Turner Syndrome Awareness Month
Hello readers! Along with my “Lexi’s Monthly Musical Review” series, I decided to write about a topic that is very personal to me; Turner Syndrome.
Turner Syndrome, or TS as it is commonly called by those who have it, is a genetic disorder where a female is born with only one X chromosome instead of two. It causes short height, recurring ear infections, heart defects, and learning disabilities. The disorder was discovered by Dr. Henry Hubert Turner and was named after him.
February is Turner Syndrome Awareness Month and I think it is the perfect time to write about this topic!
As someone who has this disorder, I am very passionate about spreading awareness for this largely unknown disorder. I am also an contributor to an Instagram page dedicated to TS, and in this article, I will be interviewing fellow administrators of this page! To protect the privacy of those involved in this interview, I will be using the initials of everyone who was interviewed.
Interview
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Me: Thank you so much for doing this interview!
SM: No problem happy to help!
Me: So to start, when were you diagnosed?
LH: Before birth
AC: At birth
SM: At around a year old
SB: At birth
GA: Officially when I was 7, but we (my parents and I) suspected before that.
Me: Has having TS affected how you do things?
GA: I mean, not really. I get accommodations for math stuff and auditory processing, but that’s all.
LH: I’m in a very similar boat
SB: Not that I can tell. Similar to what the others have said, math is a struggle. Always has been, always will be.
Me: Have people treated you differently for having TS?
LH: A bit, yeah. Some people give weird looks and things when you tell them. Nothing awful, but it’s still frustrating.
AC: Yeah, pretty much the same thing for me too. I tell my professors and most of them just ask me to explain it for them because they’ve never heard of it.
GA: I’ve mostly gotten positive reactions when I explain stuff, but I mean there’s always the fear of something being an absolute jerk. There was the one time that my high school principal said that having TS was “too dark to write about,” but that was one time and she was a jerk in general.
SM: As far as how TS affects my life and how I do things it doesn’t really. Aside from the weird looks and looks of confusion when I first bring it up to someone all my reactions have been positive.
SB: To be quite honest, not very many people outside of my family know I have TS. But the few who do know have not treated me differently.
Me: And that concludes interview! I want to thank everyone for taking the time to do this interview!
SM: No problem!
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Although February has come to end, spreading awareness around the stigmas of those who have genetic disorder is important no matter the month. Most people who have Turner Syndrome live perfectly normal lives and can accomplish great things. And it is also important to remember that people with genetic disorders are not their disorder, they are people just like anyone else.
I’d like to thank the owner and contributors of the Instagram page @thesmallbutmighty__ for agreeing to do this interview. For more information on the topic of Turner Syndrome, I have provided links to resources about Turner’s Syndrome at the end of the article. Thank you!
Turner Syndrome Society: http://www.turnersyndrome.org/
National Organization for Rare Disorders: https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/turner-syndrome/
Turner Syndrome Support Society (UK): https://tss.org.uk/
Mayo Foundation for Education and Research: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/turner-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20360782/
