKH condition, Moats has decided to get surgery. But it will cost her $15,000. "They consider it a cosmetic surgery or a gender reassignment," Moats says. She says it's "hurtful" that her insurance refuses to cover this surgery, and that she has to spend all of this money for it on top of her student loans. Luckily, Moats' family launched a GoFundMe page, where they are raising money for her surgery, and as of publication of this piece, the family has raised $17,007 — exceeding their goal by over $2,000.
Though Moats will still never be able to have children, her sister wrote on the GoFundMe page that giving her sister this surgery would be life-changing: "[It will] allow Kaylee to be able to have an intimate relationship like any other woman would experience. It would give back a part of her that has been missing since birth and dramatically improve her quality of life."
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