Andre Lorek

After being diagnosed with Klinefelter’s Syndrome at the age of 22,  Andre set out to find others with his chromosomal condition. After landing at XXYtalk as a member, he quickly made himself be available to become a moderator for that forum. Learning how to create web forums on his own, Andre had created the Intersexions Forum for the Organization International Intersexe of which he was a member of. Later he created GendersInX and ParentsInX with a very supporting atmosphere because he felt it would fill in a niche not likely found on the net. He was later accepted as a Co-Admin for XXYTalk.com by the KSA UK.

In his own words, Andre describes how GendersInX came to be more than a possibility :

GendersInX started when I was neck deep into moderation of another site that dealt with Klinefelter’s and all aspects of it. In amongst the many posters, a woman who had Turner’s Syndrome came on to find out what Klinefelter’s was all about. I was amazed on how much we had in common as much as I was interested on our differences in our two syndromes. I wanted to explore that however it would not be appropriate to discuss Turner’s in a Klinefelter’s forum.

I scoured the internet to find a suitable forum server that will do the trick. Through my inexperience with this I found an opportunity in one of the free forums. A comment was made that any free site would not make it anywhere. That was the last straw in giving me the push to make this site as I really thought that this person was wrong in down playing anyone’s effort. Finding a name for the site that will compare different conditions with each other in looking for similarities, I had to find an appropriate name that would encompass them all. After a time, I found the common factor in all of our conditions is the X Chromosome. Some have more than one, some less and some inexistent. I knew that not everyone saw themselves as male and female but still acknowledged that they had a gender or were genderless so I called the site Genders In X. In this new site, I put this in as a .com as I didn’t know any different then.

The site started slowly as any site does and I included the Turner’s syndrome person I had met on the other site as my moderator. As I had many a friend on the other xxy site, they supported me and tried to help as best they could. To this day this effort is much appreciated. This will be said from time to time as grass roots are always remembered.

In the time that I posted much on www.XXYTalk.com, I met a person there that had posted subjects particularly on intersex subjects. As GIX was getting to the point that Intersex was going to be a good part of that site, I approached Curtis Hinkle to take a gander at GendersInX. He was impressed that a site addressed the commonality of different conditions leaning towards Intersex without any influence of any other organization. As I found out later, Curtis was the President of the Organisation of Intersex International (OII) and GIX was introduced to his members. That gave GIX the necessary push to expand it’s horizons. I had altered some of the wording to accommodate the many different people that would come on the site. Curtis then made me a part of his organization.

Curtis had expressed a desire to have a site that addressed Intersex only and so I began to make a site for him through another server that I wasn’t initially aware of. I made plenty of mistakes and I learned from every single one of them. This site is called Intersexions Café and later on it’s domain name became www.Intersexions.org .

That was a good experience and it gave me ideas on how I was going to step up GIX as I wasn’t satisfied over the security features (or the lack of) and other features that direly needed upgrading. I changed to the forumotion server and restarted GendersInX encouraging the members to change over. I lost a few then but I gained a few more. Certainly my subjects on 5 Alpha Reductase, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Androgen Insensitive Syndrome, Klinefelter's Syndrome and Turner’s Syndrome were getting a fair chance of becoming more available to anyone that would like to learn of them through the people that have that condition.

From that time on, we had seen some bumps and bruises not unlike any site starting up and the members in GIX certainly supported the site and are still there today. This I say with pride because I appreciate everyone’s efforts on GIX. Really, I am the Admin there but they are the ones that make the site the encouraging and supportive site it is now. For the future, I would like to add more genetic chromosomal conditions so that we all can learn from the people involved and get together online to discuss whatever suits our fancy. I will probably change some features and the look a little but I am happy with the marble layout. My co-Admin just rolls up her eyes when I mention that I will change this and that. I think variety is the spice of life and so I implement that into GendersInX.org as much as possible.

Supporting and encouraging, this is what www.GendersInX.org is all about.