health

When Kaylee Moats was 18, she discovered she didn't have a vagina.

Until the age of 18, Kaylee Moats had considered herself just a normal, American teenager – except for one thing: she’d never had her period.

It was then that she and her family decided to look into why she’d not reached this important milestone of puberty, visiting a doctor.

There, Kaylee was “heartbroken” to learn something many might not know is possible: she was born without a vagina.

For years Kaylee didn't realise there was anything different about her body. (Image via Facebook/Kaylee Moats.)

The Arizona teen was diagnosed with mayer rokitansky kuster hauser syndrome, with a doctor determining that she had no uterus, cervix, vagina or vaginal opening.

Her sister Amanda said that this news was a blow to her whole family, who were unaware of the condition as from the outside, Kaylee's anatomy - including her urethra - seemed perfectly normal.

"As a sister, there was nothing worse than getting that phone call and knowing that my sister’s dreams for her life were changed so drastically in an instant, with nothing I or anyone else could do to make it better," she wrote on GoFundMe.

"Kaylee will never be able to carry her own children. The dreams we had of raising families together are going to look a little different than we had initially planned."

"This diagnosis raises a lot of fears, concerns, and insecurities in Kaylee about her identity and her future."

Listen: You don't need to love your body. Instead, here's the argument for being "body neutral".

Thankfully, there is hope for Kaylee, now a college graduate in her early 20s, of recovering some normality to her life.

The family recently discovered doctors in Atlanta are able to perform a surgery that would give her a vaginal opening and vagina so she is able to experience sexual intercourse.

ADVERTISEMENT

However, the family's insurance company does not recognise the surgery as medical, instead classing it as cosmetic, gender-alignment surgery, and therefore, refuses to cover it.

"We were crushed again as are many of the other hundreds of girls trying to get this surgery completed," Amanda said.

That's why she has launched a GoFundMe page, which has so far raised more than US$10,000 towards the $15,000 cost of her sister's surgery.

Kaylee (left) has received a lot of support from her sister Amanda. (Image via Facebook/Kaylee Moats.)

"It would give back a part of her that has been missing since birth and dramatically improve her quality of life," Amanda shared.

A successful surgery would also be welcome news for Kaylee's boyfriend of four months, Robbie Limmer. Despite insisting he doesn't care they haven't been able to have sex, he has been putting away money to help fund her surgery.

Kaylee told The Daily Mail that after meeting Robbie in her senior year at college it took about a month for her to tell him about her diagnosis.

"He was confused at first but supportive and said that it doesn’t change how he see's me," Kaylee said.

Kaylee's boyfriend Robbie hasn't made their lack of sex a big deal. (Image via Facebook/Kaylee Moats.)

"He doesn’t really focus on the sexual side of our relationship because we can’t do anything since I don’t have a vaginal opening.

"But I am looking forward to having a sexual relationship."

Kaylee added though, she was "a bit nervous" about what sex for the first time might be like.

"I’m not sure If I want to wait until marriage, but I think having that option there is a lot more comforting."