The body anchors reality

What do you feel like? What do you want to feel like? What do you feel, experience, dream about? What do you see your body as? What do you think your body is? What do you want your body to be? Why?

Most of my life seems to have consisted out of these questions being asked over and over again. By myself. By others. Some of them mostly after I found out about my body being intersex, and suddenly it was assumed that I would have to question all of those things about my body and my sense of self. About which genitals I prefer. What clothing I am into. Why I'm not wearing make-up if I do the 'female' thing. Which gender I prefer. Which pronouns I wish to be addressed with. When I'm getting surgery to fix this wretched body of mine.


I can see now that they were all just veils, illusions that were covering up the truth. Designed to trap a person in a maze with no exit, only to keep them wandering around forever more in a world that almost makes sense. The concept of gender, for one, is merely a social contract [1] that has no bearing on an individual's intrinsic qualities. Yet it skillfully traps a mind the way a spider's web would trap an unsuspecting fly.

In that sense, the question of 'do you feel more like a man or woman?' is not a question that can be reasonably answered, especially when taken into account that the brain does not encode a preferred biological sex [2]. The turmoil which I experienced therefore in my mind the past years was not due to me having to get into touch with my True Feelings or such, but rather because I kept getting asked questions which do not have an answer.


I cannot feel like a man or a woman, because that's not a valid question. I can only ever feel like myself. Because every brain is a unique mosaic with unique memories. Similarly, every human body is different. Because of one's DNA. Because of one's phenotype because no body develops the same way. This makes every individual and every individual's body uniquely them.

Similarly, the question of which genitals I would prefer to have is a nonsensical question. Why would I want to remove what my body has unless there is a medical need to do so? If I felt that way, I would question the feeling instead. I have had years to ask myself whether I would be okay with having not just female but also male genitals. After I pushed away society's expectations, I found that I could easily accept and love my body the way it is. How could I not? Because it's 'different'? I grew up with this body, so to me it is per definition 'normal'.

This body that I was born with, with its unusual phenotype, is as much of a valid phenotype as any other, because it exists. My body may be more unique than that of most people, perhaps, but it anchors me to reality as much as any other body would. With my senses I can experience reality. With my limbs I can move around and manipulate the world around me. This is reality. This is me, my body, in reality.


Turns out, reality is pretty simple. It are the delusions that make it complicated.


Maya


[1] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/gender-is-social-contract-not-part-of.html
[2] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/your-brain-doesnt-care-what-genitals.html

Society's attitude towards intersex is a psychological disorder

A few days ago on social media there was a bit of a kerfuffle about biological sex on account of someone apparently having made the statement that people cannot change between (binary) biological sex. The resulting lawsuit and online drama resulted in a number of people with anti-intersex views venting their spleen as well, such as in one particular Twitter post where an individual insisted on using the anti-intersex term 'Disorder of Sex Development' (DSD), also referring to intersex as a 'less accurate term'. This particular post being about discounting intersex as of any relevance in the debate on biological sex as it's a mere fluke.

Suffice it to say that reading such a statement, and the resulting feedback to the response I posted to said statement was quite upsetting. Not only is one's existence discounted as a statistical fluke and one's biological relevance erased, but in addition it is hammered home that one is a tragic sufferer of a medical disorder, so why hasn't a caring surgeon yet 'normalised' all that is so clearly wrong with your genitals and the rest of your body?


Maybe it's just that over a decade of attempts by doctors and psychologists of trying to convince me that I should normalise my body, whether it was by outright denying my intersex condition, or by attempting to convince me that I was the tragic sufferer of gender dysphoria and that I actually really wanted to have them turn me into a beautiful woman, removing those unsightly 'male' bits. This could have made me somewhat sensitive and conceivably slightly traumatised when it comes to this subject.

Over the past years I have learned very well that my body is exquisitely healthy. I have no genetic disorders, no allergies, nothing worrying in my family that could come haunt me later in life. And here I have a bunch of cretins insisting that there is something wrong with my body. Not just those cretins on social media, but those medical 'professionals' equally so. Can I please love my body without their blathering?


This obsession with binarism, of this imaginary division between some illusionary 'male' and female' element in genetics, the human brain and the human phenotype in general is rather worrying. It's a kind of obsession that goes beyond an every day obsession straight into a 'delusional disorder' [1] diagnosis. Those affected persist even in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that the brain is unisex, that genetics do not dictate even physical sex (e.g. in the case of CAIS) and that the overall complexity of genetics and the resulting phenotypes make any attempt to categorise it as either 'male' or 'female' is foolhardy at best.

And meanwhile intersex individuals like yours truly feel like they're being hunted down on social media and in society, because one side claims us to be the absolute, One True Proof that somehow legitimises things like transgenderism, while some feminists and others push hard to make it clear that intersex is an aberration, that just proves that binarism is the One True Religion. For the rest of society... intersex is so poorly understood that it seems to be mostly associated with things like pornography and cross-dressing actors in those flicks. Oh, and nobody ever talks with us.


I guess that after years of this, combined with my own experiences in the medical system, along with the sickening awareness that intersex genital mutilation (IGM) of infants is still a daily thing, it's hard to feel like being intersex doesn't somehow dehumanises you. Do I feel invisible? You bet. Do I feel like anyone is free to attack me and others in the most cruel way possible for being intersex without repercussions? Absolutely.

There's no punishment for calling intersex an aberration, a disorder or abnormality. Not the way that other minorities are protected. While society cheers on the binarist conversion of children (because they want it), the non-medical 'normalisation' surgeries (IGM) on intersex infants continue unabated, with nobody caring about their views, opinions, or the large number of them who (oddly enough) later turn out to feel unhappy with the choice that was forced on them by those adults. Because we intersex individuals are apparently less than human and our views, feelings or opinions do not matter.


This most recent confrontation with the traumatic part of being intersex has made me realise just how horribly sick society is. That I can have a body that is healthy and yet I end up being traumatised like this. That a healthy infant can be born, yet only to have it receive genital mutilation before it's old enough to speak its first words. That somehow being born intersex means that society will do its utmost to shame, humiliate, normalise and ostracise you. Just because.

It shouldn't be me who has the therapist to work through these traumas and somehow learn to trust doctors again despite all the abuse that I have suffered. It shouldn't be me, or all those others who are suffering needlessly. So many millions of individuals who could have lived happy, carefree lives, but who got crippled and marked like this, simply because society refuses to acknowledge that it has a problem. Why are we even trying to please the rest of society when all we get is this kind of wanton cruelty in return?


I'd really like that restraining order against this delusional part of humanity at this point. I'm not into that kind of abusive relationship, even if they're still convinced that people like me should be okay with it.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional_disorder

What remains after everything else has been lost

Looking back at the stories which have emotionally affected me the most over the years, I can now see the pattern that connects them. It's a pattern of loss. From anime series like Kanon, Saishuuheiki Kanojo, Noir, Death Parade, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Haibane Renmei, Hotaru no Haka ('Grave of the Fireflies'), Black Lagoon and Knights of Sidonia to a series like Star Trek Voyager, the overarching theme is that of loss, with the struggle to try and overcome it. Sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

So then why this strong emotional response with the experiencing and struggle against loss? It seems fairly obvious, I would say. From whatever was done to me when I was five years old and the loss of my childhood, to my struggles to regain a semblance of a normal life, even as I felt more parts of myself stripped away as I finished high school. Then the madness of dealing with the medical system in the context of trying to figure out my body's intersex condition. Which just led to everything I thought I knew about myself and my body questioned, thrown into controversy, with differing professional opinions essentially stripping away the last vestiges of self.


That's what it feels like to lose everything you are. Everything you think, feel, see or are is gone. There's only the absolute uncertainty and the loss of self that comes with it. Even now that I think I am on the way to recovery, reintegrating memories and confronting decades of traumas, there are countless moments when everything just falls apart again around me. Reintegrating the body with a fractured psyche isn't an easy task.

Yet there's something that I have never lost. Even as I took the decision to end my life - now years ago - only me having succeeded at that attempt could have snuffed out this inner flame that is the most essential core of my being. I can visualise it as this bright, yellow flame that pulsates softly with the beating of my heart. Sometimes it's a bit dimmer. Sometimes it moves uncertainly, as if there's a breeze threatening to extinguish it, but it's always been there.

I can close my eyes and slip inside myself, to that perfect darkness, with only this flame inside. To observe it, and with it myself. To observe my own state of being in an objective manner. To reach that point of perfect focus.


It is interesting that seemingly only through such negative experiences can one seem to truly reach this part of oneself, and with it change the way one sees the world. I remember all too well that when I first watched Star Trek Voyager during the 90s when it aired in the Netherlands, I was basically still a child, and I found too many episodes of the series to be rather boring, not getting a lot of it. Watching it a few years ago again, it was a completely different experience. Suddenly I could see and experience the profound sense of loss, frustration, hope and desperate struggle for survival, with almost every episode being this dark descent into despair and madness.

Then this profound sense of loss as Voyager made it back to Earth after all those years of struggling, and feeling this renewed sense of loss as now this family that had formed on the ship over the years would now be ripped apart.


I only started watching anime series after 2000, at which point I already appeared to have developed this sensitivity to loss. It has guided my preferences ever since, with each of those aforementioned series moving through a similar pattern. Some ending on a happy note, others hopeful, others bittersweet, others surrendering to the inevitable.

Now it seems that I can move forward, figuring out the sources of loss, and how to deal with it. Not that this is easy in any way. Much like how the main character in Knights of Sidonia can never truly forgive himself, or forget this one person whom he treasured most, it's more about giving such a strong sense of loss a place, framing the memories attached to it, and reminiscing about it when it's appropriate, without it controlling or even destroying one's life.

This is also where the story in Knights of Sidonia is so tough and recognisable to me, as it is not a clean loss, but something that keeps coming back, haunting one over and over, never allowing it to settle in a comfortable spot in one's memories, but growing new claws every time and rending new bloody gashes in one's psyche. Over and over. Then taking one's own hands and having one strangle the person you loved the most in front of your very eyes.


It's not an easy loss to cope with. It's why maybe the only way that I can fully deal with the losses which I have suffered is by actually getting the medical help needed to fully diagnose and treat my intersex condition, to fully reintegrate that part of me, and to allow me to give those traumas and associated sense of loss a place, instead of having every confrontation with doctors and kin being this new episode of those memories growing new fangs and claws, prior to them tearing into my flesh once again.

In order to heal, one must be given the opportunity to do so. To create this opportunity requires others to make this possible. This is hard in a society where most people are lost flames, unaware of their inner self, unable to reflect and understand the concept of loss. Unable to fully comprehend the unbridled joy that comes with something given freely, with a pure heart. A bright flame.


Maya

Your brain doesn't care what genitals you have

The concept of a sexually dimorphic brain has been a popular concept over many centuries, including as part of the nature-versus-nurture debate and related, such as when trying to explain the far higher rate of men committing (and becoming the victim of) crimes [1]. For the latter the current statistical trend shows that this big difference is becoming ever smaller. Much like with things such as cigarette smoking, it appears that social factors are mostly behind such differences, and not anything innate.

This is supported by recent research on whether there are any characteristics in the human brain that would allow us to differentiate brains into a 'male' or 'female' category [2]. The executive summary is that there is no such thing. As the PNAS study points out, human brains are mosaics of features and characteristics, with some more pronounced or formed in a particular way, but as a whole human brains are incredibly diverse.

While one could argue that some structures in the brain are more readily formed when, for example, specific (hormonal) triggers are present during brain development, and there is definitely sufficient evidence that shows that the development of the brain before birth is affected by a myriad of external factors, the human brain is essentially unisex.


This poses the interesting question of how this lack of dimorphism translates into the often used phrases about 'feeling like a woman', or 'feeling like a man'. Here, too, the social component appears to be responsible [3], with a 'gender social contract' or GSC forming an essential part of most societies. These GSCs essentially define what being a 'man' or 'woman' in that particular society entails.

Indeed, to the brain itself, the actual mapping of the body including the genitals does not differ between individuals with male or female primary sex characteristics. They are after all merely different configurations of the exact same organs, innervated by the exact same nerves. During sexual activity, brain activity is different between men and women, but this difference vanishes upon reaching orgasm [5], which considering especially the differences in the activation of the motor cortex in these studies could be argued to be mostly due to the different mechanical control requirements on the sides involved.


In a 2011 review study by Sedda [6] on the possible neurological causes behind Body Integrity Identity Disorder [7] (BIID), it is indicated that disruptions in the brain's somatosensory integration of the body's limbs may be due to some issue in the right parietal lobe, which would cause some parts of the body to be regarded as 'foreign' to the brain. Even though they can feel and see the affected limb, the parietal lobe issue causes the integration to fail.

Interestingly, body schema can also be affected with BIID in addition to body image. Here body schema refers to the dynamically updated awareness of where one's limbs and body are positioned in space at any given time. Body image is simply a description of the body. It is however argued that the terms of body image and body schema are too simplistic to fully cover the way that the brain integrates and maps the entirety of the body.

Fascinating about BIID is that the desire to have a limb amputated can change or even vanish. This might indicate a recovery of the SPL (superior parietal lobe) or other affected parts which originally caused the integration issue. All of this leads to the conclusion that perhaps the correct treatment for a disorder like BIID is not to perform the desired surgery, but to attempt to correct the underlying (neurological) cause without any surgery.


The mapping of the body to the brain is something which does not differ between individuals, as we all have the same basic body configuration. This is why something like phantom pains in people who have had limbs amputated is such a problem. Even with the physical limb gone, the mapping in the brain still exists and the parietal lobe among other parts of the brain keep trying to integrate it into one's perception.

This does however also mean that as long as the body part is still there, in whatever form or shape, the somatosensory experience is intact. In the case of individuals with more unique body configurations, such as true hermaphrodites (possessing both male and female genitals), the possession of both a vagina and a penis is of no concern, as there is no relevant innervation of the vagina, the penis is identical to the clitoris, and the presence of breasts is identical between men and women, despite absence of major fatty tissues and glands in the former.


As a hermaphroditic intersex person myself, this matches my own experiences quite well. My experience of 'gender' and the question of which sex I 'felt like' caused a great struggle for me, as I tried to make sense of these questions and concepts. In the end it became painfully obvious to me that none of those concepts and questions had any relevance to me, other than in a social context.

There are many things which I could change about my body's appearance within the context of sexuality, such as whether to have the penis reduced to a clitoris, undergo a mastectomy to have the (naturally developed) breasts removed, and of course have labia created in addition to having the (closed-off) vagina attached to the perineum (creating an entrance). Of these only the latter makes any sense to me, considering the negative consequences of having this closed-off vagina. Having labia is something completely optional to me, but since there's still skin literally hanging around there that serves no other purpose, one may as well.

The other two surgeries mentioned, they are about removing and reducing, involving invasive surgery, scarring and essentially damaging the body. They are surgeries which I would only consider in the context of something medically urgent, such as breast cancer. As my body did develop the way it did, however, I have no issues with accepting it the way it is. I feel no urge to conform to any kind of social standards, to be a 'typical woman' or 'typical man'. I got no need to compare my body in the context of 'male' or 'female'.


While reading through the studies that are now being published on this subject, and the strong evidence that the human brain does not in fact encode any kind of preference for a body configuration beyond essentially the expectation of at least having four limbs and five-fingered hands in addition to a few other bits hooked up, it makes one again understand why it's so easy for an intersex person to feel at home in an 'unusual' body, and for people born with extra parts or functionality (like the tetrachromats [8] among us).

There is also a limb attached to our body which we aren't normally aware of, even though it's still present: our tail. Though it ends in a little stump as it does for all ape species, if one were to make the appropriate genetic modifications, a human could have a fully developed tail, and it would feel as normal to have as one's arms.

All of this is to say that to try to cram the human body and its brain into one of two tiny boxes is to do a disservice to its amazing diversity, as well as the fascinating scientific reality that is only now unfolding for us.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime
[2] https://www.pnas.org/content/112/50/15468
[3] https://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/12/gender-is-social-contract-not-part-of.html
[4] https://www.bccn-berlin.de/news/unisex-genital-maps-in-the-brain.html
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19219848
[6] Body Integrity Identity Disorder: From A Psychological to A Neurological Syndrome (DOI 10.1007/s11065-011-9186-6)
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_dysphoria
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy

Some medical progress

Last Friday's GP appointment was both a big emotional step - once more stepping into the medical system - and surprisingly productive. The doctor with whom I had the appointment was friendly, open and was able to tell me a great deal more about what exactly is happening inside my abdomen.

The main cause of the extreme abdominal distension turned out to be not fluid, but gas that had gathered in the intestines. My previous GP had previously also noted that my intestines had sounded unusual, but on Friday the GP noted that the normal happy gurgling that intestines do was practically absent. This is indicative of bowel obstruction [1].


A possible cause of this bowel obstruction, the still present ascites and the other assortments of abdominal and perineal pains would be a combination of endometriosis and the still closed-off vagina which keeps menstrual fluids trapped inside the abdomen.

At this point I have to get the MRI scans and reports that are in my possession to the GP's office, after which the GP will contact me about the next steps, with ideally the fixing of these abdominal troubles and the reconstructive surgery for the vagina, all of which should help with ending the medical issues which have troubled me since I was eleven years old.


Thanks to this new knowledge I now know to drink a lot of peppermint tea and apply heat to the abdomen to control the worst of the abdominal issues. This should help me with waiting for these next steps and hopefully whatever comes next. Feeling optimistic about my chances here seems still very early day, but who knows, maybe things could work out after all?


Maya



[1] https://www.everydayhealth.com/digestive-health/diagnosing-and-treating-bowel-obstruction.aspx

Confronting severe ascites

I have written a few times before about my suspicion of having ascites [1]. As the symptoms have progressed from a grade 2 (bulging flanks) to the most severe grade 3 (>2L of fluids in abdomen), I have finally convinced myself to go to a doctor with it. With a bit of help from a friend who made the appointment for me, I'll hopefully find out a bit more during tomorrow's appointment.

It's disturbing enough by itself to look at oneself in the mirror and see an abdomen that would befit a 9-month old pregnant woman, while tapping one side of the abdomen causes ripples to travel across the skin to the other side of the abdomen. My best guess is that around five liters of fluid has collected in the abdomen at this point, with it clearly causing intense discomfort inside my abdomen, along with symptoms such as shortness of breath.

Looking up information on ascites, it's not a cheerful picture that one gets, as most cases of ascites are due to a small number of causes: one's liver is dying, one's kidneys are failing or one has some type of cancer. Though I'm fairly certain that it's neither of these three options, it's nevertheless a sobering realisation of the potential severity one might be dealing with.

Depending on how quickly the underlying cause will be found, I could be looking at severe dietary restrictions (low-sodium), regular draining of the fluid from the abdomen and other assorted fun. Considering that the Holidays are right around the corner, getting quick help seems unlikely. All one can do is hope for the best.


Merry X-Mas, I guess.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascites

Gender is a social contract, not a part of you

Societies are highly complex and interconnected structures. They involve having every member of a society essentially getting 'hired' into the society, upon which they accept an (unwritten) contract. This determines their basic rights and responsibilities. Most individuals start off like this when they are born, with their birth implicitly informing their consent.

A newborn gets the most basic of social contracts, which depending on the society usually at least includes the right to being fed and protected, with the parents or guardians being expected to ensure that this is all taken care of, and that no harm comes to the infant. Most societies codify this into their written laws as well.

As the infant grows up, this basic social contract keeps getting modified, with responsibilities and rights amended or removed. The specific society that the child grows up in determines a lot of the exact format, due to peculiarities of traditional culture and formal law. Whether a child is born into a rich, well-off or poor family also massively determines the exact contents of the social contract.


Within this framework, it is easy to answer a question of the type 'what is a typical male?', or 'what is a typical woman?'. It all depends on the exact societal framework that one works with. Depending on one's (perceived) biological sex, one's social contract is amended based on the (unwritten) social rules in that society. This so-called 'gender role' is a specific sub-type of a social contract, which tends to have its roots more often than not in social and cultural traditions.

The exact content of such a Gender Social Contract (GSC) differs strongly per society and per time period, with the exact set of requirements and rights differing wildly. A GSC also forms only one of the possible foundation contracts, with the 'social status' contract being decidedly more relevant.

To then answer the question of 'what is a typical male?', one would have to define within which society, which time period, with which social status, and also with the modifiers of marital status and whether or not the individual has offspring. Ditto for the question of 'what is a typical woman?'.

Essentially, all of us in a society are raised to be lawyers, recognising the subtleties of each individual social contract, trying to amend or circumvent them where possible, and sometimes changing them by force. An example of the latter is when the suffragette women were dissatisfied with the GSC for women in Western societies excluding the right to personhood, and with it the ability to vote in elections, sign their own legal contracts, and so on. Their intense protests resulted in the GSC for women to be modified to include roughly the same rights as in the 'male' GSC.


The assignment of a GSC is determined solely by one's biological sex, which leads to unfortunate consequences in the case of intersex children, whereby at birth it is clear that the child is neither strictly male nor female. Since no intersex GSC exists in most societies, the child is surgically modified to make it fit a GSC, instead of vice versa.

One way to change one's social contract, including the GSC, is by modifying one's physical appearance. This can result in a breach of contract, which results in society modifying and amending one's social contract until order is once again restored. This is usually also the way that new generations end up modifying a society, by invoking changes and alterations that ultimately begin to affect a society on a more fundamental level instead of just for one or more individuals.


As someone like myself, who switched from a male to a female GSC on account of being a hermaphrodite and a written law entry allowing for a GSC change in that case without physical alterations, it's interesting to look back on the past years, and see all of the above play out pretty much as I have just written. It's something that has made me think a lot about one's sense of identity and that of belonging in a society.

Obviously, there is no intersex or hermaphrodite GSC in Western society. The lot of us are essentially 'freaks of nature', with the basic option being to awkwardly conform to the system-as-is, or to provoke change. The latter being exceedingly difficult, as I have had the displeasure of noticing. When a new 'GSC' is being drafted up for intersex people by society, it attempts to either put us away as sub-humans with the definition of 'disorders of sex development' (DSD), or 'third gender', along with other unwanted non-conformists.


Ideally we'd just drop this 'GSC' thing, as it isn't based on any physical reality. Yet societies loathe change, which is why the lot of us will be stuck juggling GSCs and social contract amendments and alterations like the overworked, underpaid attorney lackeys we are.


Maya

Freeing the child: overcoming childhood trauma

My previous blog post was rather dramatic, being written while I was working my way through a pretty big shift in my psyche. Then I described it like 'waking up', and re-establishing direct contact with my body. Now, a few days later, the effect persists, and I have been able to examine what I think has changed.

Back when I was about five years old, I found myself running away from an adult male who had apparently tried to harm me in some way. I ran into a dark room where I tried to hide. The adult didn't enter the room after me, but just stood here in the door frame. He yelled at me that it was all my fault, before slamming the door close. I was left behind in that cold, dark room. All silent and abandoned by myself.

Regardless of whether my mind is able to recall exactly what happened to me as a child, the effect was the same: part of me never managed to leave that room. Never managed to stop crying, dry those tears, open the door and leave. That part of me would remain there, always tangible in the back of my mind as this persistent sensation of intense sadness and agony.

Anything that would happen to me would also happen to this child in the dark room. It felt as though as the years progressed, the differences between the child and me strained the link ever more, with me never really able to live in either the past or present. As I was being tortured by doctors, psychologists and others on account of my intersex condition it was basically a straight repetition of what the child could still remember vividly, as for the child - this traumatised part of me - it had only just happened.


I'm not exactly sure what allowed this situation to change, but the past days, every time I access this part of my mind where this dark room with the child used to be, the room is now sunny and empty, with the door ajar. The child has managed to leave, open the door and has become a part of me again. It's a curious feeling to describe, and it almost sounds like something what a mad person would say, only I never heard voices or the like.

It's more as though this traumatic event of decades past has now been given a place, finally allowing me as a person to become whole again. I really get it why they say that childhood trauma can literally steal one's life away, because that's how it feels to me. As though in some ways I am still that 5-year old child, albeit with the intellect and memories of someone much older and wiser.

Most of the conflict that I felt inside my head is now gone, and a strange calm has settled. I feel more capable of handling day to day things, and generally less terrified of the world around me. I guess that really was the child projecting its terrors on my mind.


It's interesting to look back over the past months, how I exposed myself to a number of anime series that managed to evoke very strong emotions inside of me, allowing me get into touch with my humanity, as I phrased it in recent blog posts. In a sense I think that it were those stories which really chipped away at the defences that my traumas had created inside of my psyche. Sometimes it's that kind of exposure therapy which is the only real way forward, even if it hurts a lot.

It feels like I am actually alive now, and actually here, right now, in this moment. Not like until a few days ago, when this strange split between the past and present persisted.

Although I'm sure that my therapist sessions also contributed to this step forward, I feel that discussions with friends and my binge-watching of this recent set of series (for full disclosure: Death Parade, Black Lagoon and Knights of Sidonia) were the final triggers needed to break down those last defences. It was while watching one of the last episodes of the second season of Knights of Sidonia when some things really clicked, also because of a certain character in that series who happens to be somewhat like me.


Here's to being human.


Maya

To finally wake up from a life-long nightmare

Those moments of hyper-awareness. When I am aware of this body of mine. Of what it is. Of what it is changing into. Of it growing into an adult woman's body. Of me being fully unprepared of dealing with this.

I was never prepared to grow up with an intersex body like this. For all of my life I have just been pretending it was either a male or a female body, even when the former was a lie, and the latter only a half-truth.

I can feel it now. My body. I can see the slender, feminine hands. I can feel my body respond exactly like a woman's body would. I'm a woman. Yet I'm also not. I can feel years of memories, of traumatic experiences fighting back against this notion. I can feel the pain of having to pretend that my body is that of a woman, even though I know that's not what I am. Even as it keeps transforming.

A puberty that takes decades, instead of a mere part of one. Nothing of this makes any sense. Yet it is the truth that I must accept. Somehow.


Even as I go through this, I must find ways to make money. Because I'm an adult. Because otherwise I'll likely die. I also must make myself see a doctor again. Because of the ascites. Because of the nausea and feeling sick. Because my body is transforming and changing in ways that may harm or kill me. Yet I cannot convince myself.


This is my body. This body is me. I can feel it so strongly. Soft and feminine. All of the masculine features I was told I had a lie.


Nobody around me can help me understand this body. I feel like a child in an adult's body. It's too soon, too early for me to be forced to grow up like this. Why did my body suddenly have to grow up like this? Why is everyone expecting me to be an adult?


On one hand this body of mine. This female body that's finally growing out of its teenage phase. On the other those fifteen... no, twenty-odd years of what surely must have been a nightmare, of me being trapped in a child's body, with adults telling me to grow up, to accept that I had to be a male, a teenage guy, no, a transsexual guy. The horrendous nightmare of endless physical examinations, of one medical judgement after another. Condemning me to be a guy. To be transsexual. To be something which I know I never was. Something which I now know that I could never have been.

My mind is tearing itself apart as it tries to make sense of what cannot possibly exist in reality. Of what cannot be held to be all of the truth in one's mind.


I'm an adult woman now. Yet I'm also a hermaphrodite. An adult hermaphrodite woman who was lied to for decades by doctors. By psychologists. By anyone who was supposed to have a clue about human physiology. About intersex. About stlarning transsexuality.

This must be what it feels like to finally wake up from a nightmare. One that has lasted for one's entire life.


Yet what to do next? I woke up to find myself alone, in a dark, cold room. In a world where my real identity doesn't exist and will likely not ever be acknowledged. Where I'm starting from scratch, it feels like. Outside it's dark and quiet. I must have a plan to deal with this outside world. Somehow I must find a way to exist in this world.


Can you help me?


Maya

Analysing my body's decades-long stumbling through puberty

In previous writings I have mentioned this 'second puberty' that I felt that I was experiencing, but after looking it more closely, it's more of an excessively drawn out puberty. When using the commonly used Tanner scale [1][2] and putting it alongside the symptoms which I have noticed since the age of 11, I can now clearly see the struggle my body went through over the decades.

Age 11 was when I noticed early breast development, along with my hips beginning to widen. Over time both this female and male secondary development slowed to where I was left in essentially in a Tanner III stage, with neither full breast development nor any of the typical male characteristics, aside from the development of penis. As the biopsy of the removed testicles in 2011 showed, they had never entered the spermagenesis stage of development.

At this point in time, the female side of my body appeared to be stuck in a Tanner II or III stage when it came to the breasts, but with no clear development of the vagina into the multi-layer structure yet [3], as judged by the near-dozen MRI scans that were made of that region between 2007 and 2014. These showed the vaginal structure in the lateral views, running from the perineum to the top of the bladder, but without the characteristic 'H'-shaped structure when looked at it in the top-down views.

The clear presence of a vagina indicates that the testicles while present did not produce sufficient Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) to have terminated development of the müllerian (paramesonephric) ducts that would go on to develop the upper part of the the vagina, the uterus and surrounding structures. Though the top one-third of the vagina appears to be present in those MRI scans, a uterus cannot be distinguished on them, nor ovaries.

Clearly, the interesting thing is that after puberty ground to a halt in my early teenage years, it seems to have resumed again in 2015, 3-4 years after the late 2011 orchiectomy that saw those undeveloped testicles removed. This may hold clues as to why the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) (with estradiol) seemed to have very little effect on my body, despite being on it from 2007 to 2014. Some triggers appear to have been missing.

This led to the sudden estradiol overdose effect when the estradiol sensitivity of my body apparently became significant, with female development akin to Tanner IV and V taking place over the course of the past four years. Most noticeable being the significant growth of the breasts, going from a small A cup to a regular B (so far), in the complete absence of HRT, with seemingly my body winding its way through the Tanner V stage towards full maturation as an adult female. It's also noticeable in my hips and overall body and skin tone.

The abdominal swelling and suspected ascites that started around 2015 appears to be linked with this as well. As part of female puberty involves the enlarging and development of the vagina, uterus and ovaries, this could provide hints as to why I am having these pains and sensations of discomfort in my abdomen and perineum. Considering my unusual physiology, any such changes to organs and randomly distributed tissues in my abdomen could easily lead to ascites as abdominal tissues respond to these changes in a negative way.


What would be interesting at this point is to have a new abdominal MRI scan made, as the first scan since before the resumption of puberty. Could one now see an adult vaginal structure, including the multi-layer mucosa, surrounded by a bright, white line? Is the uterus truly missing, or did some vestigial tissues there respond and grow? What would have happened to the ovarian tissue that's likely also present in my abdomen, as evidenced by my natural estradiol cycle (recorded in early 2018 by a gynaecologist)?

At this point I'm on a low-sodium diet in an attempt to keep the ascites-like symptoms under control, which seems to have a positive effect. Heading back into the fray of the medical system is not something which I am looking forward to, however. Though my body is very clear at this point about finishing up the development of these secondary female characteristics, the medical system and the people in it doesn't appear to have evolved to the point where a hermaphroditic intersex person doesn't simply get laughed away as 'yet another transsexual'.

That's a trauma which I'm absolutely not looking forward to facing again, and is essentially the reason why despite me feeling practically pregnant with these ascites symptoms I haven't bothered to see a doctor about it again this year.

As for my body, I do hope that it will follow a natural course here. Simply finish up this whole puberty thing after what feels like a lifetime and leave me with nothing more serious than the issue of the still closed-off vagina and the monthly discomfort and agony. Though I am on a contraception pill now to suppress most of those symptoms, I'm well aware of this not being a fix but instead merely treating the symptoms.


Maya


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanner_scale
[2] https://www.healthline.com/health/parenting/stages-of-puberty
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puberty#Vagina,_uterus,_ovaries
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-M%C3%BCllerian_hormone

Why transhumanism is wrong and humans are terrible at being human

The essence of life and the human condition have been two things which have been on my mind since a young age. Not merely that of any meaning which one could ascribe to existence itself, or the state of being alive. No, the biggest question to me has always been what it means to be human. Over the years it's become painfully obvious to me that people conflate the fact of possessing a human (biological) body with actually being human. While the latter requires the former, the former does not imply the latter.

To be human is to have an awareness of one's feelings and emotions, along with the perception and empathy with other people's feelings. It means a purity of mind, of a desire to move away from the harshness of the natural world in which our species evolved, towards a world in which joy and happiness are paramount and eternal. Even if it is not achievable in our lifetime, we will nevertheless persevere, because that's what it means to be human.

The premise behind transhumanism is that we humans as a species are fundamentally limited by our bodies and minds, and that only by somehow transcending these limitations, we can become something more, something better. This dogmatic view ignores the fundamental truth that for thousands of years now there have been human beings around who have excelled or excel at being human. Because they have found and embraced their humanity. We don't need to change, we merely need to discover what we already have right now.


Similarly, humanity as a whole is confused, struggling with itself as it cannot seem to find its humanity. Even though society as a whole is gradually moving closer to this ideal humanistic world, it's not hard to find examples of those who make this transition harder than it should be. The most egregious example of this being the wanton cruelty inflicted upon others, especially the cruelty inflicted in the name of human-made rules, such as austerity programs, religions and other dogmatic systems.

To be human is to want more goodness and fewer worries for everyone. That's why we humans invented healthcare, discovered vaccines and antibiotics, as well as ways to repair a body damaged by disease or injury. Because fundamentally a human being does not believe in suffering. Not that of themselves, nor that of others.


Maybe I am wrong about every human having this capability to feel and empathise. Maybe it is indeed merely a fluke in a vanishingly small percentage of humanity which allows these individuals to only selflessly desire change for the good of humankind. Yet I do not see how changing our bodies or even achieving immortality of our bodies would make us more human. That's where I see that transhumanism is completely missing the point.

What we need to understand better is how humanism exists within a person. Whether it's indeed this fluke, in which case humanity as a whole would never achieve the level of understanding and empathy that is required for the humanist dream. Meanwhile, we will continue to take away worries for many, even if it's the unintended fallout from actions by the selfish and wealthy. Healthcare will improve, diseases will fade, life-threatening diseases and injuries will become routine operations. Death becoming a thing of the past.

But will it be part of the humanist dream, of humanity collectively realising its humanity and finding enlightenment that way? Or will it be the dystopian nightmare continuing well into this future, with the vanishingly small minority of the haves ruling over the have-nots, showing that humanity has not progressed a millimeter since the heydays of the Industrial Revolution or long before that?


I will keep the humanist's dream alive, even if it's just inside my heart. I hope many more people will do the same.


Maya

Moments when one truly is alive

Perhaps the most ironic thing about feeling alive is that it's something of which is only truly aware when the numbness of merely existing subsides. When one's thoughts during the day consist mostly out of reminders of one's duty and unpleasant recollections of previous failures, the world around you will keep turning a shade more grey and dull every moment. When one feels haunted by one's past, more rocks keep getting added to this weight that is slowly crushing one's soul and spirit.

To then be reminded of what it is like to feel alive is both a wondrously amazing and yet exceedingly excruciating experience. While feeling the lightness, colours and happiness flood one's system, it is impossible to not start crying. To release the pain, to celebrate the feeling of being alive and to embrace the warmth of hope and faith. That there is more to this world than duty and repressing past failures and traumas. That life can be a world filled with merry laughter and warmth.


Remembering those moments when one is only distantly aware of the fact that one's body is really, that this world in which this body exists and moves around in is real. What's real, after all?

Haunted by the pain of the past, of being lied to and deceived. One remembers being a boy, only one wasn't a boy. That was all a lie. One remembers being told things by doctors. By psychologists. By random people. One's mind briefly revisits childhood traumas. One tries to remember that although all of it was real once, it is now in the past. It all blends together into this frantic and unrelenting assault on one's sanity. Past. Present. Future. Which way is which again?


Some rare moments I can feel my spirit lifted up and the bleakness of merely existing lifted through unexpected means. Such as through a well-written love story, where the characters truly feel like they could exist and their struggles and relationship feels genuine. Or a bitter-sweet film, where self-sacrifice somehow offers hope to many others. Moments when one can feel the raw emotions welling up inside of one's chest, with nothing in between to deaden or hide it. Suddenly everything all seems so clear and the world so full of life.

It makes one feel that life is indeed worth living. Not out of duty or obligation, but because one is filled with the passion of life, and one is a human being who can experience all of those aspects of life, while sharing those experiences with others.


It's such a difference from living with the bleakness of merely existing and false hope. When the euphoria wears off again, it's all too easy to slip back into the shadows. Feel the warm glow of loving and being loved back slowly cool and fade until it feels fake and forced. Accept that it was all just a play of one's emotions, unrelated to reason and one's humanity. Or was it?

Maybe it are those moments when we truly allow our humanity to shine through, when we are no longer bound by the shackles our minds have created over the years. Accepting this would however highlight the tragedy of most 'social gatherings', which appear to be driven primarily out of duty and obligation, not because it is truly because we want it, or because it makes us feel alive.

Can you feel the pain inside? Can you feel the weight crushing your spirit, even as you lie to yourself? Again?

Are you happy? Do you feel alive? Do you want to cry in rage and pain?

Do you feel like sobbing uncontrollably in joy? Do you feel your heart overflowing with love?

Do you feel human?

Do you exist?


Are you alive?


Maya

Happy human humanism

There's always been a significant amount of chatter and debate on the nature of humankind, and the state as well as the direction of society. Whether we talk about the glory days of the Akkadian Empire, the Babylonian era that followed it, the pip-squeak nations and empires of the Ancient Greek and Romans, or the fresh-faced societies that appeared after medieval times in Europe, many a philosopher, politician and common folk have seen fit to comment on those points.

A big constant in those many thousands of years has been the struggle between essentially the supernatural and rational schools of thoughts. One advocating humankind and this Earth as some kind of set piece in a game between supernatural beings that far exceed our capability of reason and power. The latter advocating humankind as individuals in a world that can only be understood if regarded and interpreted in a rational, logical fashion. The former school of thought promotes religion and so-called spiritualism. The latter is commonly referred to as humanism.


When it comes to my own views, it has likely helped that I grew up in an environment where religion was practically absent, and critical thought encouraged. Unshackled by views forced onto me while still developing my thinking skills, I have always found the concept of humankind being a set piece somewhat ridiculous. It was quite obvious to me that everything that I could see around me and see on television was humans doing things to other human beings. Whether they were nice or not so nice things.

The main issue I see with the non-rational school of thought when it comes to humankind's position in this world is that there is no evidence to support it. Though many are adamant that there's 'something more' and that 'some things cannot be explained', scientific progress over the past centuries has shown that the only place where this way of thinking truly flourishes is within the gaps of our knowledge and understanding. Religion and spiritualism are therefore symptoms of ignorance where our brain tries to fill in the gaps, finding patterns and understanding where there is none.


Realistically, I have always been a humanist, in the sense that I acknowledge that there are no higher powers other than us humans, with societies shaped by our intellectual capabilities and our other defining features. There are no gods or mysterious forces to take into account. No gods to communicate with or take orders from. Our lives are not determined by supernatural beings, but our own to live and decide about. Mostly, that is.

While in essence we can decide about our own fate and lives, sadly too many in society are born, grow up and will die in a society that is in every way as restrictive as the gods of religious texts could impose on their followers. The cruelty of religious and other dogma, that of induced economical scarcity of resources, the denying of education, healthcare, affordable housing and a happy existence based on one's social status, etc. All of those things are inflicted by human beings upon other human beings.

Nobody told them to do those things. Much like with the horrors inflicted during war time, the horrors we inflict upon others during peace time happen because at some point societies and groups of people become more than just individuals, and irrational rules and laws take on their own life, perpetuated in a system that's both formed out of individual human beings, and which strips those same individuals from their ability to self-determinism, freedom and all too often happiness.


The injustices in modern society are simply too many. Yet we humans keep finding ways to get around fixing them. Whether it's tradition, pure inertia or simply a sense of helplessness. We can see a family become homeless through no fault of their own and struggle for survival on the streets. We can walk past a beggar without a shred of guilt. We watch armed conflicts on the news with emotional detachment, even as pictures of dead and starving civilians pass by. Because those things simply happen, and we as an individual are powerless to do anything about it.

In a sense things like nationalism, greed, egoism, cognitive bias and so on are at the core of society's problems. They are problems because they are not rational and therefore unhelpful or even outright harmful. They impede progress, are the very reason behind conflict and the rejection of new ideas.


If I hold a belief it is that I believe that although humans are the very cause of most human suffering, those same humans also have the capability to prevent and end this suffering. By making a fairer society that's based on reason and intellectualism, one could create a world in which it truly does not matter what kind of environment one is born into. Instead of a dystopian society where your social station and success in life depends on your birth and matching the right requirements to qualify for preferential treatment, we could have a society in which needless suffering is eradicated.

It could be a society where any problem by an individual is seen as a problem for the entire society, with everyone pitching in to their abilities to resolve the problem. A society which works towards a common goal of making life better for everyone, instead of giving you a 'tough cookies' if your ability to self-exploit yourself for progressing in society isn't quite strong enough.


Here I think that a society as portrayed in the original Star Trek series (especially The Next Generation) hits many of the right notes, where people live to improve themselves, not because they must, but because they want to. They aren't being forced to exploit themselves through working menial and unwanted jobs, but they are motivated to seek the parts of themselves which they'd like to improve, regardless of whether it's in social studies, art, medicine, or some branch of science.

I think the most wonderful thing about that vision is that it'd finally end the role of our animal past, putting behaviour and simple hormonal needs behind us and instead finally embracing our humanity.


Maya

Identity unknown

Everything changes. I feel myself dragged along with the changes.

A home. Work. Fading stress.

New questions. Restless feelings and emotions.


Every day trying to convince myself to do the work that needs doing, yet feeling ever more unsettled by feelings of hopelessness and despair.

What's the meaning of the work I do? Of the projects I do in my spare time? Though it feels okay while I can push myself into doing some writing and programming, it's hard to see it all go anywhere. To see a future.

I cannot even see myself any more. Or maybe I never really did. This body of mine sometimes feels like that of a stranger. Other times I can just feel helpless rage and incredible sadness when I consider this body. When I consider being intersex and the many years of doctors and psychologists forcing the identity of a transsexual male on me instead of listening to me and performing medical tests, I just want to scream and cry.

The traumas and confusion of the past decades blur together even as I can still see the good memories during those years through my tears.


Every day I can feel that something isn't right inside my body as it goes through its monthly cycle. The constant distension that keeps worsening along with weight gain. The pain and discomfort in the lower abdomen and perineum that only subsides briefly after each cycle.

I should go to a doctor with it. Just like I have been trying for the past years. Last year started off with me getting exploratory surgery to investigate these pains, but like with every examination attempt but the proper surgery in 2011, nothing ever results from it. I cannot motivate myself any more to consider going to a doctor at this point, as it'd only add to the pain and trauma.

I have had a few people contact me who told me that they're intersex. They invariably ask for advice and help. Yet what can I offer there? Just tales of trauma and disappointment. Of decades wasted on ignorant, arrogant doctors and kin, and a lifetime of regrets for having wasted so many years on what turned out to be fruitless? I failed to find help. I can do nothing more about this intersex thing except hope that it doesn't cause real medical problems beyond chronic pain at some point.

Life would have been so much better if I wasn't born intersex. If intersex didn't exist. If it all just went up and vanished. Just like all of this other gender and sexuality and related nonsense. All it means to me is pain and suffering. I hate all of it. I wish I could just rip it out of my body. Become just a human being and leave the suffering behind that come with those disgusting things.


In some parallel universe I guess there was a me who did write that autobiography, didn't waste years on the useless medical system and who is doing pretty darn well. As for the me in this universe, I guess that person will be struggling month after month to keep up the energy to make enough to pay the rent and food, while still dreaming of a future in which everything will be better, without struggling and worries about health and such.

It's nice to be able to lie to oneself to not lose all hope.


Maya

PTSD and mazes with only dead-ends

Admitting to something being wrong is the first step. Doing something about it is the second step. Both are essential. That's where PTSD therapy is essential. It's all very obvious and clear-cut. Admit the problem, get treatment. As neat and orderly as running unarmed into a war zone and getting gunned down. Nothing about it is clear-cut. It's just another phase in a war that seemingly won't ever end.

Though I have had psychotherapy for my PTSD at my current therapist for over a year now, it's only recently that my therapist deemed my current situation stable enough that we could start with the actual PTSD treatment, in the form of trauma (memory) integration therapy. This essentially involves digging out memories to create an ever more coherent timeline of memories, to ultimately approach and explore the traumatic memories.


I have forgotten so much. No, not forgotten, but tossed to the side, not thought about them, because they weren't important. Memories of being a child, of growing up, of looking at the future ahead of me. Of the person who I was, and who and what I thought I would become. This PTSD-induced narrative that my mind evolved over the years is however pervasive.

It's hard to put it into words. Probably mostly because the trauma-induced narrative that one's brain produces isn't rational. That's why one often feels so frustrated and angry with oneself, because what should be easy and clear just isn't working, or takes much longer than it should. Things that are easy for others seem complicated and take up a lot of energy. Thus one feels angry with oneself. Blames oneself.

Others will perceive this frustration and anger as being targeted at them, or interpret your internal struggles as you being slow or inattentive. The resulting external struggles in addition to one's internal struggles leads one to feel as though one is trapped inside a maze with the exit visible behind many doors, only to see them slammed close before they can get to them. Because they're too slow. Because they don't measure up. Because there's no reason for you to keep trying any more. Because it's better to give up.


This week's first trauma integration session already loosened up a lot of memories that I had thought gone or buried. Many impressions and sensations I haven't experienced in years. The flood of emotions that comes with this is overwhelming. And this is just the beginning.

I thought I knew who I was. The child back then thought it knew who it was. Now it's time to pull on all those loose threads and see what happens.


Maya

Vlog: Finding my self again

The brain of a childhood abuse victim

The realisation that we are our brain rarely feels more relevant than when considering the impact of childhood on an individual's development and the adult which they'll ultimately become. With half of the neuronal connections within the brain getting pruned between the age of 3 and adulthood, massive structural changes occurs occur within the brain during this period.

Little wonder, then, that essentially anything that a child experiences will impact which connections will get pruned or rewired and what the child's adult brain will end up look like. This is most apparent when it comes to victims of childhood abuse and neglect [1]. By exposing the young brain to a high-threat environment, it has been observed that this makes the amygdala (part of the emotional regulatory system and fight or flight mechanism) less responsive.

Along with the hippocampus (responsible for short-term memory handling), both regions thus become optimised for a high-threat, high-stress environment. While great for surviving such an environment, this adaptation makes it hard to impossible for those such affected to thrive in an environment where no such threats exist. Especially dealing with diverse, non-threatening emotions becomes exceedingly hard, with in the most extreme cases children being unable to distinguish between emotions such as sadness and anger.

Along with the hyper-vigilence and inability to regulate their emotional state, this can pose severe difficulties in the interaction with others. Since the child's brain is tuned for a high-threat environment, warnings by adults or certain actions by peers can be interpreted as a prelude to imminent danger, causing the child to display overly aggressive or aversive behaviour. In turn, this leads the former to issue sterner warnings and proceed with more aggressive forms of punishment and the like, continuing the cycle.

Abuse and symptoms

Not all types of childhood abuse are the same, obviously, and each will have a different set of common symptoms in the affected children [2]. In the case of sexual abuse victims: "Disclosure is the most obvious indication of sexual abuse. Age-inappropriate sexual behaviour or excessively sexualized behaviour might be an indicator of abuse. Indirect signs can include any of the following:"

• acting out (with aggression or anger);
• withdrawal;
• regression;
• fears, phobias, and anxiety;
• sleep disturbance or nightmares;
• changes in eating habits;
• altered school performance;
• mood disturbances;
• enuresis or encopresis;
• running away;
• self-destructive behaviour; or
• antisocial behaviour (eg, lying, stealing, cruelty to animals, fire-setting)

   
This combines with symptoms from Box 2 in the previous link, which includes an aversion to physical contact, even with caretakers and close family, as well as low self-esteem and the feeling that one deserves anything bad that happens and any form of punishment, since obviously one is a bad person.

Adulthood

For most victims of childhood abuse and neglect the consequences persist into adulthood, where their struggle with emotions and stress responses causes many issues [3][4][5][6]. Their views of the world and other people will be more negative than average, and the difficulty in recognising positive emotions causes significant friction in the interaction with others. Many will end up in abusive relationships that imitate the original environment in which they grew up, others will exhibit risky and/or extreme sexual or otherwise self-destructive behaviour as they find themselves struggling with a low-threat environment. A number will attempt suicide.

Other common issues include homelessness, substance abuse including alcohol and drugs, criminal and violent behaviour, as well as mental health issues. The latter includes depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and a range of related disorders. Finally, another major impact of childhood abuse appears to be medical, in that the affected individual will suffer more medical issues over time, likely caused both by the effects of the initial high-stress environment on the child's development immune system and the results of the later high-risk behaviour and unhealthy life style choices.

A personal note

Repressing memories of the traumatic events is apparently also quite common, even as the neurological effects do not change. This is how I was able to believe for many years that I had had a normal childhood and youth, with a caring family and a safe environment. Even as I was exhibiting many of the symptoms of child abuse during this time and well into adulthood. By being ever more confronted with my own behaviour and the reasoning behind it, it has forced me to quite literally dig into my oldest memories to put things together.

A few years ago this led to the resurfacing of a recollection of being physically or sexually abused. Likely the latter as I remember lying on this surface, with two or more adults present, touching my undressed child's body. I think I must have hurt one of them as I struggled to get away. Next I remember is me running and ending up in this dark room with no way out. Then this adult male standing in the doorway and yelling at me that it's 'all my fault' before slamming the door close. Leaving the child alone in that dark room.

If it was just that apparent recollection I might have dismissed it as just a dream or fantasy, but long before this my mother would tell me that around the age of 5 I suddenly went from this open, energetic and super-friendly child to a withdrawn child, who didn't even allow their own mother to touch them, instead flinching away from any form of physical contact. Over the following years one can then track a pattern of similar symptoms that are typical of abuse as discussed earlier.

I still do not know who might have abused me, how many times or for how long it happened. I do know that a cousin of mine committed suicide after growing into a young adult because she could not live with the memories and lack of support in the family where an uncle and grandfather sexually abused her along with a number of other young girls. Especially after a legal error set the two criminals free again. Things like that are too close for comfort, and it makes one wonder about other dark secrets. Maybe even ones involving one's 5-year old self.



I'm beginning to realise that what I'm struggling with for years now are essentially the results of childhood abuse, combined with years of social rejection and bullying at school, followed by years of rejection and ridicule by doctors and psychologists regarding my intersex condition. Oh, and getting raped, sexually and psychologically abused on multiple occasions because I too fell for the lure of high-risk, abusive environments like so many of child abuse victims.

In a sense it's comforting, I guess, that I appear to be such a textbook-style case of child abuse. By realising that what's 'wrong' with me is that my brain is simply tuned for an environment which hasn't really existed since I was a child. That the way to hopefully fix this is to correct for this behaviour by being more aware of it, hopefully forcing my brain to stop living life as though there's a child rapist and murderer behind every corner. In the midst of a war zone and zombie apocalypse.

The many years of doctors and kin mistreating me the way they did has done me no service, and they will likely never relent, but there are things which I can control and fix. Together with my therapist I can dive back into what really happened, finally release that child from the dark room and show it that there can be a life after such an event. To evaluate life and other people not as a potential source of threats, but as a potential source of interesting and fun interactions and experiences.


It sounds terribly easy when I write it like that. And that's sadly the thing with cases like mine. One can cover up the literal emotional damage to one's brain with intelligence and reasoning, but in the end one is still one's brain, and just like a broken leg one cannot just wish the physical damage away. It will take time and good care to make things heal and go back to the way things were. Just like a broken leg it will however never be quite the same again.


Here's to the long road to recovery.


Maya


[1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/122/3/667
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3743691/
[3] https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/somatic-psychology/201104/the-lingering-trauma-child-abuse
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117717/
[5] https://www.nap.edu/read/2117/chapter/8
[6] https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/effects-child-abuse-and-neglect-adult-survivors

I'm completely alone as a hermaphrodite

Now that the immediate urgency of being homeless, various legal matters and health issues have subsided or vanished with me having moved into a new apartment, it seems only fair that other matters would suddenly push into the foreground. Such as this little matter of me being intersex. And not just a weird little genetic gotcha like (C)AIS or XXY, but in the form of a full-blown chimeric condition called a true hermaphrodite in medical terms.

Which is to say that in Western society I do not exist. Theoretically there should be more people like me around in the West, and thousands around the world. Yet I have never met anyone else like me. Among the dozens of doctors and other medical specialists none of them had ever encountered one either, or they had merely opted to ignore the details and just 'normalised' the babies or infants born with both male and female genitals.

I guess I am an oddity in that I managed to reach adulthood without getting tossed into the hellscape of 'intersex treatments' [1] first. Yet as an escapee I still will not learn answers to the many questions I have about my body. About this second puberty that I'm still in the midst of. In how far the abdominal pains that I suffer are normal for someone with a mostly female phenotype. Why old scars are suddenly vanishing and I seem to be getting younger in appearance over the past few years since this second puberty started.

With no answers forthcoming, I'm left to try and live my life. Even ignoring the childhood and other assorted traumas that I got handed, it's so incredibly lonely and frustrating to feel that one is the only person of one's kind in this world. Though I managed to at least improve the dissonance by having my official sex changed from male to female, it's not a fix. It's still not who and what I am.


Because of the many negative experiences I have had over the past decade, I feel both cursed and stuck with this body of mine. True, one is still a human being, but by not having my intersex and hermaphroditic nature acknowledged, it feels as though I'm only allowed to partially exist. As long as I pretend that I'm just a regular woman who has had a regular youth and regular female puberty, I can get along fine. Since I'm physically primarily female, suffer through the same joys of monthly periods and everything as every other woman, I can share in everything minus the part where I have to admit that I was born infertile, let alone that I bleed internally because my labia have merged.

It's as though I am two people: the part that society accepts, and the part which will not ever be acknowledged.


The same thing is true in any relationship. There's always the feeling that there's this cultural divide, with either side growing up in a different world. People will often tell me that they 'get it' what my life must be like as a hermaphroditic intersex person, but do they really? The many years of confusion and fear as one's body does things which do not make sense as puberty kicks in, along with an increasing dissonance as the image society tries to project on your body becomes more and more mismatched.

Naturally, the only way that I could have grown up as a 'girl', officially, would have been if it was discovered when I was born that I am a hermaphrodite and they had opted to chop off the penis and not rip out the vagina and other female bits, which would be roughly a 50/50 bet. That my current situation forces me to consider myself to be 'lucky' is possibly the saddest part of all. I made it without suffering genital mutilation.


There's the knowledge of what still has been done to me, as well as the questions which I will likely never have answered, not to mention the cold certainty of always feeling like a one of a kind, sort of freak of nature. All of this makes me seriously consider whether life has much to offer to me. Whether I'll ever be truly happy, or whether it'll always be this intense feeling of loneliness and sadness that fills my heart. It often hurts so much just to live through another day, let alone for me to consider my future.

Maybe if humanity decided that we could let go of this 'male' and 'female' distinction, and just treated everyone as a human being, without having to conform to unrealistic labels. As things stand, however, all I can do at this point is play along with society's game even as my heart yearns to finally be allowed to be myself, along with all others who are like me.


Maya


[1] http://mayaposch.com/intersex-controversy.php

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

Identity is an interesting concept. We like to think of ourselves as individuals, as singular entities with identities (personalities) that are unique and unchangeable. This means that as a child, we only get asked what we would want to be when we grow up. Which mostly just means what kind of job you'd be most interested in. This changes over time as our personalities develop and change.

In the end one's identity is composed out of the memories one has collected over the years, combined with one's experiences. Having presumably learned from one's mistakes and successes, and having made note of what worked for others, one will have changed one's behaviour to become more efficient and presumably happier.

Yet the question that rarely gets asked of children is who they want to be when they grow up. What kind of person, do they favour kindness and empathy over a colder, more business-like approach to others? Some of this is in obviously covered in the kind of job they profess interest for, but I imagine it would be enlightening to address this more directly. Not just for children either.

Even as a child I'd be wrestling with lots of questions about life, and found a willing person to bounce such thoughts off in my mum. She had gone through plenty of less pleasant experiences in her life, starting off with physical abuse in her childhood years, and essentially surviving through a less than welcoming family. Those are the types of experiences which force one already as a child to take a few steps back and really look at people.


As for what person I wanted to be when I grow up, I always felt strongly that being fair to others was essential, and to demand in return that they would treat me and others fairly as well. This meaning that you'd not steal, lie, discriminate or otherwise act in a negative way towards others. Mostly because it does not make sense to act negatively towards others. In the end it just creates this self-perpetuating system of negativity and hatred that will hurt countless people.

Even the experience of getting sexually abused as a young child does not seem to have affected that conviction. Yes, it is necessary to accept and understand that oneself was not to blame for what happened, but to realise that it was the person or persons who did this to you deserve all the blame. That does not mean that you should hate those people, however. To carry hatred in one's heart only affects oneself.

I have always found a lot of inspiration in the saying that 'the best way to take revenge is by living a good life'. That to me summarises the breaking of the chain of negativity. By countering something negative with something positive, you both end up living a much better life by spending that energy on something productive, and the person responsible for the negativity that made you suffer is put off-balance by not getting the expected response, as well as having to watch you ignore them and living that good life.


In the end it's about light, air and joy. A self-perpetuating cycle of happiness, honesty and progress towards a better future for all. It's all about the person one wishes one to become, both as a child and as an adult. We can be that change.

Be optimistic, do give that compliment you thought would be awkward to say, don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself by helping out that person at the busy train station who is wrestling with a suitcase, dare to smile at a child and drop the mask of adulthood. It are the small things that make the world move.


Maya

Why transsexuality hurts intersex people

It's been nearly fifteen years now since I first visited a gender team. This was in early 2005, when after an extremely confusing puberty I deduced from online references that I was most likely intersex. Part of the evidence involved my skeletal features and my general physique. I figured that I would get medical help with this matter soon. Yet as it turned out, I'd be forced to be my own physician for a lot longer than I had imagined.


My skeleton is absolutely that of a female human, with its wide, tilted pelvis, that causes the thigh bones to rotate inwards to effect the female way of walking. It also causes the inwards curve on the lower part of the 'S' that forms the spinal column. I also have the outwardly set lower arms, which presumably evolution engineered so as to allow lower arms to not hit the sides of the wider hips.

Add to this the lack of any masculine features in the skull, such as an eyebrow ridge, and it's obvious that my skeleton is devoid of any features that are masculine. The other features, however, are all secondary female characteristics that would have developed during puberty. This all seemed to point strongly towards the conclusion that despite the outwards appearance of my genitals, I was in fact not male, but had to be intersex.


At the gender team, however, my opinion wasn't shared. Though first seemingly accommodating, a blood test for testosterone levels and a urologist appointment were scheduled. The first would supposedly show that I had regular male hormone levels, and the second ended with me being told by this urologist after some unenthusiastic external prodding that no sign of me being intersex had been found by him.

Quickly this situation devolved into me being pushed into the transsexuality protocol, with numerous discussions with psychologists and kin revolving around why I'd not just simply accept that I was not intersex, but transsexual. After two years of this, the final drop was a fake-out where a previously extended offer - to start on hormone therapy towards a female hormone balance and skip the transsexual protocol - was brutally retracted and with me subjected to a ten-minute monologue of how I'd have to stop being so difficult and that following the transsexual protocol towards gender-reassignment surgery was the only option for me to get what I want.

Suffice it to say, that was the day when I decided to become my own doctor again. Getting hormone level tests via my GP was easy. Obtaining the hormones via the internet was too easy and even affordable. Calculating the right doses took a bit of effort, but was doable. That was the moment when I figured out that I had neither typical male, nor typical female hormone levels.


Testosterone was being produced at elevated levels for a female body, but not significantly so, while estradiol would be high for a male body, but on the low end for a female body. I also paid out of pocket for an MRI scan of my abdomen. That scan showed me to be a hermaphrodite, with both male and female genitals present, though with a closed-off vagina.

While initially thinking that this MRI scan in 2007 might change things, this quickly resulted again in my getting stonewalled in the Dutch medical system, with doctors there insisting that nothing could be seen on the scans, and that I was just male, and transsexual. After shifting gears in 2011, I would focus on getting my official gender changed from male to female using a Dutch law aimed at intersex people, to finally put an end to the mass-confusion in waiting rooms due to this official gender not matching my phenotype.

I managed to get the required orchiectomy ('castration') that the Dutch law required to prove that I could no longer be fertile as the old gender. The resulting biopsy of the removed testicles showed that they were underdeveloped, explaining why they had never produced significant amounts of testosterone. This just added to the body of evidence about me being intersex, along with the exploratory part of that orchiectomy surgery, where the surgeon opened the perineum and found the entrance of the vagina.

Fast-forward another eight years, and the same pattern repeats over and over. I can try my utmost to find solid evidence about me being intersex, but it will be denied and I will be pushed back into just giving up, admitting to being transsexual and playing that game. Giving up, getting my body cut up and my spirit broken. Never being allowed to just be myself.


When I say that I hate transsexuality [1], it is from the above described perspective. If transsexuality didn't exist, would I have had to spend fifteen years (and counting) suffering through this non-existence with a condition that is more than real to me? Will there ever be an end to this? Is giving into what feels like the tyranny of transsexuality the only option that's being provided other than to simply end one's life? I question this.

And I'm not the only intersex person to feel this way. A good (trans) friend of mine mentioned recently on Twitter how she had been told the same thing by other intersex people she knows: how the insistence of the medical system and society to force intersex people to be like transsexuals is harming them. It feels both positive (confirmation) to hear this from others, though it also makes me feel terribly sad that so many of us intersex people are affected by this.

I will never judge a person for something what they are. I will however judge anyone based on their actions and deeds. I will judge those medical professionals and kin who caused me and so many others like me such untold suffering and trauma. They made us feel disgusted and have our traumas triggered at the mere mentioning of 'transsexuality', and who made being confronted with transsexual people such an awkward and at times traumatic experience.

As mentioned in the linked post as well, I would love to be able to find a place for this trauma, but I cannot do so while the cause behind it hasn't ended. Transsexuality is still hurting us intersex people, and those hateful, ignorant doctors will keep inflicting that same blunt instrument of transsexuality on us intersex people until we finally all submit to it, giving up our own identity.

I cannot find medical help for my intersex condition, even as it changes, causes discomfort and pain, with possible harmful long-term implications from the closed-off vagina. All I can be to the medical world is either a regular woman/man or transsexual. As I'm neither, I do not exist.

Here's to being invisible and hurting in so many ways.


Maya


[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2019/06/torn-between-hate-love-and-hope.html

Where there should be happiness, there is just exhaustion

A new home has been secured, the necessary forms have been filled out and submitted, and financial obligations have been handled. Next week should see me moving into a new place. It's big and spacious, with a large conservatory, multiple terraces and a garden. It's located in a quiet area, with a nearly completely unobstructed view from the living room windows across the fields.

I notice that I do find comfort in the thought that I'll soon be living in this new place. Yet at the same time I find it hard to commit to any thought like that until it's become reality. And even then there's still this massive backlog of... things and feelings of the past years that have to be processed. Not just from when I first moved to Germany, but also so many years of living in the Netherlands, but not really living.

Earlier today my mom sent me more pictures of my youth she had found and wanted to show me. Pictures of me with my brothers on the farm, working on our projects in the mud, amongst the fields and wide open spaces. Looking at a picture like that brings memories flooding back and makes me realise just how much I miss all of that. The village where we grew up, our neighbours and friends, the school and everything else.

It made me realise strongly just how much I am not a city person. That's why this new place that I'll be moving into is the right choice, I think. Away from the city, back into a more rural environment, with more of the space and nature with which I grew up. It should provide a healthy environment for me to do all of this catching up, as well as to finally finish writing that first part of my autobiography.


Rationally I'm all onboard with this, and I can see myself plotting a course through all of this, finally leaving the misery of the past years behind me. Yet emotionally it will all take much longer. There's only so much one can take before burning through one's emotional reserves. After the brutality of the now finished legal eviction battle, it's clear that there were no victors there, with both sides incurring massive financial losses. Maybe if I had switched to that better lawyer sooner I'd have come out better, but that's all too late now.

It's also hard not to feel largely alone, either. Recent events have shown me that sadly the same kind of bullies who have harassed and terrorised me before will likely always keep popping up. The type who'll try to find whatever weakness they can find in you and exploit it for their own sick games. Like the bullies who'd harass me in 2011, both before and after my failed suicide attempt. It's often hard to tell whether they have a real goal, other than to live off the misery of others.

I'm at least grateful that such... people do not really get to me any more. They'll try to spread rumours and try to character assassinate you, but the people who really know you, and who aren't afraid of actually talking to you and ask questions will no fall for such tricks. It's just a matter of finding those decent human beings with whom it's actually a pleasure to interact.


At this point my faith in humans in general has quite obviously been diminished significantly, with me being hardly any further as far as my intersex condition and its treatment goes than when I moved to Germany in late 2013. It saddens me to think that perhaps I'll never know the answer to any of my questions, receive medical help and live out my life just as invisible as an intersex person as I do today.

My sincere hope that this raw, bleeding wound inside my very psyche can heal over time, with everything else that causes me grief resolving itself as well. Because I don't want to be always occupied with myself. There are far more interesting things out there, after all, and so many people to meet and sights to behold.

And maybe, just maybe, in the near future I'll feel that spark of happiness again.


Maya

Torn between hate, love and hope

It's been a while now since the apartment eviction thing came to a crescendo and I found myself moving into a temporary apartment. Not finding a new home during those two months at this apartment, I then had to move my belongings into storage while becoming homeless myself.

I was fortunate enough to have friends help me out during these moves, and for a perfectly nice stranger to offer me a couch to sleep on in a comfortable room. Though the house/apartment search continues week after week with little result, at least I have a bit of respite in the sense of no set deadline when I have to leave an apartment, no legal troubles, and above all no worries about my belongings, even though they're essentially inaccessible.

The freelancer thing seems to be picking up now as well, with one active contract and a few upcoming ones that should secure me financially this year. This would be a very welcome improvement over being jobless and searching for a job as I did last year, as much fun as it was to travel around the world for free.

To have people help me out to ensure that I will not end up sleeping on the street, to help me out with moving multiple times and to assist me with the new home search. Those are things for which I am super-grateful and which makes me feel this weird sense that I can relax at least a little bit.

Slowing down and feeling stress levels reduce is a weird sensation after so many years of stress apparently only increasing. I'm sleeping better, and have recently begun to have processing dreams, as my mind tries to make sense of all that has happened to me over the past decades. It's a lot to dig through, that's for sure.


One big and unexpected mistake I made recently was to accept an invitation to talk at a local pride parade event. Supposedly I'd get to talk about intersex and related. I was however unprepared for what I encountered. First of all the people in this parade themselves. Such an obsession with sexuality that it pretty much blew out my PTSD and I found myself practically incapable of doing the speech.

Then as I stood on the podium I found myself facing a rowdy crowd, with seemingly little interest in listening. Struggling with a poorly configured sound setup, I did an abbreviated version of the speech and left as soon as I reasonably could. To say that I felt uncomfortable was an understatement.

As I was standing in the backstage area, I could hear the people who came after me make various statements about what we intersex people are, want and such. Like us wanting to become part of this 'third sex' thing. Hearing transsexual and such folk make such statements about us intersex people with whom they do not even bother talking, but only using us to further their own agenda and desires was pretty much the final drop.

For days after this event I found myself struggling to make sense of this experience. One thing which it definitely changed was that my discomfort and PTSD triggers related to transsexuality got blown up into full-blown hatred against and disgust with anything LGBT. I found myself forced to admit that LGBT folk truly live in a world divorced from the world intersex people find themselves in.

It's not that one wants to hate, as it's such an unpleasant feeling to experience. Yet it ignited the trauma and struggle to come to terms with me having been forced into this transsexuality thing on many occasions over the past years, as I have written about previously. To be confronted with transsexuality in any shape is so incredibly painful and agonising now as the pain of all those years now lies bare and exposed.

I hate transsexuality. I wish nothing more than for it and all transsexuals to vanish right now. Just so that I can stop feeling this pain. This trauma that those doctors and psychologists caused by lying to me and deceiving me. By stripping away my humanity and reducing me to this shell, without any ability to control my future or decide about my body. Just a nothing, with doctors and psychologists patiently waiting for me to crack, admit to being transsexual and suffer normalisation surgery.


I know the trauma will not go away that easily. I am not sure that I will ever be able to understand why those so-called professionals saw fit to do something so inhumane and cruel to me. Anyone could have seen that I'm intersex, if they had paid any attention.

Part of coming to terms with what has happened to me is by learning to understand the nature of transsexuality. To eliminate this lingering fear that I was wrong after all and they were right about me. Here the medical literature makes it obvious that transsexuality is the most common form of Body Identity Disorder (also known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder), whereby people seek to have healthy parts of their body (surgically) removed, to cope with psychological issues.

This is an important difference from intersex, as with the latter there is no such identity disorder present. Though doctors and psychologists tried their best to cause such feelings and make me want to hate the male genitals or such, I would still never voluntarily want to part with any bit of my body. Thus I have no body identity disorder, and thus I cannot be transsexual.


Yet it still hurts to deal with the topic. Though I know that those doctors and psychologists were completely wrong about my body, I very much doubt that I'll ever learn why they felt this need to torture me and cause such horrific traumas. Is it because the only appropriate way they know to deal with intersex people is to coax them into accepting normalisation surgery? I mean, who could be happy as a physically non-binary person?

It's against this background that I now try to rebuild my life. Even though I am now relearning that there's also a gentler, kinder side to life and people, giving both that knowledge and my past experiences a place inside of me is not going to be easy.

Despite things being easier now than they used to be, it's still going to take a lot more love and kindness to get me fully out of the woods, allowing me to finally put behind the endless nightmare that has been my life for far too long now.


Here's to that kindness and love.


Maya