Choosing intersex

Cartesian dualism led to a way of thinking about things that separated the body and the mind. As a result, when we think of the “self”, we tend to ignore that the brain is part of the body, and treat the mind as if it is some kind of separate entity, This way of thinking gave us all sorts of ridiculous things, Freud’s “unconscious” being a notable example, with Money’s “gender identity” being a more recent absurdity.

It is this dichotomy which lies at the heart of the disagreements between some trans activists who talk about “brain sex” and those radical feminists who do not accept narratives that can be reduced to the “wrong body”. A psychological state is posited that is somehow biologically driven, and yet overrides biological phenotype. The opposing position is that the original phenotype is what matters, and that any psychological state that fails to accept this is a delusion based on a social construct called gender.

The problem with both of these positions, which are the extremes, is that they are both deterministic. On the one hand, we are determined by what our “gender identity” is, and so the story goes that trans people have no option other than transition; the alternative is stress and the risk of suicide. On the other hand, there is no “gender identity”, there is biological sex, and through therapy people can override the signals that conflict with this, and learn to live in their biological sex.

Whatever our brain or biology might be telling us we are, or should be, the only choice within the deterministic paradigm that traditionally leads to a specifically transsexual outcome is of acceptance or denial. That entailed more choice than that afforded by those who deny there is a choice to make, that we are the way we were born and the only coherent response is to remain so. Yet neither give hope for freedom. Transgender options muddy the waters, except they still often rely on the same paradigm that transsexualism relied on. In practice, the hostility towards transgender transition can seem even more pronounced than towards transsexual transition. Anything short of full realignment, which ends up with a mixed phenotype, retains the spectre of retained male characteristics which are seen as a threat by some people. That may seem irrational to those who are that way, but not to those for whom it is a concern.

I have struggled with this issue for as long as I can remember, ever since I was first introduced to radical feminism by my then partner back in the early 1980’s. It is what led me to try and find some other way of dealing with my own dysphoria and dysmorphia. In the 1990’s, I found these so overwhelming, that eventually I gave in. For me, this millennium was the time I chose to affirm rather than deny this awkward truth about myself, only to discover that underlying it all was a deeper, darker, truth that had been denied me from a very early age.

Interestingly, it was at the GIC I attended that the bombshell was dropped, gently, obliquely, that my history suggested a lack of masculine development from an early age. My experience at the GIC was not at all what is characterised in some quarters – people seemed to go to great lengths to avoid facilitating a transition. At the time this was frustrating, but with hindsight, I wonder whether they were trying to do me a favour. What I learned about myself was devastating, given my supposed intelligence and the length of time I had blithely lived my life unaware that I was never what I had been raised to believe – a man.

Even though my “mind” reeled against what I learned over the next five years, I eventually learned to accept that I was intersex. I cannot express how grateful I am to those few intersex people I got to know at that time, and how they encouraged me, and how they helped me accept what was so obvious, yet had entailed a web of denial throughout my adolescence and adulthood.  Eventually I came to understand that being intersex gives me a third option – I can step outside these binary choices that confront trans people, or lack of choice, and just be myself. So, instead of making the choice to transition to a different binary option, I can choose to be myself – even if that option was denied me from birth. Accepting intersex as an option is a choice, however, it is only open to people who were born between the sexes.

I resisted the temptation to get official recognition of my intersex state through diagnosis – not wishing to seek a pathologising confirmation of what had happened to me as a child. However, without any effort on my part, my intersex state is now medically recognised.

It was very liberating to step outside of the dichotomy of male and female, and yet because of my experiences I can feel empathy for those locked into it in the way many trans people are; I also feel empathy for those who reject reassignment as the answer in the way many radical feminists do. My own development as an intersex-identified person goes back to over a decade ago, things have moved on a lot since then. Trans now incorporates what are now called non-binary options, so for trans people who are not intersex, there is the option to position oneself in a location that is outside the dichotomy. I have to celebrate that, because I know from my own experience, for some people being male or female just doesn’t work.

Is taking this position, as awkward as it is socially, selfish? I don’t see it. Claiming my identity as an intersex person who is naturally, physically, androgynous is no more selfish than the gender reinforcement I was subjected to in my youth, where without ever consulting me about what I might want, my body and my “mind” were disciplined into conforming to other people’s expectations of masculinity. Since when can reclaiming and oneself be selfish? Liberation involves dismantling oppressive structures, both within one’s own life and within society at large – and the compulsory assignment and reinforcement of gender is part of a primarily oppressive structure. It is only through reflection on my own lived experience at the receiving end of this that I have become aware of just how oppressive it can be. It is that which drove me to try and challenge this for a decade. Trying to live out my truth, openly, and working towards dismantling this structural oppression, was initially driven by my affinity with liberation theology – and it is a struggle that I cannot see is in any way selfish. It is about liberation. The struggle is not just for me, nor for people like me, nor for intersex people, nor for transgender people, nor for feminists; it is for all people, men as well as women, who are oppressed by this social convention we call “gender”.

The reason I choose intersex is because I can, when for so long this was denied me. Nobody can deny me this. It is my act of resistance.

OII Australia & NZ Submission to the APA

This week, the submission on the proposed changes to DSM-V that Morgan of OII Australia and I co-authored has been sent to the American Psychiatric Association,  to the WPATH Standards of Care Committee, the WPATH intersex (DSD) committee, and ANZPATH, as it is directly relevant to their inclusion of intersex children and adults with ‘gender dysphoria’.

http://oiiinternational.com/blog/2668/oii-australia-oii-aotearoanz-release-submission-dsm5-soc7/

The submission is available for download here:

http://tinyurl.com/bud47jq

 

 

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Intersex history and experience

I had surgeries that I know of when I was 4/5 and again at 8/9, in the 1960’s. The first was to deal with hypospadias as far as I can tell – my father would describe my attempts at urinating standing up as being like ‘peeing through a collander’. I know it was hypospadias because I remember the irritating web of stitches left after the surgery, and when examined as an adult by a urologist, he confirmed that is what the scarring looked like to him. The second was to deal with cryptorchidism, which again I can recall; I had bilateral cryptorchidism, and while the RHS was manually descended on its own some time after the first surgery, I was admitted into hospital around 8 or 9 for exploratory surgery to deal with the other. I was given a toy matchbox classic car for every day I was in hospital, and I still have the cars. I was in hospital for two weeks, and confined to bed for ten days after the surgery. The operation involved opening up my abdomen, via a 3″ incision on the LHS (I still have the scar just below the top of where pubic hair line now is) and relocating one gonad by suturing it to the inner thigh to prevent it returning back into the abdomen. After ten days, weak, the ward sister carried me to a bath of scalding hot water and dropped me in it, leaving me there while I struggled to breath and climb out of the bath by myself. I still remember how it felt to have the stitch removed that ran through the gonad attached to my thigh – it was excruciating, as no form of anaesthetic was used. I also had a series of injections every fortnight when I was 12/13 for six months.

Prior to my second surgery, and being sent to an all-male boarding school at nine, all my friends were girls. When I was 11 I was sent to an all-male day school, after a headmaster explained to my parents that because of my femininity I he could not guarantee I would survive into adolescence in an all-male environment like a boarding school. As it happened, I never virilised properly, so at school I spent a lot of energy trying to avoid competitive sports and nakedness around increasingly hairy young men. I was subjected to bullying and sexual assault at school. I was also stalked and molested by an adult male on the London Underground as I travelled to school – I put a stop to that by cutting up the back of the guy’s hand while he was assaulting me with a very sharp pocket knife purchased specifically for that purpose.

One of the hospitals where I was treated was St. George’s Hospital Tooting, then one of the centres in London for treating kids like me – of other children on the ward I was on, one was being treated for cleft palate, another was in an iron lung. The last hospital I attended was Guy’s Hospital, and it was from there I discharged myself. That was about the time that photo was taken, and I still recall the indignity of having to take off my trousers and underpants so that yet another man in a white coat could examine my genital and groin area, having no idea why – and recall being angry when he asked me what the mole on my groin was. I told him he was the f’ing doctor, so why was he asking me? I walked out and never went back.

I was never told what my treatment was for, apart from that it was normal for some people, and necessary. Of my surviving parents, I have given up trying to interrogate my mother, because she ends up crying, insisting that in those days they did what doctors said was for the best. The best I got from here was that they were going to call me ‘Michelle’, which is how I now come to use that name. I managed to access my GP medical records ten years ago – they were truncated at around the time the picture was taken, and in their place is a 2 page covering letter from Guy’s Hospital that detailed all my previous medical treatment, apart from the two surgeries and series of injections mentioned earlier (I had spent at least some time time in hospital almost every year for something or other, starting with pneumonia at 6 & then 18 months up till I was 16). The first entry in my medical notes at 16/17 is in pencil, and is the word ‘orchidopexy’. I avoided doctors as much as I could for the next 30 years.

I have tried to access my hospital records, yet despite the covering letter from them in my GP notes, Guy’s had no record of my being there, and St. George’s had an admission record on a date for when I would have been admitted for the second surgery – but no record of who the consultant I was under was, nor what I was admitted for.

I found it very difficult to sustain a sexual relationship, and I was married at 21, which lasted 15 months. I became very confused about my gender, and ended up in a psychiatric institution, where I was not allowed to leave until I stopped trying to discuss my gender. Every time I tried to deal with my gender issues over the next two years, I would be re-admitted until I learned to keep quiet about my confusion. This is the way things were in the 1970’s!

I became celibate for a number of years, at one point joining an Anglican religious order. When I did eventually persuade a GP to refer me to a Gender Identity Clinic several years later, there they initially accused me of procuring oestrogens on the black market (which I had not been) because I looked so ‘feminine’, but when they took my medical history they informed me that I had several signs of male underdevelopment – the things detailed above, the late and incomplete virilisation, and the lack of any children despite unprotected sex (I even tried for children with one partner). There was no counselling to accompany this information, and I had to go away and unravel what the implications of this alone – and with the help of a few intersex people I got to know, I began to make sense of my life. I decided to stop trying to fight what I now see as the gender reinforcement that had been part of my childhood and adolescence, and began living as female. I attended the Middlesex/UCLH intersex clinic, but they were never forthcoming about any specific diagnosis – suggesting that my problem had not been androgen resistance, but undervirilisation due to lack of testosterone production. I also had confirmed that I was infertile all along.

I learned much about myself, and intersex generally, but have never managed to obtain a clear diagnosis. The GIC I attended seemed to accept that I was intersex, although they could only offer treatment for transsexualism; and I recently saw an endocrinologist in NZ who confirmed for me a diagnosis of intersex, but without anything more specific than that.

I think I am left with a sense that because crucial information was denied me around adolescence, I was denied what I would have needed to make a better start with my adult life. I could have chosen a different path then, rather than one that was pretty self-destructive for at least ten years. I think that the question of transition, even, could have been laid to rest much earlier, as if I had been made aware of how different I was, rather than trying to hide this, I could have accepted myself that way in a way that meant gender roles were less relevant to me. I can never know, and I am sure that had I been assigned female in the way some people in my situation might have been, I would have felt just as ambivolent about that assignment as the way I was assigned.

I became so interested in what had happened to me and others, and kept silent, I undertook post-graduate research in this area. I was never awarded my PhD, because I was very committed to reflecting the experiences of the people I interviewed in their own words, as far as possible, in as unfiltered, analytical or critical way as possible – of prioritising their experiences over academic theories about them. One of the examiners refused to accommodate this, and so my PhD was never awarded and my work unpublished. It would have been one of few such pieces of research concerning intersex and transgender medical experiences undertaken by a transgender intersex person themselves. Perhaps the examiner’s intransigence was valid, but I for one am sick of hearing what other people think about intersex, about who is and isn’t really intersex, about the line between intersex and transgender – I am only really interested in what intersex people have to say themselves. On the whole, everybody else has let intersex people down, no matter how well-meaning they might think they are. That includes parents, specialists, academics and advocates. I am sorry if that offends people, but that is how I feel, and what I find tends to lie at the heart of a lot of the in-fighting in the community is directly connected to those well-meaning people who are not themselves intersex telling intersex people what they should or should not be thinking or saying about themselves. In a sense, my own experience with my thesis kind of proves to me that if we are allowed a voice, it tends to be the voice others allow us to have.

One interesting thing I did discover in my research, although my supervisors had trouble hearing this, was that in the UK, up until the mid-late 1960’s an intersex child was more likely to be assigned male than female if it was possible. This is very different from the experience in the USA, especially after Money. The thinking behind this was that in the UK where sex-segregated schools were more common than in the USA before the 1960’s, it would be less disruptive to have an intersex assigned male in an all male environment than an intersex assigned female in an all female environment – that the risks of the former being violated by their peers were seen as less than the latter violating their peers…

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Pass the pastiche – My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 3

This is a follow-up to

One of the criticisms I received about my blog about last week’s episode was the focus on ‘passing’, and yet while understated in week two itself, passing is a central aspect to trans experience, it frames the experience. Trans people either pass in the gender they aspire to, or they don’t, they either choose to pass as man or woman once the transition, or they remain passing as a woman or man without ever transitioning, or they choose not to pass after transition and pass as a trans person, or they simply are unable to pass because of certain characteristics that define them as male (more usually than with trans men).

In episode three, the program makers focus heavily on ‘passing’, and so I make no apologies about commenting on this aspect. It is an important aspect of the program, and seems to be an important part of the lives of participants, as they try to find away of navigating society and being accepted as the people they see themselves as.

The program opens with the house-mates returning, and over dinner we hear about the changes since last week, how Drew has had such a hard time before she ended up stuck at home. She is upset that she got turned down for the job in the bridal boutique: “to me it’s all about passing – like, if I passed, I’d have got that job.” The narrator explains that passing is important to every member of the group, because being read as trans outside can be dangerous, and two-thirds of trans people have experienced hate-crime.

One of the trans men talks about being kicked out of a changing room, or being laughed at for using the men’s bathroom, and how at one level this makes people terrified deep down in case it escalates into violence. All of participants have been threatened with violence, we are told. A ju-jitsu master is brought in to teach some basic self-defense techniques, but his most important message is that if you look and walk with confidence, people leave you alone.

Donna says that it is OK for her to pass as a trans woman, is able to accept that there are parts of her that aren’t female, and gets on with her life that way. Drew admires Donna’s confidence, although for her confidence is about being able to pass.

For the guys, a fake cock helps them feel more centered and able to pass, including peeing in a urinal. They pore over a box of fake willies, some costing as much as £1,000, presumably donated by the producers or manufacturers, and discuss how they are attached and that some have a funnel to allow peeing through. Cut to bathroom where two guys experiment, a loud standing pee-tinkle from the toilet signifies success, but still not as satisfying as having one’s own cock, apparently.

Then we are back to the girl’s quest for cleavage – rolled up socks, freezer bags, condoms full of water and gaffa tape have all been pressed into service in order to enhance what is there and produce realistic looking – and passable – breasts at one time or another, as Drew and others are seen applying makeup in the mirror yet again. The aim of passing is, we hear, to be taken as being a ‘natal woman’, which ‘feels amazing’ – which kind of negates the earlier comment about being all about safety and it being about some kind of sensation, or thrill, that can helps to keep going.

Some time is spent looking at Lewis’ relationship with his father, who left his mother a decade earlier, and his plan for fund-raising for chest surgery, which he feels he needs to pass as a man. Drew gets a job waiting tables in a mall coffee bar, where her concern is about passing, although she realises it is more important that people are nice and accept her. One woman commented that she wore too much makeup, and doesn’t need to. Lewis passes well as male, so he is anxious about outing himself as trans in public while fund-raising. Lewis’ dad becomes very supportive of his efforts to raise funds. Donna supports the event by dressing like a hooker and giving Lewis a lap-dance on stage.

Drew’s job is about more than the pay-check from a 9-5 job, it is about building a social life. Her colleagues seem to accept her, and she seems to enjoy having a normal job as a woman. And she gets offered a position, which was really great – this was quite powerful at the end, and left me feeling better about the program than when I watched last week’s.

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When fantasy meets fantasy – My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 2.

Drew wears 4 bra’s as well as chicken fillets in her quest for feminine cleavage, and feels that having breast enhancement surgery is a more important part of her transition than sex reassignment surgery. She has a job interview at a bridal outfitters, which threw up that her Adam’s Apple was a bit of give-away, and raised the problem that some women might feel uncomfortable being fitted for a bridal dress by somebody like that. But, apart from these few minor details, Drew is just like any other young woman in her early twenties – albeit one who has been too scared to go outside of the family home for the previous three years.

One of the shop owners who interviews her points out that there are no transgender fairy-tales like there are girls’ dream of a white wedding; and this is quite profound really, because while some critics do see trans as a self-indulgent fatasy, the reality is that it ain’t no fairy-tale. When one fairy-tale meets head-to-head with another fairy-tale, when the fantasy that a man can become a woman meets the fantasy that a white wedding is what every girl must aspire to, clash, something has to give. And it ain’t gonna be the white wedding, as that fantasy is stamped too deep.

One of the other transgender women would probably disagree about it not being a fairy-tale, because it seems to be hers. She loves being ‘trans’, and says that if she could wake up having been born female, she’d still rather be trans. As she flirts with men in the pub, who joke about her still having ‘meat and two veg’, we are reminded that after a few beers most men lose their inhibitions and will shag anything, basically. And the recurrence of the meat and two veg theme is a key that gives the lie to the title of the series. While one person who is completely unpassable, with a deep male voice and built like a brick shithouse, has SRS at Charing Cross, and is transsexual in every sense of the word apart from any ability to look anything like a woman, at least two of the other MtF’s are not transsexual, despite being much more ‘passable’; they would best be described as ‘transgender’ people who seem to want to keep their genitals intact.

Chest surgery seems more important than SRS for the trans guys as well, although for one, gaining a realistic looking penis is what he really wants. He almost salivates at the idea of having one that he can stick in someone, which can be achieved in a way that retains his clitoris for orgasm.

I guess that whatever you call a program like this, whether you use ‘trans’, ‘transgender’ or ‘transsexual’, it is going to be misleading and piss some people off. A lot of transsexuals must be pissed because it isn’t about them particularly, yet lumps all these people together under the label of transsexual. If it used the word ‘trans’, or ‘transgender’, and included transsexuals, well that would probably also piss off some transsexuals as well, because they see transsexualism and transgenderism as very different.

Some of the characters come across as caricatures, not caricatures of women, but caricatures of transsexuals – caricatures of caricatures, if you like, and it takes us into some pretty murky places. None of these people seem happy with simply being themselves as men or women, but all seem set to embark on a journey that will involve a never-ending round of cosmetic procedures to make them appear different to how they are, and to allow them to portray the character of somebody they wish they could be. Which is quite sad really, when you think about it, because they all seem nice people really.

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My Big Fat Transsexual Summer part 1

Just filling this space for completeness, after posts for 2 & 3. This first program kind of introduces us to the house-mates and and the concept of the program.

Dawn and Donna talk about the effects of oestrogens, such as developing breasts, aided by laser treatment for the beard; the men talk about the effects of testosterone.

The first program in the series kind of sets the scene. Lots of makeup for the girls, lots of tears leading up Karen’s surgery. A night out in London, a group of trans-women all dressed as “trannies”. Karen’s comment about age inappropriateness is an understatement in one or two cases. We see some of the surgery, and the result. And a dinner table conversation about how others should adapt to people’s transsexualism.

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Odd bedfellows and misrepresentations

In what world do radical feminists and abusive men get along and find ground to work together? When it comes to expressing their mutual dislike of transsexuals, it would seem:

twanzphobic since forever: Tootsies of the Week: Bridal Edition!

In the discussion that follows this article Nicky, a man who hates transsexuals and threatens intersex people who stand up to him, and has already had one blog closed down by the host as being deemed a hate-site, seems to have become an ally to lesbians and feminists – nice.

So, Dave Squirrell, aka Davina, says:

“Most importantly, are the ‘groomness’ and ‘bride’ still packing? YES! Both are still packing.”

Daily Mail:

“But the couple decided against surgery due to the associated risks at their age until last year – when Jenny-Anne went under the knife for a gender reassignment op… Father-of-two Jenny-Anne went on to have a breast augmentation procedure this January followed by facial feminisation surgery.”

So, Jenny-Anne had gender reassignment last year (2010), went on to have BA & FFS this January (2011). This blogger needs to try reading what she reproduces from a tabloid newspaper of dubious reliability if she wants to maintain any credibility beyond “bigot”. But, as the general tone is up there with bigots like Fred Phelps and David Bahati, this little bit of of misinformation probably won’t bother her.

Other little problems with the misinformation in the blog…

They cannot have a civil partnership, because Helen has a male BC and Jenny Anne has a female GRC (as post-op). Under current UK law, they cannot get a civil partnership, they can only get ‘married’; that is all that is open to them. This would seem to make them more a heterosexual couple (if you really feel you need to categorise anybody else’s sexuality), where one is male, cross-dresses and identifies as female, where the other is registered as female because she is a male to female transsexual. As for the lesbian content in the paper, I’m with you there Davina, and agree it seems odd – but the clue is that it’s in the Daily Mail, not a proper newspaper; the Mail even fails Wikipedia’s criteria of what constitutes a reliable source. A lot of the men who read it are fascinated by lesbians, so they have to get that in there somewhere, eh? That’s in there for the guys, Davina, not your team.

BTW, if you are reading this Jenny-Anne and Ellen, congratulations. I hope you all had a nice day…

Nicky Matters

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Transtactic

I have bitten my tongue long enough, really, and now feel I have to speak out about a certain type of on-line encounter that leaves me feeling very angry.

It involves people who are disagreeable, and who insist their views are right, and who will bully and personalise issues if you don’t agree with them, and will call you names, become abusive and threatening if you do not acquiesce. Then, when they are ejected from whatever forum it happens to be, they will shout about the injustice of being dealt with that way. Yet, if you visit their space on the web, the slightest murmer of dissent is met with instant exclusion without any discussion, warning or feedback. This is the totalitarian mindset of some people I have encountered who identify as transsexual. I don’t tend to come across so consistently it elsewhere.

An example of the sort of issue that is not up for negotiation is childhood interventions; this is very much a sacred cow to transsexuals. The argument goes that when it comes to trans children, little boys are really little girls, and little girls are really little boys, and people should move heaven and earth to assist them in becoming the boys and girls they want to be. Another argument is that transsexuals are biologically wired up to have female brains in male bodies, and male brains in female bodies. The support for these two arguments is based mainly on older transsexual narratives that they always felt that they should have been girls or boys, and nature made a cruel mistake. That and a piece of research based on a small sample in Holland that has never been replicated, and is starting to grow whiskers by now. An isolated, unreplicated, confirmation of a theory. Yet, if challenged this tends to get dealt with in the way I described earlier – as does challenging the idea that children should have intervention for being trans.

My concern here is because childhood intervention is also an issue for intersex people, and it is a sacred cow to many of us. If I am going to be consistent, how can I support intervention in one group, and not in another? I do not believe that transsexualism is a form of intersex, as some people try to have us accept – and if it was, why would I support unnecessary childhood intervention for some and not others? I would be a hypocrite if I did. But, even though i do not see these issues as both relating to intersex, I still fail to see why they should be dealt with differently. I support an organisation like Genital Autonomy because I believe that such autonomy has to be extended to all people equally – so I regard male, female or intersex genital cutting as undesirable without adult fully informed consent; that would have to include transsexual people. But, I extend this to incorporate any form of intervention that affects sexual phenotype, such as hormone therapy, and psycho-social reinforcement of gender; anything that is not directly necessary to maintain physical health (such as to maintain bone development and prevent of osteoporosis in later life) of pre-adults.

What does frighten me is that some transsexual people are so caught-up in this fictional binary-gender ideology, that they are convinced that as adults, intersex people who do not identify as clearly gendered in traditional ways are in some way ‘sick’, and insist they should have reassignment surgery so that they will conform to gender norms. They also argue that it is harmful to intersex children not to operate in a way that ensures they appear unequivocally male or female. Then they get upset when intersex don’t want to include them in their groups.  This is because many of us experienced these sorts of interventions, and we did not like them as children, and do not want them again as adults, and do not want them to be inflicted on a new generation of children. Not even children who might one day grow up transsexual (but who might grow up as gay or lesbian, or straight).

 

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Intersex, or what?

June 2011

I have to own up to a certain concern about the claim to intersex by people who have fathered children – because until relatively recently I never came across any intersex person who claimed to have parented children (male or female). I do not think that intersex means people won’t have issues about gender assignment, but I am not clear that means that people who learn they were intersex will deal with that in the way that a transsexual might.

The only people I come across who have fathered children and who claim to be intersex seem to have a transsexual history; this recent phenomenon does make me wonder, and it seems to strain the definition of what is and isn’t intersex. I get concerned when, while denying the pathologisation of intersex and opposing DSD, a diagnosis of a ‘condition’ that only in certain situations results in intersex, is trotted out to establish intersex ‘credentials’ (seems odd when those doing so state opposition to intersex as a disorder). This stretches the definition of intersex to include people who were formerly fertile anatomical males with intact reproductive systems, simply on the basis of their having some unusual genetic anomaly.

CAH, AIS, XXY, 5AR, XO, etc. all feature in some disorder, syndrome, condition, whatever, that can give rise to and manifest as signs of intersex. They are not intersex in and of themselves. Intersex is having a human anatomical variation that sits somewhere between male and female, and includes sex reversal and what used to be called hermaphroditism, it is not the same as a disorder of sex development.

I find it quite ironic that those who are vocal about the resistance to pathologising intersex are often the quickest to quote some medical diagnosis that seems to confirm something for them. I say I am intersex because of my childhood history, because of how my body was/is, because of what I experienced when people tried to fix that, how people related to me when I was growing up, the scars on my body, and my inability to have children – not because some clinician has given me a clear diagnosis that I can use to establish some kind of credibility (I have been told so many contradictory and dubious things by clinicians…), nor because I am uncomfortable living as either gender.

So, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time for XY folk who had no physical indications or interventions in their medical history connected to intersex growing up, then got married, impregnanted wives, had kids, did the whole straight career and ‘normal’ family thing; then some time around 50 years old, drop a bombshell on their spouse and childrn that they are going to transition because they feel like they were really a woman all along; then announce that they were intersex all along really, and everybody should accept them on that basis. Sorry, I am sure this is wrong of me, politically, but I take it with a pinch of salt. I don’t really see how people with 5AR, modern techniques such as sperm-washing, or FtM transsexual men who retain their wombs and have babies, or even DES, has that much to do with this particular type of ex-man. And if I am going to apply that idea equally, I’d have to say I’m skeptical about a person raised female who first claims to be transgender, then goes on to say they are intersex and identifies as a male yet can still give birth.

When I was trying to figure out what had gone on earlier in my life, it was transsexual people who were the most dismissive about trying to find out more about my intersex history. While I was putting the pieces together, it was transsexual people who told me that I could not be transsexual. Most of the intersex people I met and got to know were not only accepting, they affirmed and encouraged me to find out what I could. What I also saw was certain transsexual people denigrating people who were (in their opinion) ‘transgender’. It was transsexual people who railed about associations with LGB – often at the same time as they complained when the ‘T’ was disregarded in LGBT. Now, some of us do not fit this cozy little world where there are men, women, gay, lesbian, transsexual – all neatly defined by their biology, gender identity and sexual orientation. Some of us have taken the hand we were dealt with in childhood, and try to live in a way that might be described as ‘gender variant’. Some of us have intersex histories. I have never had a woman, gay, lesbian, transgender, FtM transsexual or intersex person say to me, quite rudely “what exactly are you supposed to be?” I have only got that from two groups of people – straight men, and a certain type of Male to Female transsexual activist. Not all MtF transsexual people are like this, but I really am sick of the ones that are, because they are among the most intolerant people in the world.

I am sure that in my case sour grapes does come into all this; being childless carries its own sort of stigma, something I suspect only those who never have children really appreciate – I get the feeling that most people who have the privilege of having children don’t even see what a privilege it is, because people talk about it as if it is some sort of right, and a right that most take for granted. If I had been fully informed of my situation as an adolescent, not only would I have chosen to live my life completely differently, I would have adopted while I was young enough to. By the time it was confirmed that I was infertile, and I was in a position to be able to adopt, I considered it would be irresponsible to take on a commitment which I did not know if I would be around long enough to fulfill.

I am OK focusing on childlessness now, as it is a hugely important part of my life and my sorrow, but it is something myself and others often find it very difficult to talk about. All the intersex people I know seem to have been in the same boat, although I do know of some who adopted. It has taken me about ten years to come to terms with it, and to be able to even think about it without tears. The world is full of spaces for people with kids – you cannot avoid them; go to any shopping mall, restaurant, beach, park, etc., and it is full of them. I don’t think it is too unreasonable for people to want a space where they can quietly lick the wounds that being left out of that leaves. I have had some friendships where I have got to know people’s kids, and I enjoyed that, and now I am in a position where I am accepted as a part of an extended family, which is great. But, never having had kids myself, and having never had brothers or sisters and therefore no experience of family life that involved kids, I find it quite difficult to know how to relate to them. Once they reach an age when they can discuss Philosophy, then I begin to feel more comfortable with them. I am sure that to people who have kids, that sounds a bit messed up – but that is the way it is.

For me, intersex is about having some kind of experience involving genitalia, gonads, phenotype that are not either typically male or typically female, or sex-reversal, and either having medical interventions to correct these, and some form of gender reinforcement during childhood, or escaping these somehow. Having some medical condition may be the cause of these things, but having such a medical condition may not always cause these things, so the medical condition itself is not in and of itself intersex. Similarly, developing something later in life like LOCAH or PCOS has little to do with any history of intersex experience, as far as I can see. Just as with including transsexualism as intersex, if people who have no history of intersex are included as intersex because of some diagnosis late in life, it kind makes the whole concept of what is intersex meaningless really.

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Call me transphobic if you like, but some of my best friends really are transsexual

April 2011

Over the years, I have watched the transgender community from within. Some people have been around the community for many years, steadily campaigning to improve matters, they become familiar faces both within and beyond the trans community. With the popularity of the internet, online groups and forums began to spring up, usually started and controlled by self-appointed creators and moderators of those groups and forums. These tended to be ruled with an iron fist, dissent not tolerated, and anybody not going along with the moderators &/or group ethos would be subject to abuse, and if they responded without submission ejected from the group. Then social networking sites became popular, and a new phenomenon began to emerge – the ‘spontaneous’ protest at just about anything or anybody self-selected leaders of protest deemed as ‘transphobic’. A series of protests aimed at figures-of-hate were organised from within the community, yet always attracting about 200-250 people. The self-appointed representatives seemed to emerge from nowhere, and soon sank back into obscurity.

The relationship between the trans and lesbian and gay community seems to be a recurring theme, with individuals and organisations known for their association with radical lesbian and gay politics often the target of accusations of transphobia. Surprisingly more so than outspoken clergy, or church organisations. The relationship between the lesbian and gay community and the trans community has a difficult history which dates back at least as far as the Gay Liberation Front. One leading activist from those days once described what happened back in the 1970’s as the girls left the boys to play on their own, and both turned their backs on the drag queens and crossdressers. For much of the following 30 years, lesbian and gay politics operated without reference to trans people. In some ways, having achieved their own freedom from legal prosecution for being queer, and liberated from a psychiatric profession that had treated their sexuality as a psycho-sexual disorder, the heirs to the GLF and CHE set off on their own paths as lesbian and gay people – and left those now referred to as transgender in the hands of psychiatrists under the GID diagnosis; the irony of that situation is that many of those psychiatrists who went on to specialise in the treatment were themeselves gay.

Trans activism only really began to take off in the early 1990’s, over twenty years after gay liberation. With that we began to see the first wave of transsexual people who were able to take their place as professionals, experts and activists in areas that concerned transsexuals ,and who would change the lives of many transgender people in ways unimagined before the late 1980’s. Following the increased recognition of rights, and the increasing willingness of trans people to stand up and be out themselves, the new generation of trans people who wanted more (understandably) than just acceptance and rights – but to be treated no differently from anybody else in society, a recognition of the validity of their call on public health services, adequate health care, equal opportunities in employment and services, and legal protection against harrassment and bullying.

I applaud all of this, and I support it.

What I find harder to accept may be down to my own personal prejudices, and I find that hard to accept in myself, but have to be honest about. Imagine a scenario where you are middle-aged, have been out as lesbian or gay person since adolescence, and have campaigned on lesbian and gay issues. A middle aged transsexual comes along – somebody you have never come across in your 30+ years as an activist – and demands you include their issues, and accept them as ‘one of you’. It must seem odd, 30 years after you left a group of people to their cross-dressing and psychiatrists, people who to you seemed quite content to live as heterosexual men and women, to suddenly find yourself attacked because you are not catering to them as well. So, you probe a bit, ask a few questions, and discover that this middle-aged person spent their entire adult life, up to a couple of years previously, living as a heterosexual man, having a successful career, married with children who had now grown up. This person, who now identifies as female and believes that prior to two years ago their whole life was a lie; they tell you that their former heterosexual family still stands by them. They tell you all sorts of stories about how hard it was for them, and how hard it has been since they transitioned, especially with their employer who had known them as a man for 30 years. They then tell you that you must accept them into the LGB fold, not only as a transsexual, but as a lesbian – because they are still attracted to women. They might even go further and reveal that they do not see the point of reassignment surgery.

You might wonder about the sanity, or the motives, of this person who, all the time you were struggling with issues they seem to have only recently become interested in, was enjoying a certain priveleged situation in life. You might find it hard to simply accept them that easily. Then you would be considered transphobic, and find that you are being criticised for holding the views you do by this person, who for some reason despite their relative newness to this hypothetical ‘movement’ seems to know far more than you do about what lesbian feminists should think than you do. That might irritate you a bit, make you feel a bit patronised, but if you try saying anything – then you are being transphobic.

OK, this is a bit simplistic, but it gives some idea why some people might get pissed off when they have been involved in something for years, suddenly start getting odd people turning up saying ‘I am one of you, and I demand to be heard and included’. The charicature I present represents just one type of transsexual (or transgender) person. I have met, and know, many wonderful people who are transsexual, transgender, intersex, lesbian and gay. We are not all the same, our histories are all different: we are diverse. Some are exceedingly sweet, and some are downright nasty. I myself had a lot of difficulty finding out where I was located in all this diversity – and it is a history that goes back to surgery in early childhood, oscillating between relationships with men and with women, brief failed marriage twice, therapy, trying to deal with gender identity issues, transitioning without being convinced transition would be any better. I grew into an understanding that as an intersex person, for me, it would not have mattered whether I was assigned male or female – sooner or later I would have rejected the assignment. I grew into an understanding that it was not so much the assignment itself I resented, but what went with it – the surgery, the pain at physical, emotional and psychological levels as I tried to grow up having a gender reinforced on me that made no sense to me, and I felt at a complete loss trying to perform. I grew into an understanding that had it been a different gender that had been assigned and reinforced, that too would have made no sense to me, and I would have been at just as complete a loss in performing.

The only times I have experienced any kind of targeted abuse, it has been when perceived as a gay man (“poof” and “batty-boy” kind of abuse) and when perceived as a traveller (the “gypo-bitch” kind of abuse) – never any cross-gender abuse. So, I do know what it is like to be on the recieving end of homophobic and racist abuse, but fortunately only once was there a threat of physical violence accompanying this. I had to deal with this at points through my adult life from my teens onwards – my appearance, as a feminine looking man, made it inevitable. I just want to say that, so it is clear I am very sympathetic when it comes to receiving abuse, as I am well aware of how it feels – uncomfortable and frightening. So, I have met and known some lovely trans people, and intersex people who have to identify as trans to get any help. People who are young, people who settle into relationships with partners as they go through transition, people who meet people after they have reassigned, people who transition and find themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual and straight, people who find they are not sexual, people who are older who remain with their former gay or lesbian partners as a heterosexual couple and get married after reassignment, people who are older who remain with their life-partner from their former heterosexual marriage, people who went through aversion therapy, and were diverted from their inclinations into cold straight marriages, who finally manage to escape and do what they wanted to do 30 years previously, and so on.

But, I find I cannot get over the resentment I feel about people who seem to have had it all – all the things I and many of the rest of us could never have had, and would have loved to have had, but were too busy trying to sort out the mess left over from childhood and adolescence, dealing with day-to-day bigotry, and were biologically incapable of – people who, having had their Stepford families, then turn around and tell them they were living a lie all along, telling everybody how hard it was for them (having everything), and how hard it is to be transsexual, and how we have to accept that because their brain was a certain way from before they were born, how everybody must now accept all this, and even welcome them into a community they had nothing to do with for thirty years of their adult life. Yes, I do resent that a bit. Not only do they expect to be accepted, they expect people to lay aside their own beliefs, ignore what they have learned over the previous thirty years, and bow to their superior insight – which usually rests on their having been a man with a good career all those years, who has recently ‘found herself’. I think they have a bit of a cheek, to be honest. And when this type of transsexual insults my intelligence by saying that they are intersex really, well, then I see red.

So, sorry, but I can’t accept you straight off just like that, because of my resentment. Maybe, in ten years or so, when you have stuck with the program, then I’ll be ready to listen – or maybe that should be, you’ll be ready for me to listen, because by then, maybe you’ll be ready to listen to me too. My phobia is not transphobia, it is middle-aged-family-man-becomes-a-woman-phobia.

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