Officer's sexuality no longer confusing

Anger doesn’t live under Darlene Harris’ skin anymore.

It’s melting away — the same way bad memories do — along with the confusion she has carried from a rocky childhood in New York City’s housing projects to her life as an Atlanta police officer.

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Marcus Yam/myam@ajc.com

Officer Darlene Harris works as the Atlanta Police Department’s liaison to people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender. Harris says she has never had a problem with anyone in the Police Department while she identified as a lesbian, and the same goes for her since she went public about being intersex.

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She now knows why her voice is so deep, why she’s always been attracted to women, why she can grow a full beard.

Harris is intersex — someone whose internal or external sexual anatomy or chromosomes don’t fit the typical definitions of female or male at birth or puberty, according to Sharon Preves, a sociology professor and intersex researcher from St. Paul, Minn.

Genetic testing recently revealed that Harris carries the XY chromosomes of a male while having external sexual anatomy that appears to be a blend of a man’s and woman’s.

“It was like, ‘OK, I’m not crazy,’ ” said Harris, 35, who was identified as a female at birth and has lived her adult life as a lesbian, feeling like a man in a woman’s body.

“It was like a burden had been lifted. All of these things came together full circle at that moment. I now understood the reason why I am the way I am.”

As a result, the five-year Atlanta police veteran has come out of the closet again, this time as intersex, first to her family and friends and then publicly at an intersex workshop in Atlanta in May. She says her openness serves a dual purpose: helping heal wounds caused by a “life of confusion” and helping others who are going through similar experiences.

An estimated 1 in 2,000 people are considered intersex, and numerous medical conditions cause it, said Preves, who wrote the book, “Intersex and Identity: the Contested Self,” in 2003.

People become intersex when they have overactive or underactive hormones or the inability to respond to hormones during fetal development, Preves said.

‘Extremely difficult time’

For the past three years, Harris has been the Police Department’s liaison to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. She works with those who are victims of hate crimes or who file complaints against police officers. She also gives speeches for groups or organizations in those communities.

Harris said she has never had a problem with anyone in the Police Department while she identified as a lesbian. And no one has had a cross word for her since she went public about being intersex.

She said that her supervisor, Maj. Pearlene Williams, took a supportive role as she went from doctor to doctor. Once Harris learned she had male chromosomes, she said she broke down and cried in Williams’ office.

“This was an extremely difficult time for her, and I will continue to be as supportive to her as I can as she traverses through this defining period in her life,” Williams said in an e-mail.

Atlanta police Sgt. Lisa Keyes described Harris as an officer who is passionate about her job and tries to make sure everyone in the city’s alternative community is treated fairly by the Police Department.

As a result, she has strengthened ties between that community and police officers, her colleagues say.

Now that Harris has been identified as intersex, she said she wants to be a public face for those just like her. Of course, she wishes that she’d found out sooner.

“It’s embarrassing, because I’m 35 and I’m just finding out about things that I should have known years ago,” said Harris, who has shoulder-length dreadlocks, dresses like a man and is often mistaken for a man.

But Preves said that’s not unusual because many intersex people are shamed into spending their entire lives without confirming it.

“We’re living in a society where there are only two choices for anatomy, even though there are so many variations,” Preves said.

Numerous variations considered intersex include:

• A person who has female chromosomes but external male genitalia.

• A person who has male chromosomes but external female genitalia.

• A person who is internally male or female, but has ambiguous external genitalia, such as a noticeably large clitoris that resembles a small penis.

‘I was really angry’

In today’s society, it’s a difficult condition to live with, even for those with stable families and strong support systems, Preves said.

Harris had neither. She said she grew up “hating the world” in housing projects in East Harlem, developing anger issues that stalked her into adulthood.

Her early life included watching her father and other men beat her mother, she said, and getting batted around between foster and group homes.

“I was really angry,” Harris said. “I was extremely angry on the inside.”

She kept her hair cut short and preferred climbing trees over playing with dolls.

“I always called her ‘Boy,’” recalled one of Harris’ siblings, Tanisha Brew-Adams, who lives in Lithonia with her husband and children. “She looked like a boy, talked like a boy, fought like a boy.”

Harris went through puberty while she was in a group home in New York’s child welfare system. She noticed she had a stronger body odor and more body hair than other girls.

It would be years later — when she became sexually active with women as an adult — before she learned she was anatomically different. Every partner she’s ever had has commented on how she looks different. But Harris never listened, likely as a defense mechanism, she said.

“I used to shrug it off as, ‘That’s just me,’ ” she said.

While in a previous relationship, Harris started to realize her anger issues.

“She would always say things to me like, ‘You’re a very angry person,’ ” Harris said of her former partner.

Harris remembers the day she admitted that to herself. Several years ago, her then-partner’s oldest son from another relationship was picking on a younger son they had through in vitro fertilization.

She says she became enraged.

“I was so angry — almost to a point where I couldn’t talk,” Harris said. “I looked at the fear in my oldest son’s eyes. Something went off in me. It scared me.”

A burden lifted

It wasn’t until Harris started dating her current girlfriend in late 2007 that she went to a gynecologist to explore the differences in her body and, in turn, her anger issues.

That visit led Harris to an endocrinologist, who ran a chromosome test in February that offered medical proof to support how she feels: like a man in a woman’s body.

The news made Harris weep.

“It has lifted the burden off me and also released a lot of the anger,” Harris said. “I was angry and I couldn’t understand why.”

Harris said she thought about having a sex change to male, but decided against it.

“For what?” she asked. “God doesn’t make mistakes. I’m just uniquely different.”

She has quickly found peace being somewhere in the middle.

She is, however, changing her name from Darlene to something as ambiguous as her body: Danni Lee.

“Danni is an intersex name,” Harris said. “It can go either way — male or female.”

These days, Harris is not as quick to snap at people, and she’s more in tune with herself and her feelings.

But she admits that she still has work to do and wants to stay on the right path, so she’s seeing a psychologist and anger counselor.

“I thought I was free when I came out as gay,” Harris said.

“That’s nothing compared to this. It’s freedom, total freedom. It’s like I can fly.”