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
Friday 27 December 2019
Wednesday 25 December 2019
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
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
Thursday 19 December 2019
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
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
Sunday 15 December 2019
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
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
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
Thursday 12 December 2019
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
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
Wednesday 11 December 2019
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
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
Monday 9 December 2019
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
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
Friday 6 December 2019
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
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
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