No one could have expected this woman’s nightmare. After a maternity test revealed that she wasn’t the mother of her children, the family worked tirelessly to understand how this was possible. The conclusion clarified everything…
A Normal Family
Lydia Fairchild was in the middle of a divorce from her longtime husband, Jamie Townsend. She filed for child support in 2002 and expected things to go smoothly. After all, all she had to do was prove she was the mother of her children, which seemed simple enough…
Testing… 1, 2, 3
She underwent a DNA test that would prove to the court that she was the biological mother. She gave birth to two children, so what could possibly go wrong? Well, it turns out, quite a lot…
Unexpected Results
When the DNA test was complete, the results showed that Townsend was clearly the father. Rather inexplicably though, Lydia was not the mother. But how?
Scamming the System
First, lawyers thought it was a surrogacy scam. Somehow she had faked her pregnancy and birth of someone else’s child. It was possible but incredibly unlikely. So what could it be?
Inexplicable Circumstances
Next, they assumed it was some kind of scheme to get child support from Townsend, but that didn’t make any sense either. That would mean she stole the children from someone else who had slept with her ex-husband. But there was no truth in that…
Taken From Care
Until they could figure it out, all of Lydia’s previous births were put in doubt. Prosecutors remove her two children from her care, thinking there was a chance she wasn’t their real mother. What they discovered was much more shocking…
Figuring It Out
It didn’t make any sense. She had the children, she was sure of that. And they were definitely hers. So what could be going on? They had to dig deeper…
A Lead
After some research, Lydia’s defense attorney found something that would change the case completely. Or rather, found someone…
Karen’s Story
Her name was Karen Keegan. A Boston woman in 1998 experienced a very similar trial. She was 52 when she found out that the children she gave birth to were not hers…
Kidney Kids
Keegan’s children had received a DNA test to see if they were a good match for their mother’s kidney transplant. What they found would literally take on a whole life of its own…
Double DNA
Karen Keegan, they discovered, had contracted a rare genetic disorder. This disorder, known as Chimerism, revealed that she was born with two sets of DNA. But how?
Two Eggs
In the womb, both Keegan and Fairchild fused with another female egg in their mother’s respective reproductive systems. The result was becoming their own twin. But there was more to come…
Seeing Double
Biologically, Fairchild was more than one person. She had the DNA of an egg from her mother that never fully formed. So her children were technically her twin’s children. Luckily, her twin is herself. Why hadn’t anyone thought of this sooner?
Rarely Seen
This disorder affects only about 30 people worldwide. It’s incredibly rare to be a chimerism patient, which is why no one even considered the possibility. But that’s not even the scariest part…
Hidden Disorder
You could be a Chimerism patient right now. There’s rarely ever a reason to test one’s lineage to the mother that gave birth to them, so most people with the disorder never find out they have it.
Catching Chimera
By this logic, many more people could be a victim to the disorder and scientists would never know about them. Only a few people have ever been recorded with it. The first is someone you’d never expect…
Foekje’s Story
The first case of chimerism was a woman named Foekje Dillema in 1950. She was a famously successful athlete, known in the running world as the Female Athlete of the Century. It was almost too good to be true…
Expulsion
However, due to her masculine appearance, she was requested to take a gender verification test for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). But why?
Testing Boundaries
After she refused to undergo the test for unknown reasons, the IAAF introduced a mandatory sex test for all participants until 1992. This had some terrible results…
Losing the Gold
Though she was steadfast in her refusal, she lost her winning time of 200 meters in 24.1 seconds. Her 4 gold medals seemed like lies now. But the worst was still to come…
Hidden Identity
By now, everyone assumed Foekje was a man posing as a woman. Because of this assumption, she received massive ridicule and a lifetime ban from the sport. So what now?
A Homecoming
Heartbroken, she returned to Friesland. She didn’t leave her house for a full year. In the years following she would never speak of the incident and lived a quiet life in her hometown. So what was the truth?
Female Features
Dillema had the typical female phenotype. For this reason, she was designated female at her birth. And why not? If everything looked normal, doctors at the time had no reason to look any further into the baby. Well, maybe the should have…
Mixed Together
In chimerism, a female will appear female if the egg is fused to a female egg. However, if the female egg fuses to a male egg, the result is similar to Foejke, having both female and male characteristics. What did all this mean?
X and Y
Simply put, her fusion in the womb resulted in her having male Y-chromosomes, making her both genders. If this had been discovered, she would have never have been allowed to compete. Her secrets kept growing…
A Made Mosaic
This kind of chimerism is known as ovotesticular disorder of sex development. In other words, she was intersex and competed with male tissue. She was called a gentic mosaic for her mixed chromosomes. But her secrets were still being exposed…
Race to the Finish
It was revealed that she had an operation in 1952 that removed her male tissue. She had an excess amount of testosterone during all her races, and her refusal to test proves she knew the whole time…
The Gene Ban
This discovery happened years after her death with samples from her DNA and clothing. As a result, all female athletes with a Y-chromosome or an SRY-gene were expelled from competing, just like Dillema. It didn’t stop there…
Lifting the Ban
Eventually, the IAAF decided to lift the ban after multiple protests from competitors and viewers alike. The International Olympic Committee abandoned the mandatory gender test for good, but there was a loophole…
End of an Era
To this day, at the request of another competitor, the International Olympic Committee can ask any competitor for a mandatory gender test to confirm that they are not competing outside of their supposed gender category. Her legacy lives on…