Lisa Lee Dark - Early Life

Early Life

Dark was born in Clydach, one of the Swansea valleys. She is related to Adelina Patti (1843–1919) and Bette Davis (1908–1989) Dark was born with a rare medical condition called Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). This meant that throughout Dark’s childhood she was raised as a boy because doctors failed to realise that she was biologically female.

The condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), leads to an excessive outpouring of the male hormone testosterone during the early part of foetal life While the genes are thoroughly xx female, an inherited faulty gene blocks production of an essential enzyme. The deficiency leads to upsets in the body’s hormonal balance and causes the adrenal glands to produce low levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. In response, the pituitary (the body’s conductor gland) pushes the adrenals into top gear to make more cortisol, because of the enzyme deficiency, they secrete more and more testosterone and in the most severe cases, like Lisa Lee’s, the hormone leads to fusion of the female genitalia and in some an enlarged clitoris, making it quite easy to mistake newborn girls for boys, though ovaries and womb remain intact, making it possible for Lisa Lee to have children of her own.

Dark only discovered that she was biologically female at the age of 19. Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a disorder that affects one in 15,000 births world wide, with varying degrees of masculinisation.

Dark was very badly bullied during her school years. She went to a tough all boys comprehensive school where she would regularly get kicked, punched, spat at and have obscene things screamed at her, even outside school she would get the same treatment, all because she was slightly different and did not behave like all the other boys.

Dark’s home life wasn’t much better, her parents had drink and money problems, they told Lisa Lee that she was the least important thing to them and that they wished that she was dead, there was also a lot of violence in the home, so Dark would walk the streets to get away from the troubles, but this made her easy prey for a paedophile ring; the sexual abuse that Dark experienced made her realise that she wasn’t a normal male, but growing up all she wanted was to die. Dark believes that this is what pushed her into the entertainment industry.