Feeling pretty crappy the past few days as realization sinks in. It's a truth too horrible to behold or consider for very long.
The choices I have as a person in this country, considering that I am intersexual are the following: I can opt to cease my attempts to gain recognition for my intersex condition, cease all attempts to get it diagnosed and treated, and live the rest of my life explaining why my ID cards say that I'm male while I most decidedly do not give that impression to people. Silent despair.
I can also opt to give up on my claims to being intersex and embrace the world of transsexuality, pick a sex (male or female) and receive surgery to become that sex and gender, officially as well. I'll still have my PTSD and other traumatic disorders, which then still can't be treated because the underlying causes haven't been dealt with. Quiet misery.
The option I desire is to be acknowledged as being intersex, have my official gender changed to 'female' for convenience's sake and to fit my own feeling of being an intersex woman, receive medical care to ascertain my exact intersex condition using a mosaic test (XX/XY hermaphroditism?) and such, as well as determine long-term health risks of my intersex condition. I'd also wish to have the testicles removed so that I no longer have to take testosterone blockers as these increase the possibility of an embolism. The right testicle is also partially descended, which forms a cancer risk. Finally I'd have labia created to open up the vagina which was indicated by two German private clinics.
Only the third option would solve my situation. Only the third option would make me happy. Only the third option would get me the care I require. Only the third option is the right option, morally and ethically.
The third option is the only option which is being actively denied to me and every other intersex person in the Netherlands by the government and physicians. This makes the government and physicians our enemies, as they are willing to discard our lives for their petty believes and convictions. They wish to deny and exterminate every trace of intersex people, through denial and forced surgery.
They are the enemy, yet they are holding us hostage. They are the government who should uphold the human rights of all citizens. They are the physicians who have taken an oath to do no harm. They're all liars and criminals for breaking their own laws.
Is there anything I can do? I don't think so. I have no future as long as I only have the first two options.
I wish I wasn't born intersex... I wish I could be intersex and happy... I wish people didn't hurt and kill those who are different from them.
I guess it's all too much to wish for... is it?
Maya
8 comments:
So sorry to hear this Maya. I am "lucky" in that i am a trans woman.
When first i began to understand intersex issues, i was, frankly, bemused. How could governments be so stupid, so.... cruel.
Since then, i've seen a lot more of same. It disgusts me.
I also have little time for the boundary-drawing that seems to go on at times between trans and intersex. We/I have done well in the last ten years or so, gaining a lot of legal recognition and, yes, privileges.
I'm still out there campaigning for trans rights...but when i can, i'm doing the same for intersex too.
Again, sorry. Sympathy probably doesn't help much - but for now its the best i can offer.
jane
xx
Hi Jane :)
Getting lots of people to sign the petition might help, of course. It's one way to make a fist and have our voices heard. As I have pointed out before, it's intersex, transsexual, homosexual, bisexual and many more groups of people who suffer the same kind of intolerance and often downright cruelty. It's only natural that we'll all work together to make a better world for everyone.
Transsexuality is easier for governments to accept, I guess, because it fits in the binary male/female system. Intersexuality introduces a nearly infinite number of shades of grey, which seems to confuse and share them, leading to extermination tactics like I and others have encountered.
I'm receiving a lot of direct and indirect hatred and violence from both the Dutch government and the healthcare system. I'm being treated like a criminal. I don't know how much longer I can live like this. Probably not until the end of this year.
Maybe this world where everybody can be the way he/she/other wants to be like just isn't going to happen. Not in my lifetime at least.
*sighs in despair*
Hello, Maya.
I just read about you in Jane Fae's blog which linked to your post here. There's not much I can do from where I am (in the U.K.) but send sympathy and best wishes - and I signed the petition.
I really don't understand why people want to force others to be something they're not - isn't it more important to recognize a fellow human than to compel someone to accept a gender binary or role which doesn't work for them?
i've blogged on this...and signed and linked to your petition. Hope that helps.
Do you mind if i add a link to your blog on mine?
jane
xx
Go wild, Jane :)
@Kathz - it's indeed beyond comprehension, which makes it even worse to be in such a situation. I can not understand why I am being treated like this, which results in intense frustration whereby one first tries to find blame by oneself, and ends with self-destructive urges because one can see no way out. No way to find a 'normal', happy life.
I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy :(
Oddly enough this morning I posted a review of a science fiction novel that deals with intersex issues. It gave me a good opportunity to link to your petition.
Keep smiling, you have friends, you just haven't met them all yet.
Thank you, Cheryl :)
*hopes she meets all those friends soon*
Dear Maya,
being a transwoman in the Netherlands I cannot change my legal gender as it requires me to adhere to a law that breaches human rights by demanding me to deliver proof of infertility. I refuse that, so although I am also physically female now my passport still states otherwise. The law has to change first before I will have my legal status changed.
I hate how governments (including the Dutch) handle situations of gender differences.
I recognize your emotions and wish there was any way I could help. But we all know how things are. Still there is one thing that I wish for you to see.
You are, like others I know, a gem. One of the butterfly people. Not less, but probably more than most other people. You're valuable and you're beautiful. People should recognize and love you for the person you are. And belief me, they will!
Stay strong, don't ever give up. Because giving up is not the way. You are not alone although you might think otherwise when times are dark. You have a family out there in the butterfly community. We care because we know the difficulties and challenges and the pain. We care because we don't want to see any more losses of our kind of people.
Embrace yourself and love yourself so we can embrace and love you too!
Kind regards,
Alice
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