Monday 7 January 2013

To Those Who Hurt Intersex People Like Me

I posted this earlier on both my Google+ and Facebook accounts. I have made a few additions to the original post.

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I was born a hermaphrodite, but didn't find out about this until age 21. At that point I realized that I wasn't a boy, had never been a boy and my intense psychological issues were due to not having been able to form a self-image.

I was raised as a boy, more or less, yet when I found out about my unusual physiology I decided to go the female route based upon how I had felt in the past. Upon encountering various gender teams here in the Netherlands I was severely traumatized. They just wanted to start chopping me up and completely make me give up on being intersex. They'd 'make a beautiful woman out of me'.

I just wanted to be examined, learn how my body was put together and decide on what organs I'd keep based upon that. Instead I got subjected to over 6 years of constant harassment and psychological torture as Dutch psychologists and physicians attempted to brainwash me into believing that I was transsexual, not intersex. That I was just a feminine-looking boy. At this point I have spent over 8 years in this hell with no end in sight.

They ignored MRI evidence from a German private clinic that I was a hermaphrodite. They faked genetic tests. They ruined almost a decade worth of what should have been the best years of my life as I finally knew what was going on with me. I'm now sitting at home with severe PTSD and other psychological traumas. A disciplinary legal case has been started against the Netherlands' biggest gender team at the VUmc hospital in Amsterdam.

One of the people at that gender team, Cohen-Kettenis, is supposedly an intersex expert. She was involved in setting up the one protocol describing how medical professionals should treat intersex cases (http://www.mayaposch.com/intersex-controversy.php). This protocol is extremely clear: intersex children are very inconvenient and should immediately have their IS traces eradicated. There's no mention of what would be best for the IS child itself.

I have seen the results of this too many times already. In my own situation, but also with others. From hermaphrodites who had a whole side of their organs removed as a child followed by forced testosterone injections, to wrong decisions on which gender to pick and the child, once an adult, having to transition to the body they should have had and could have had right from the beginning. This entails the physical mutilation and destruction of our organs, bodies and genitals.

If only people would listen to IS people like us. Instead intersex is one of the last major taboos. We're not supposed to exist. The whole medical system world-wide is focused on eradicating every single IS individual. Our opinion, our wish to just be ourselves is met with ridicule, or ignored. We're brainwashed and forced into surgery against our will, if we're even old enough to decide already.

Infants should NEVER undergo genital surgery in order to 'pick' a gender. Medical surgeries are needed, but a gender is a personal choice, and thus only the child can decide. Not the physician, not the parents. No bloody one else. Only the child.

Won't somebody finally start thinking of the IS children? We have souls too...


Maya

6 comments:

Venture said...

While at university I researched the Reimer case for my Philosophy of Science class. I came across a group called the Accord Alliance that was working with the medical community on protocols for dealing with intersex children; following the advice of Dr. Milton Diamond they advocated no surgery until the child was old enough to assert a gender identity. I'm guessing this group is not active in your country?

Maya Posch said...

@Venture - I'm guessing they're not since genital surgery on infants is the primary way to deal with IS children in Europe. Here in the Netherlands we're talking about at least a few surgeries every week, based upon a few educated estimates.

In Dutch law intersex individuals are never mentioned by name and they are not protected specifically. Instead the WPATH protocol calls what they are born with a disorder and thus surgery and the eradication of anything 'unusual' is the accepted response.

Unknown said...

Maya we r with u.I amnot medical personl. We wil be good friends.Be cheerful we will face the situation. Machu

Iatromante said...

I've recently learned from The Intersex Roadshow blog that this life and gender condition isn't so unusual.
May I ask you at which German clinic you did the MRI and why they wouldn't conduct it at clinic in The Netherlands?
You have my support.

Maya Posch said...

@latromante - intersex is indeed very common. At least one in every 150 children is born with some type of intersex.

The reason why I had the MRI scan performed in Germany is because in Germany you can have any scan you want performed at a private clinic. In The Netherlands this is not possible and you can only get an MRI scan after a specialist refers you, which in my case they didn't want to do.

Ergo private clinics in the Netherlands pretty much only do cosmetic surgery and no regular medical surgery or examinations.

Unknown said...

I am so sorry you have went through what you have! When will the medical profession and people in general grow up??

Take care (I followed)
Jenny