A trip to the hospital to deal with a kidney stone wound up being a life-changing event for a Denver, Colorado man, who learned in the emergency room that he was actually a woman.

That man, Steve Crecelius, was a photographer who had been married for 25 years and was the father of six children when an ultrasound revealed that he was actually female during that hospital visit five years ago, Ashley Jennings of ABC News and Rheana Murray of the New York Daily News reported this week.

After hearing the news, he decided to begin living as a woman.

Crecelius, who now goes by the name of Stevie, told reporters that even as a child, he would have “feminine feelings” and that we would secretly wear his mother’s clothes and makeup. He said he thought he looked “pretty,” and said that while he was a little surprised when a nurse told him he was intersex (meaning that he had male genitalia and female internal sex organs), that he wasn’t overly shocked by the news.

“It validated everything I had always felt inside,” he told Hema Mullur or KDVR.com on Tuesday. Likewise, he told ABC News, “It was very liberating. I had spent so much energy after the age of 13 constantly evaluating how people looked at me and acted towards me.”

Crecelius’ wife, Debbie, and his children were accepting of the news, and the couple still lives together.

“I didn´t sign on for this, but who signs on for anything? She´s the same person she was as a he on the inside,” Debbie Crecelius told Mullur.

“She still relates to my heart and soul, and I still relate to hers, and I think that that´s the essence of true love,” added Stevie, telling ABC News that the couple “worked through what we needed to” and that the “concept of unconditional love is a larger story.”

Likewise, when they told their children, she said, “How do you tell your kids that, well, it´s no longer dad, it´s dadette?’ “¦ Within a few minutes, all of them said, ℠I don´t care dad; I love you for who you are´.”

Stevie told Jennings that she hopes she can be an advocate both for intergender people and for same-sex couples, adding, “People need to be accepting and understand. I was born this way, and loving each other and supporting each other will always be the main factor in our household.”

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