From Bleacher Report:

Taylor Lianne Chandler, a woman who claims to be Michael Phelps‘ girlfriend, has revealed that she was born intersex and was given the name David Roy Fitch at birth.

As per the Intersex Society of North America, intersex is:

A general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types.

Chandler, 41, wrote a lengthy Facebook post outlining her journey but admits that she has never told some people, including Phelps, about her past.

She writes:

By the time I could walk and talk I made it clear I was a girl and dressed as one. In my early teens I was medically diagnosed and went on testosterone blockers, at 15 estrogen enhancers. My birth certificate was modified along with my name while I was a teenager, prior to any corrective surgery.

[…]

The problem is I have made friends that I never told and dated and married people that knew nothing of my past. If you don’t understand what intersex is, Google it. I was never a man, never lived as a man. No one can say they knew me as a man or produce a photo of me as a man.

Eighteen-time Olympic gold medalist Phelps spent most of October in a rehab centre after being arrested for driving under the influence in September.

Chandler says she met Phelps on the dating app Tinder and described their relationship as being “like a teenage love affair.”

However, she admitted concern in her post that Phelps would end their relationship:

I am probably going to lose him because he is a brand that his team wants to protect and things since he went to rehab came to my attention that didn’t put him or our relationship in the best light. He is the first man I ever had intimacy with and felt comfortable and all woman. When he went to rehab I had to go through all this scrutiny and tabloid mess by myself. His team at Octagon abandoned me, whether he knows that or not I do not know.

Chandler wrote her Facebook post on November 13, but it has only now been widely picked up by media outlets such as the Daily Mail andDaily Mirror.

On Wednesday, she wrote, “Heard from Michael he is out of rehab and back home,” while also expressing frustration about how her story is being reported.

Two steps forward and 100 steps backwards. That is what life feels like to me right now. In a world of educated people that had all the facts ofintersex and what it means and then to sell a magazine say Michael Phelps is dating a MAN. I have cried now for an hour, thrown up anything in my system till I dry heaved. I just can’t believe this is happening in 2014!