Maya Posch

Survival Through Self-Delusion, Or: I Just Want To Live

2012-01-23T01:11:00.000+01:00

In early 2005 I figured that having figured out what was going on with my body I'd soon get help and have my life on track again in no time. Up till late 2010 I managed to keep up that delusion. By the time I got help outside the Netherlands in late 2011 it was already too late to restore my faith in the medical world.

In 2010 I began to lobby Dutch politicians. I figured that they'd be responsive and make things right if I could just make them listen. They didn't. A year later I was forced to give up.

In early 2011 I figured that if I just was able to move back to Amsterdam or the surrounding area I'd be able to make things work together with my friends there. A few months later I was forced to admit that it wasn't feasible for me to move and that I actually never had friends there.

I tried to move to Australia that same year. I never could find a job there and managed to waste money on a work visa which will expire a few months from now.

I also tried to move to Canada later that year. I never found a job there and was forced to give up on the idea.

I applied at Nokia in Norway and Google in Germany now. The possibility of getting a job at either company is low.

All I want is to live somewhere comfortable, without worrying about money or hostile medical systems. I just want to live and work and have friends and not fear for my life. I just want to feel at ease and have hobbies, play the guitar, finally learn to play the violin and work on these robotics and AI projects.

All I want to do is live.

All I am faced with is uncertainty and stress. It's a living nightmare to which I wake up every morning. I'm either by my lonesome where nothing happens and nothing changes, or I'm in the midst of this crowd, with leering faces and so many people living their lives. I don't want to be amongst them. I hate them for having succeeded where I have failed.

Tomorrow is my first job interview for Google. I would say that I hope for anything, but as they say one should learn from history. Self-delusion manifested.

I just wanted to live.

Maya

My Interview With Shefali Burns

2012-01-16T15:52:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday I did an interview with minor Google+ celebrity Shefali Burns, a very friendly lady from Canada. She even postponed her breakfast and lunch so that she could interview me on my experiences growing up as a hermaphrodite in the conservative Netherlands. Give her a round of applause :)

Maya

Lawsuit Against Dutch Hospitals Has Been Denied

2012-01-13T17:26:00.000+01:00

Just received word from my lawyer that the damages case against the Dutch hospitals for their incorrect and damaging treatment of my intersex case can not proceed because her medical adviser can not advise. The issue is that he can not find any specialists who can advise since all the Dutch ones are mentioned in the file and the Belgian and German ones couldn't advise since the protocols there are too different. This means that his advise is inconclusive and no medical basis for the case can be determined.

I think that this is indicative of how deeply intrenched this issue I'm dealing with is in the medical world, not just in the Netherlands, but world-wide. Unless someone knows a miraculous lawyer and medical adviser, I don't think that I can start a legal case.

And yet I have to do something with these seven years I have suffered due to the treatment of the Dutch medical and other systems. I still need more medical help and recognition for what has happened to me so that I can rebuild my life. It's not over yet for me. Nor is it over for the hundreds of millions of intersex people around the world who go through similar hellish scenarios.

I have contacted a first Dutch television show on this problem (Pauw & Witteman) as they are very much about cutting-edge issues. Beyond them I do not know of anyone else who might be able to help.

Suddenly this issue has turned from a certain win in court to another trench war. I really need some respite here. Anyone who can help or knows someone who can help, please do, or do ask... this needs media attention as it's just become very serious.

My mental state? Shaken, upset, crying and heading straight towards another stab at suicide again if I don't quickly find something to stabilize things with...

Please help... don't ignore me... don't let me fade... don't let me die...

Please...

Maya

Cats Have Sharp Claws, And MRI Results

2012-01-13T12:12:00.000+01:00

I'll keep this brief as one of my fingers got mutilated by a cat yesterday and it hurts to type :)

After my weekly visit to the beauty salon yesterday I made my way to the train station when I saw this girl struggling with a very big and obviously very heavy cardboard box. After she accepted my help we carried it to her place, a number of streets away. It contained a scratching post for her cat, one of those big ones with the platforms and other stuff cats adore. Once at her place she offered me something to drink, which I accepted after a moment's doubt.

I must have spent there about two hours, playing with her cat, an 8-month old male, who managed to give me a few scratches including this one on my finger. We also drank tea and chatted about a lot of stuff, including the things which occupy me. It was kind of weird in a pleasant way to sit there in what was the home of a stranger who I had only met moments before, comfortably talking about life's issues. At least I hope the poor girl I was imposing on felt comfortable too :) In the end I gave her my business card and she shoved me out of the door. I guess we both lost track of time.

In some ways I'm glad that things are finally changing for me, even if it's very hard and tiring. This morning I got the MRI results from the knee specialist. He told me that the MRI was clear with no damage visible to the meniscus, ligaments or other tissues. The cause of my knee issues is blunt trauma to the knee resulting in bruised bone. This is something which will have to heal on its own and can take quite a long time in doing so. That it was caused by how the police treated me early last year might be fairly obvious by now.

While relieved that no surgery or anything else major is necessary I do feel quite miffed that I have to go through this and the continued pain and numbness in my wrists and hands due to the compression damage from the too tight cuffs. Earlier I filed the complaint against the police here regarding their rough treatment of me, mentioning the knee and nerve damage as well as the emotional damage suffered due to the worsening of my existing traumatic disorders. I do not expect anything major to happen as a result, but at least I will have done my bit.

Next up is physiotherapy for my knee to speed up the recovery and waiting for one of my lawyers to get back to me on the lawsuit against the hospitals here. Hopefully I'll hear back on that next week so that I can start contacting the Dutch media and get the ball rolling on exposing the horrible truth about the treatment of intersex people world-wide.

I often feel like I'm in a kind of virtual war zone, today is definitely among those days.

Maya

Torn Up And Bleeding To Death, Yet So Happy

2012-01-12T00:49:00.000+01:00

The human mind's capacity to deal with psychological trauma is amazing. Before the medical insanity started I managed to ignore the trauma of not knowing what I was by staying a child emotionally and not realize it. I brushed off the traumas of getting bullied throughout primary and high school. For the past seven years I have chopped up the traumas of rape, sexual abuse, brainwashing and psychological and physical torture in bits and put them into separate personality fragments. Despite everything I stayed sane, even if I got locked out of more and more parts of society because of everything.

Yet the brain's capacity to deal with trauma goes only so far. The past years I have begun to experience sudden and severe episodes of crying, temporary paralysis, self-mutilation, suicidal moods and actual suicide attempts. The psychiatric evaluation in the criminal case against me has in many ways pushed me over the edge, as it has destroyed some of the archived memories. The result is renewed self-mutilation, severe suicidal moods and completely irrational behaviour, such as bashing my head against a sofa and responding to an urging voice by starting to scream and pounding on a desk before breaking down in tears again.

I'm still sane. I think. Maybe it truly is the rest of the world which is mad.

I'm trying to salvage what is left of my existence. I quit the psychiatric evaluation and am trying to contact a lawyer about it. Legal stuff is slow. The lawyer I have for the legal gender change let me know a few days ago that she had mistakenly sent the request to the wrong courthouse. It has now been forwarded and can take another 4-6 weeks before the request gets looked at. When I hear back from my other lawyer on the lawsuit I do not know. She said it'd be about this week, but we'll see. I hope that I can get some media attention for the lawsuit once it does begin in earnest, though.

When it comes to so-called social networks like Google+... I have abandoned them, maybe forever. Everyone there is far too happy leading their own happy lives to concern themselves with those less fortunate.

Finally, after many years and mostly thanks to my awesome friend Trevor, we now finally have a working game engine and some great tools to make games with. He has been teaching me how to use these tools so that I can write simple games using it now too. We can now finally begin work on the TileWars game, which makes me quite happy.

Amongst all of this there is also the urgent need for me to leave the Netherlands so that I can finally begin to recover from my traumas and reduce the unimaginable stress placed upon me by this hideous and twisted place. The only way I have found to accomplish this is to find a job in a suitable country. I'm currently waiting for job interviews with Nokia and Google, in the case of the former my second interview. I hope I'll hear from them soon. Waiting really upsets me. Better the brief rush of some important task than the agony of waiting for something which might as well never come.

Last Friday I did an interview with a Belgian magazine, called Dag Allemaal. From what some Belgian people on IRC have told me it's one of the better Belgian, Dutch-language tabloids and is well-known there. I'm not expecting miracles from it, but the article draft I received a few days ago was well-written. Maybe something will happen as a result of it. Most remarkable but not shocking to me was that this magazine could not find anyone else to do the interview with, not in the Netherlands or Belgium. This makes me the only intersex person in the Netherlands, Germany and now Belgium who is actually willing to make it public. Considering the abuse I have suffered over the years, maybe I should have kept it a secret too. Curse my inquisitiveness and sense of justice...

I need something cheerful to happen this week so that I'll stay emotionally stable. Just a little further and whatever protections I built up over the years will shatter and with it my mind...

Maya

The Nightmare Continued: Persecution, Torture, Prosecution.

2012-01-03T17:33:00.000+01:00

This morning I had what turned out to be the first appointment with this psychiatrist as part of the psychiatric evaluation in the legal case against me for vandalism at the medical center here in Rijssen in May of last year. Fortunately this psychiatrist turned out to be an alright older lady, which made things less disturbing for me. We were also both surprised at the fact that I had not heard about this psychiatric evaluation in advance, nor about the extent of it from the Justice department.

Apparently I have been kept completely in the dark about anything related to the case beyond what the police officer told me a few months ago. I really do not appreciate this. This led to such gems during the appointment with the psychiatrist such as her mentioning that since I'm being prosecuted I might possibly not even leave the country while it's ongoing. She was also surprised that I didn't hear anything about an hearing yet. It's all so very confusing.

Next week I'll probably have to undergo a personality test with this same psychiatrist, or what else might end up being required. I was told that I can stop the evaluations at any point if it becomes too tough for me, but I'm pretty sure that doing so would harm my chances of getting the vandalism charges against me dropped due to lack of accountability as a result of my traumatic disorders. Even though these evaluations and this prosecution against me are a hugely disturbing thing.

When the option/possibility of clinical observation (for nearly two months) was mentioned I felt this sickening sensation. When the psychiatrist offered it again at the end of the conversation I felt this wrenching sensation and began to cry unstoppably as my throat constricted and I could barely breathe any more. After a short while I managed to get the hyperventilating under control again. I guess I won't be picking that option, and may have convinced the psychiatrist that it would be very harmful. Unless she thinks I was faking it, of course. Never will I be locked up again... I wouldn't be able to take it again.

Since I haven't received any notifications from the Justice department about travel restrictions or such I assume that I can just go to my job interview in Oslo next month and that I will be able to move to Norway without anyone keeping me in this Hell hole of a country. If not...

I don't want to die...

But I'm so tired...

Please...

Maya

Kicking Off The New Year With An Overflowing Agenda

2012-01-01T17:57:00.000+01:00

First of all I'd like to express my gratitude that the holiday madness is finally coming to an end. With a week people will finally be returning to work and life will resume. Maybe less fun for those with busy jobs, but very pleasant for people like me who are waiting for things to happen.

For the first week of January 2012 I have the following items scheduled:

On Monday I have to make another appointment with the knee specialist after the MRI scan of said knee on Friday. I'll also hear when I have the interview with a Belgian magazine on that same day. On Tuesday I have an appointment with a psychologist regarding the incident in May of this year [1]. My mother and I have both claimed that due to my PTSD and DID I can not be held accountable for my actions. This appointment was requested by the judge handling this case as part of standard protocol. I'm not too worried that any charges against me might remain after this. My psychotherapist is also 100% on my side.

On Thursday morning I'm heading to the beauty salon for my weekly appointment there. On Friday I have the MRI scan of my knee as the specialist wants to examine the possibility of a tear in the meniscus. During this week I also expect an email from Nokia confirming the date of my next job interview.

The second week I expect to hear back from both my lawyers on the legal gender change request and the conclusion of the medical adviser in the hospital lawsuit case. Depending on the outcome of the latter I'll be contacting Dutch media to inform them about said lawsuit and get a feel for their interest in my story and related.

During the third or fourth week of January I expect to have the second and maybe third job interview at Nokia, with the latter being in-person in Oslo, Norway. I hope I get that far, as I know that I do much better if people can both see and hear me. Job interviews by phone like the one I had and the upcoming second one are quite frustrating due to the limitations of the technology.

At any rate it's going to be one heck of a busy month. I hope it gets me everything I want so that I can sail smoothly into February and prepare to leave the Netherlands.

Maya

[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/05/taking-nightmare-notch-further.html

Contemplating On A Merry XMas

2011-12-25T12:53:00.000+01:00

Around this time last year the situation at the previous place where I lived was reaching a climax, with my then housemate and I pretending that things were fine while we were unpacking the XMas gifts under the tree. It was a forced charade which quickly worsened as my now ex-housemate and the girl (now one of my stalkers) he was dating back then putting more and more pressure on me to make me leave the place, and to humiliate and degrade me by insisting that I wasn't intersex but a crazy guy and other unpleasantness.

Early January the constant bullying led to me taking an overdose of sleeping pills. I will never forget the incredible peace I felt while I was swallowing them down with some water. Before I did all that I had brushed my hair and done my usual morning chores in the full realization that it would be the very last time I would ever do that. The last time I would see my face in the mirror. The last time I would brush my hair. The last time I'd worry about the condition of my skin. I do not remember passing out.

Waking up in the hospital afterwards was the most horrible experience ever, though I didn't realize this until the next day when the effects of the sleeping pills had worn off. I wanted to go back so badly to that peaceful feeling while I was taking those sleeping pills.

Since that suicide attempt things have changed, some good (surgery in Germany) others bad (beaten up by police for no reason and suffering permanent health consequences). Looking back I can't say that my life on the whole has significantly improved. Moving on from the medical madness I have now entered into the legal madness as I try to come to grips with what in heaven's name has happened to me and why those Dutch physicians and psychologists felt the need to abuse and torture me like that. I still don't understand it one bit, nor do I understand why the police felt the need to hurt me inside and outside.

When I did the interview with Sarah Hill a few days ago she paraphrased from part of my blog:

"Above all I know, I feel, I realize, I am aware, I am pained, I want to run away from the fact that I am a freak.

Maybe I'm not a freak, but I can not convince myself that I am not. The questions of what I am and what my place in society is are too strong and too fundamental to be shoved aside, or answered with external help.

This morning I did manage to take a shower even though it's still hard to see my own body in a mirror. It's my own small victory. For a brief moment."

I think that with this bit Sarah really captured what lies at the heart of my struggles. I can not accept myself nor my situation and my environment has to help me with this, while it isn't capable of doing so.

The past weeks I have had to state what I think about social networks like Google+ and how they have and are helping me. I will admit that Google+ has led to some useful contacts, resulting in the interview with Sarah Hill, but as a whole it's mostly negative. There are some people on Google+ who are suffering from an inflated ego and have hurt me by being ignorant. Yesterday and earlier today I had to leave a video chat Hangout on Google+ because they were talking rather vulgarly about sexuality, setting off my traumas. It makes me feel like I'm just a small, hurt child at those moments.

Last Friday I was returning from an appointment in the nearby city of Deventer when I was waiting to cross a busy road. I found myself wondering how much damage those speeding cars could do to my body if I jumped in front of one. With a cold, analytical and emotionally detached feeling I imagined how it'd crush my bones and probably leave me crippled.

I don't think I have progressed much from that moment in early January of this year. I still search for that peaceful feeling, the feeling that everything is finally the way it should be. I'm not sure I'll find it anywhere but in death.

Merry XMas.

Maya

Aftermath Of My U_News Interview With Sarah Hill

2011-12-23T13:51:00.002+01:00

The news story can be found on the KOMU 8 website: http://www.komu.com/news/intersex-individual-shares-her-story-with-u_news/

"MID-MISSOURI - Maya Posch shared her story on U_News Thursday. She is an intersex individual trying to raise awareness about people who are born neither male nor female. Maya says people often make the mistake of calling "intersex" individuals "transsexual". Posch says she will remain intersex and is blogging about her experience caught between the lines of male and female. Posch lives in the Netherlands where she says her condition is listed as a "disorder". She disagrees with that classification. You can watch her video clip below or read about her situation on her blog at www.mayaposch.com"

First part of the interview:

Second part of the interview:

The backstage video:

Maya

My Interview On U_News With Sarah Hill

2011-12-22T12:18:00.000+01:00

As posted [1] by Sarah Hill on Google+ yesterday:

"Thursday on U_News, we'll interview +Maya Posch . Maya was born Intersex. This is an issue people in Missouri hear very little about on their local news. Maya is sharing her story in hopes that others like her can find support and information they need.
You can watch U_News streaming on Google Plus at 4pm Central Time in the US or watch it on TV in Columbia, MO on +KOMU 8 News .......or watch online and chat with Maya behind the scenes of the newscast here.
www.komu.com/streaming-newscast"

I will be online around 10.40 PM my time (UTC+1) for the pre-show checks. The interview itself will take a few minutes. Definitely looking forward to this interview, and hoping that more media attention will result from it. Props to Sarah Hill and US journalists in general as they seem to be the most open about and interested in this topic.

Maya

[1] https://plus.google.com/107323726887023845557/posts/fFdFQN9S2Vk

Laughing Out Loud, While I'm Crying Inside

2011-12-21T16:20:00.000+01:00

Quick news updates: I got an email from my lawyer regarding the lawsuit, it's taking a while because she had to work through the massive file, and her medical adviser now has to work through the same file, while trying to find specialists who can advise but whom are not involved with the hospitals mentioned in my file. This means that no one associated with the VUMC, UMCG, Erasmus or AMC hospitals can advice, or simply put most of the major hospitals in the Netherlands. I'm supposed to get feedback from my lawyer on what the medical adviser decides during early January next year. I'm still waiting for updates on the legal gender change from my other lawyer.

I had an article on social networks published at Media Tapper [1], recorded the SociologG+ video I put on my blog a few days ago, and tomorrow I have an interview on Sarah Hill's show about my story, which gets broadcast locally in Missouri and also via Google+ and other places.

I also applied at Nokia a while ago, as a Technical Writer for the Qt framework. Yesterday I had my first interview for it and it went quite well. Got two more interviews coming up, first another one by phone, then one in-person. If everything goes well I could have said job by February next year and be moving to Oslo, Norway.

I'm having major issues with my right knee at the moment, with severe swelling and numbness only kept in check with regular icing and 1,800 mg of ibuprofen a day. I initially got an appointment with a specialist for it on February 6th, but got it changed to December 30th. Before it I'll have an X-ray. I'll probably need an MRI scan and possibly surgery depending on the results. A cracked meniscus seems quite likely, with the police beating in May this year the likely cause.

Moving on, things seem to be moving in the right direction, yet I can't seem to shake off this crushing feeling of unease. When sitting in a Google+ Hangout (video chat in a group), I often notice myself laughing out loud and acting normal, yet it's like I'm watching someone else. I don't feel happy inside, or 'normal'. It's as though I'm two people: an inside and an outside one. The inside one tries to show itself, but it's hard to do.

The inside person is the PTSD, the DID, the other traumas. It cries and feels miserable. It longs and is denied. Sometimes things invert and the inside person becomes the outside person, which is when everyone can see it. It's however a horrible and terrifying thing. I can not possibly face what has happened to me and what is still happening. It's too big, too major, too terrifying, too incomprehensible. Just touching the frayed, shadowy edges of this terrible blob inside makes me so scared that death seems preferable to confronting it.

I hope that through telling my story via the media, like what Sarah Hill is allowing me to do tomorrow, I can finally deal with those traumas, and cause positive things to happen for both me and others.

Maya

[1] http://mediatapper.com/alone-on-a-social-network-when-networks-arent-social/

My SocioloG+ Talk

2011-12-17T19:24:00.000+01:00

Video I recorded for +SocioloG+ at Google+, talking a bit about how Google+ plays a role in my attempts to make my story known.

Once A Freak, Always A Freak

2011-12-13T15:07:00.002+01:00

It's already light outside when I open my eyes, gradually waking up from a deep sleep. Barely remembered scenes from dreams flit through my mind as a leaden weariness creeps upon me. Today I'm waiting again for news from my lawyers but likely won't hear anything. Today I'll trying to focus on my work again, even though it's hard to imagine what I'm working for. I find myself thinking of writing a new blog post, partially to help me order my thoughts, partially to hopefully make people realize how hard it is for me to keep going on living.

Of course, I do not wish to be melodramatic, so it has to be phrased in such a manner that it evokes understanding, not revulsion or otherwise scare people away or have them dismiss me as yet another crazy person. I start putting a few different drafts together in my head.

One of the first feelings I experienced right after waking up was one of despair mixed with revulsion, its focus being my body. I still can't handle the knowledge that I essentially do not have any genitals. I have no idea what to do with it, other than realize that it makes me into a freak. Then a common question pops up in my head:

"You do feel like a woman, right?"

So many people have asked me this. So many physicians and psychologists have asked me the same question or variations on it. It's at the very core of my traumas. The only answer I can give to it is that I don't know. I don't know what 'feeling like a woman' means. I only know that being alive with this body has caused me only confusion and pain. Confusion because my body never adhered to the development I saw when others entered puberty. Pain when I realized seven years ago that I was a freak of nature. Pain when it was denied by physicians and psychologists that my body was different from a male's body even though it was so obvious. Pain when it was expected of me to adapt straight into a female role.

I don't know what my role or place in society is. Heck, I don't know what I am. A genital-less, asexual being which exists in a world where there is no place for it. Maybe. After seven years of brainwashing and emotional torture in the Dutch healthcare system I'm not sure what to feel any more. Admitting that I am a sexual being is difficult enough. While I fondly remember some parts of back when I was intimate with others, mostly the closeness and the pleasurable physical and emotional sensations, those memories become insignificant by the dark shadows cast by intense self-loathing, doubts and confusion.

I'm now twenty-eight years old and yet I don't feel like I'm older than ten years when it comes to things like sexuality. I guess I did get stuck there all those years ago. I'm supposed to be an adult - a woman according to most - but I don't feel like it at all. Early in my childhood I lost the feeling of safety and sureness when I got stuck between 'the boys' and 'the girls'. The issues I have when it comes to accepting my body and the confusion I associate with sexuality started a long time ago. On top of those issues came the traumas due to the brainwashing and the rape/sexual assault, magnifying the existing issues many-fold.

I'm lost.

I'm afraid.

Afraid that if I continue living things will become even worse.

Afraid that I'm doing everything wrong, that it's already too late to right things now.

Afraid that when I ask help people will pretend to help me again, or otherwise hurt me.

Lost as every path I have tried seems to take me somewhere unpleasant.

Above all I know, I feel, I realize, I am aware, I am pained, I want to run away from the fact that I am a freak.

Maybe I'm not a freak, but I can not convince myself that I am not. The questions of what I am and what my place in society is are too strong and too fundamental to be shoved aside, or answered with external help.

This morning I did manage to take a shower even though it's still hard to see my own body in a mirror. It's my own small victory. For a brief moment.

Maya

Intersex, Sexuality... And Me...

2011-12-07T16:39:00.000+01:00

- How my intersex condition has shaped my life.
- How my environment has responded to it.
- Getting introduced to sexuality... and the consequences.
- Dutch intolerance and persecution as the worst part.
- Me as a person beyond sexuality and being intersex.

Maya

Taking Action: Day One

2011-12-06T00:04:00.001+01:00

After the previous blog post I mentioned that it'd be great if this week turned out to be positive. As nothing happens on its own, I decided to jump straight into the action and try to get as many things done this week as possible.

Today I first went to the dentist to make an appointment there after their constant failures to call me back. Tomorrow morning I have an appointment. Score. Next I went to make an appointment with my family doctor because my knee wasn't feeling quite alright yet. Made an appointment for Thursday morning. After that I went to the local office of my insurance company.

First I discussed the letter I had received from them involving the coverage overview for the last bill I had sent them: the German hospital bill. As I suspected they had not paid the bill, instead rejecting it despite assurances before that I just had to send in the bill to get it settled. Apparently the person who handled the bill didn't check my file and note that I got granted coverage for the surgery. This should be corrected soon now.

Next I handed in the bill I got for the electrolysis therapy (800+ EURO for the past few months) and confirmed that the request had been permanently denied. When I noted to the lady who was helping me, who has helped me many times before and who is following my story as well, that I would be passing things on to my lawyer now, she told me that I could also contact the SKGZ, the Stichting Klachten en Geschillen Zorgverzekeringen, an organization which handles complaints from costumers regarding their health insurance. They offer this service for free, so I decided to try this first. Later this week I'll get mailed further details and I'll have to send in copies of all the relevant communications.

That settled things with regard to items I could take care of today, I thought. That was until my knee suddenly started hurting a lot during the late afternoon and later turned almost completely numb to the touch. It reminded me strongly of what I had gone through with the same leg in May of this year after the beating I received from the police. After a while it got so bad that I had to call the ER for an appointment and head over there.

The good news is that I probably won't need surgery on my knee. The bad news is that I have an infection in my knee and things are inflamed right now, causing the pain. The doctor who treated me was puzzled by the re-occurrence of the same symptoms after a number of months, until he noted that a cracked meniscus could be responsible. I got prescribed anti-inflammatory medication (ibuprofen 600 mg) and I'll have to get a referral for an MRI scan of the knee from my family doctor. I got asked to describe what had happened to my knee during the beating (not mentioning it was caused by the police, focusing on the relevant parts only), and admitted that I didn't know it exactly but that according to my mother I was forced repeatedly with my knees against the ground. Blunt impact force, in other words, directly on the meniscus. Depending on the results of the MRI scan I may decide to file a complaint with the police.

At least I now know what the probable cause of the issues with my knee and leg are and can work on fixing things. It's also important progress.

I also got an email from that one German company who had offered me a job that I had failed their programming test and won't be invited for an interview. Considering the poor state of said programming assignment in terms of requirements I'm quite glad I won't be working for them and wasn't hesitant to tell them this in my last email to them. I'll be focusing on the projects my awesome friend Trevor, who really is incredibly patient with silly me, and maybe finally manage to turn them into successful commercial projects very soon now.

Finally, tomorrow I'm expecting to receive the replacement for my broken Corsair headset and I firmly intend to finally do another video log entry. Run away scared now, my little lambs~

Maya

Chronic Stress Makes Me Wish I Was Dead

2011-12-04T12:17:00.002+01:00

Recently I have been saying that I would soon do another video log, but I fear it'll have to wait. I'm still far too emotionally unstable at this point. This morning I once again couldn't stop crying shortly after waking up, and ended up trying to strangle myself again. I only blacked out for a moment as a result, and have a sore throat as well. It wasn't me who did this, but one of the monsters which lurk inside my head. I'm under too much stress at this point to hold them back. I have also written before about how it has been shown that emotional and physical pain mean the same thing to the brain [1].

The legal gender change request has been received by the courthouse in Almelo but nothing has been done with it. This a week after they received it. I hope the judge looks at it next week.

I haven't heard back from my other lawyer regarding the lawsuit yet. I have no idea what is happening there and how long it may take before the lawsuit is approved. I need this lawsuit to validate and put to use the past seven years of torture. Without it I'll have suffered pretty much for nothing as the Dutch hospitals can continue their maltreatment of intersex but also transsexual people.

I got offered a job in Germany earlier this week. Moving to another country is a stressful thing no matter what, and though I'm glad that I might be leaving the Netherlands for good within a couple of months, I'm worried about whether I'll like the new job and the environment there. I'm also worried about combining it with all those legal cases.

This week I'll probably be starting another lawsuit, this one against my insurance company for not granting me full coverage on electrolysis therapy. They have been pushing me around on this issue for months, resulting in me submitting the request four times and every time receiving conflicting feedback from them about whether a request has been denied or not, the reasons, whether additional information I have sent them has been received, etc. I feel I should get the coverage because my situation in this area is technically the same as for transsexuals and they do get full coverage.

To top it off, my dentist office is acting really weird. This year they have repeatedly promised to call me back later when I call for an appointment yet they never do. Tomorrow I'll go there in person and ask them what is going on.

I do not wish to be dramatic. I do not wish to make things look larger than they are. I do not wish to do anything that is morally or otherwise wrong. I do not wish to hurt myself.

I want to live and keep trying to find ways to do so, but if it's through a haze of pain, living is a bloody hard thing to do. One can only ignore the increasing pain for so long before giving into it.

[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-my-situation-is-little-different.html

Don't Mind The Fool In The Corner

2011-11-22T11:23:00.000+01:00

Late Sunday night I finally got the document from the German surgeon with his statement on what has been done and discovered during the surgery on October 14th. I forwarded it to my lawyers. With this the legal gender change and the lawsuit against the Dutch hospitals should be able to progress. I'm currently awaiting updates from both lawyers.

Also included in the surgeon's email was a brief summary of the findings during the biopsy of the removed testicles. They consisted out of atrophied tissue - probably as a result of the hormone therapy - with no signs of sperm-producing tissue. This explains the low testosterone production, as they seem to be as underdeveloped as the rest of the reproductive organs. The vagina, prostate and now testicles can all be termed remnants of a failed development.

Moving on, from time to time people come rushing to me to tell me about some intersex person who works there and there, and isn't it exciting that they can have a regular life and be accepted?

Oh yes, wonderful...

Here I am, broke and without income or home after a seven-year struggle with the hospitals and facing a long legal battle against the same hospitals, all to fight for the right to be myself. I have no job prospects or a future. All I can hope for is that the lawsuit gets approved by the judge and I can get foreign media attention, so that maybe someone out there can take pity on me and give me a future. How pathetic is that?

I have never learned how to live with being intersex. All the examples I get are of people who either have made it already or are also struggling to carve out an existence. I do not know what it means to be intersex. So far I have put it away, deep inside, and joked about it. At times it comes to the surface and its razor-sharp edges carve my very soul to shreds.

I really do not know anything yet. Not about myself, let alone my future.

*sadly shakes her fool's cap some more*

Maya

The Usual Mixed Bag Of News Desperate For Some Hope

2011-11-12T18:30:00.001+01:00

Sometimes things just go very well all of a sudden.

Yesterday I received a letter from my insurance company, which after the usual moment of befuddlement turned out to be a confirmation that the request for the surgery coverage in Germany had been approved. Attached was a form E-112 which I could hand over to the hospital in question. Fancy fact of course is that the surgery is now almost a month ago already, so I decided to call my insurance company and ask them how to handle this.

According to the girl I talked to it was very simple: I just needed to send them the bill from the hospital and that should take care of it. Easy enough. She then asked whether I had any more questions and I informed about the possibility of obtaining in writing the reasons for rejecting my request for full coverage of the electric epilation I'm undergoing. However, despite having had a woman from the same insurance company name two reasons (me still being registered as being male and not having filed the request before starting the whole therapy) for rejecting the request, the real reason turned out to be simply that they had been so slow at the insurance company with forwarding the additional information I had sent them that the case had been closed.

Naturally the request couldn't be re-opened from there and I had to have my family doctor re-send the request. When I told the insurance girl about the troubles I and my beautician had experienced in getting the request approved with it still being rejected she appeared quite sympathetic. When I told her about how me mentioning talking to my lawyer about it resulting in 'lost' documents suddenly being 'found' she laughed in recognition mixed with disbelief. All in all she was most helpful in clearing up a lot of things and I'm glad I made that phone call.

As it turned out, when she pulled up my information in their system she noticed that I'm registered there as being male which she told me had confused her majorly as she was convinced that she was talking to a regular woman. Explaining about intersex, hermaphroditism and pointing her to my website not only made things clear to her, but she seemed very interested and excited about learning this. In the end our talk became quite relaxed and we were even giggling at some points. The whole conversation left me with a good feeling, and I quickly went to the local insurance office to have them forward the hospital and to my family doctor's office to have the request re-sent.

Also nice is that I have people helping me improve my resume and contacting others in order to help me find a job. One of them also runs a fun blog site for which I did an interview which is currently still being posted in segments: http://tubgoat.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/mayaposch1/

Sometimes things just don't want to go into the right direction.

It's been nearly a month since I had the surgery in Germany. It's been nearly three weeks since I asked my surgeon, Dr. Pottek, to send me a statement which I need to get my legal gender changed and to launch the legal case against the Dutch hospitals and the horrors of intersex treatment in the Netherlands. I still have no idea when I'll get this document. It could be next week. It could be early next year. I really have no idea.

Earlier this week my family doctor concluded that I have an inflammation in my right knee and got me anti-inflammatory medication to take for it. This medication has resulted in severe stomach pains, which are apparently a normal side-effect, as well other uncomfortable sensations. Whether the medication is also doing something proper I don't know. Since yesterday my right knee is swelling up to the point where it's very easily noticeable. I'm not at all comfortable with the way things are going there and may have to go back to the doctor if things don't improve by Monday.

Mixed is also the situation with my stalkers. They have had their main weapon against me taken away, with that surgery in Germany proving once and for all that I had no reason to question my own theories about my body, and they're now scrambling to figure out something new, without any luck. They can't question the facts about my body any more and hurt me that way. On the other hand, they are tenacious enough that they keep stalking me to the point where they create accounts everywhere in order to track me down on those sites, as happened on Google+ most recently. One of them did reveal herself there, though what amazed me was that she used her real name, photo and location and posted in a public thread, meaning that she revealed herself as one of my stalkers to my thousands of followers. I won't link to her Google+ account as I'm not that childish, but it's easy enough to find via my Google+ posts assuming that her account hasn't been banned yet.

The nasty thing about this is having people with apparently no life tracking you in such an obsessed manner. Many celebrities have to deal with such unwanted attention and it is a very bothersome thing to deal with. About the exact psychology behind such obsessive behaviour I'm not sure, but that it isn't healthy behaviour should be clear. At the very least I'm glad that they don't have anything to hurt me with any more. Now it's just bloody nuisance, but maybe good preparation for the harassment I can probably expect once my legal case goes public. I'm sure that there are enough misguided, intolerant people out there prepared to harass those they see as 'different'.

Maya

Vlog: Putting Everything So Far Together

2011-11-08T13:50:00.000+01:00

- The surgery in Germany.
- My intersex condition.
- My feelings about it.
- What I'm doing now.
- How I see the future.

Maya

Overload

2011-11-06T19:12:00.000+01:00

Quick status update on my physical and mental health. I'm back on antibiotics since Friday after I finished the first cure and the infection wasn't gone yet. Currently I'm on broad-spectrum antibiotics which have the nasty side-effects of nausea, dizziness, headache, disorientation and most fun of all diarrhea. Tomorrow I'll get some probiotics to hopefully counter some of these side-effects by refilling the number of good bacteria in my system.

Tomorrow I'm also going to make an appointment at my family doctor's office. My right knee has been bothering me more and more the past weeks while being relatively stable pain-wise after the police beating [1] in May this year. Last Thursday I noticed that walking at a brisk pace was painful and today with the colder weather it's hurting something fierce at times, while the area is painful to the touch. I'm not feeling happy about this situation so I want to have it checked out.

Emotionally I'm still very much a mess. I have locked myself up in a tiny world, to shut out the horrible world outside. I have never felt this agitated, terrified and disgusted at anything related to sexuality. I think that's the result of getting the answers about my body. I feel more like a freak than ever before. This is not a positive development and I'm somewhat afraid of where it's heading. I think I need outside help on this point.

I have also forbidden myself to even think about my future. Technically I'm still homeless at the moment as I can not afford my own place now or any time soon and the only reason why I'm not living on the streets is because my mother still has some room for me at her place. There's also no way I'm getting out this country which is slowly killing me. No one will hire a person with severe, untreated PTSD. I also can not support myself financially. There's no existence possible for me in the Netherlands, nor anywhere else.

The only reasonable option at this point is to commit suicide, but I am foolish enough to keep trying for a bit longer by ignoring the terrors which lie ahead in my future. Can't think about it any more. Shouldn't even write about it. It just triggers things.

Maya

[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/05/taking-nightmare-notch-further.html

Vlog: My First Vlog Intro

2011-11-03T16:16:00.000+01:00

Burned Out On Life

2011-10-28T09:50:00.000+02:00

After nearly seven years I finally have most of the medical answers I have been looking for. To be honest I'm not really sure what to do next.

I know why I had to get those answers and the recognition for my intersex condition: to understand and come to terms with a disastrous puberty and surrounding years during which my body turned into something I could not understand, with mixed male and female secondary developments taking place and my emotional side being caught completely off-guard.

I was twenty-one years old when I started with this. I'm now twenty-eight. Seven years just seem to have vanished. Years during which I not only got lied to and brainwashed by Dutch hospitals and psychologists, but during which I also got raped, sexually assaulted, abused, harassed, beaten up by the police and refused by various Christian family doctors for being intersex. I'm now looking at the last years of my twenties with severe PTSD, DID and an urgent need to leave the country which has inflicted this upon me.

I know all this, and yet I am powerless to do anything about it. I know roughly what my options are. Struggle through a year or more of searching for a job in Canada or so directly, go via an EU branch and hope I can get relocated to Canada, or hope for a miracle. I also know that such a job search is the last thing I am capable of. Why?

For nearly seven years I have had to defend myself and my situation against physicians, psychologists, politicians and regular people. Not being trusted is what I know best and am the most afraid of. In this regard a job search is far too similar and thus places far too much emotional stress on me. Just at the thought of a job search I feel like crying uncontrollably. I'm not good enough...

I'm trying to ignore my lack of a future at this point by focusing on my work, but I know quite well that my chances of getting out of this situation on my own range between negative and very, very slight. I just have to consult the dull headache and feeling of weary exhaustion I carry along with me ever since I returned from Germany. Typical burn-out.

No time to recover, though. No chance to get my PTSD treated. No chance to live. Just got to fight and make more compromises while ending up with less each time.

I can't do it any more...

Maya

Trudging Forth On The Path Of Infinite Regrets

2011-10-20T10:13:00.000+02:00

One can not live without accumulating regrets about past decisions and past events. Many of them are relatively insignificant, like whether missing that date with that one girl would have made any real difference, or losing that winning lottery ticket for a grand total of $100 or so. Others are far more influential, especially medical issues, as they literally touch upon the very core of our existence.

Emotionally it's not been easy for me since I learned the facts about my body. Before the surgeon told me what he found there were so many possibilities, some of them better, some of them worse than what I ended up with when this waveform of possibilities collapsed into the basic truth. I had been right all those years, but also wrong. The Dutch physicians and psychologists have lied to me and attempted to brainwash me through elaborate deceptions. I do have a vagina, but its development got stuck on a relatively early level and isn't usable. I am essentially without genitals, as apparently both cell lines, XX and XY, fought over control when it came to developing the genitals and both lost. That's why I only have a hybrid clitoris/penis structure which is neither, and a vagina and prostate remnant. It's also why I had undeveloped testicles and have never been fertile as either side.

I am a freak.

Such a simple word, with so much pain and anguish behind it. The treatment by my very own country is something I simply can not comprehend let alone deal with at this point. The many regrets about having been born like this, with such a questionable body. Being without genitals. Being infertile. Having to get additional surgery to have an artificial vagina created to allow me to still have some semblance of genitals and the possibility of a sex life. The emotional mess which is a result of growing up like this.

So much left to do before I can maybe become happy.

I feel beyond disgusted and horrified at what my very own country has done to me and I really can not stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. Whether it was sheer incompetence or malevolence which drove them to trample my human rights like this I do not know. All I know is that they won't fix it and I can't fix it.

*takes a deep breath*

The positive news is that the wounds from the surgery are healing quite well. Yesterday I also visited my lawyer regarding the official gender change and progress is being made there. All that is required now are a confirmation from the surgeon that I am fact infertile now thanks to the orchiectomy and more annoyingly proof that he is an approved physician as that's required by law to testify that a person is intersex. More annoying delays.

My lawyer is also going to help me find another lawyer who can help me launch a case against the Dutch police and the various hospitals here who have caused me so many grievances, both emotional and physical in nature. I'm very grateful that she's doing this for me. Hopefully I can find some closure that way.

Maya

The Joys Of Surgery, And I'm Not Done Yet...

2011-10-14T15:13:00.000+02:00

It's 10.45 PM as I'm typing this in my hospital bed. I went to sleep around 8 PM and even took a sleeping pill, but I have been sleeping almost constantly since the surgery this morning so now I'm quite awake. Sadly I do not have internet - it's only available if you pay extra - so no one but me will read this post until I put it online early next week.

Traveling to the clinic on Thursday was no big deal, other than the fact that German intercity trains use a seat numbering system akin to airplanes, which was a tad confusing at first. I arrived safely after about 4.5 hours of travel time. The reception was good and warm, even if very few people here speak English. Dr. Pottek does, fortunately, as do his secretary and a few others I talked to. It's kinda fun to use a mixture of English and German with the personnel here.

After arrival I first had four ampuls of blood taken, then talked with the anesthetist, who had not been informed on the details surrounding my case yet. It was kinda confusing, but it was a nice, younger guy. I ended up giving him my business card so that he can take a further look at my case. Both Dr. Pottek and his secretary have read my website, which I still think is amazing as never before has a doctor or even hospital personnel shown any kind of interest in the person behind the patient. I think that Dr. Pottek is very friendly and attentive, even if at some points he still very much is a guy.

After the anesthetist appointment I had a chat with Dr. Pottek. His first remark was immediately that he didn't think I have a vagina, thereby instantly triggering my traumas and making me feel kinda sick. When he fetched his laptop with the MRI images, however, things became a lot more nuanced. There is a structure there, but he was unsure how useful it could be. During the surgery the next day he would open things up and see what he could find. An ultrasound of this structure and the testicles were made.

Having been shown to my room after all this, I was basically free to do what I wanted until surgery at 8 AM the next morning. I had a room to myself, which was quite sparsely furnished. For some reason I got a lot of flashbacks regarding the time I spent in jail as well as other flashbacks and felt really quite terrible and haunted. I got a sedative for this, and the night nurse gave me a sleeping tablet as well. I don't think I got much sleep that night, though.

Surgery itself took about 50 minutes, during which I was completely unconscious. It was nearly 10 AM when I came to again, and it was later that afternoon when I heard from Dr. Pottek how things had gone. As expected the orchiectomy was a breeze, though I have drainage tubes installed which are rather annoying, to be honest. The exploratory surgery showed that while there is a structure underneath the skin, it's too underdeveloped to be useful as a vagina and thus the opening was closed up without any further surgery. What I will likely do, as suggested by Dr. Pottek, is when the now empty scrotum has finished shrinking in a few (4-6) months time, to have it used to create a vagina and labia with. According to Dr. Pottek I have the abdominal space for a vagina this way of about 12 cm deep.

I know I have said that I do not wish for an artificial vagina, but now that I'm this close to having one of my own and just missing it, I think it's the right choice to undergo this vaginoplasty using the otherwise useless scrotum skin. This procedure would then probably take place in Canada, assuming Google accepts my application there. It's also so that in terms of reproductive organs I ended up with so little. No womb, or ovaries. Scarcely developed prostate and testicles. Just a penis which is wired up like a clitoris. With the primary erogenic zone for me being the location of the vagina, this second surgery is the best way I have to get a satisfying sex life.

Just one more reason to hope that I do get hired by Google or similar soon, so that I can build up my life, have that last, 5-hour surgery and then at long last be done with it. Dr. Pottek noted that they have a good center for plastic surgery in Ottowa. I hope that I can go there early next year...

Maya

Why I'd Really Want To Work At Google Canada

2011-10-12T20:21:00.000+02:00

As suggested by a certain someone at Google+, I'm hereby composing a list of items why I would be more than happy if Google Canada offered me the chance to work at one of their offices.

For me the crucial point at this time is to get the heck out of the Netherlands after many highly unpleasant years caused by the disconnect of the government and medical system here when it comes to things like my intersex condition (hermaphroditism). The resulting struggle has led to various traumas on my side which make it impossible for me to stay much longer in this country. I really need to move to a place where I can be myself, and of course work at a company where this is possible as well. Google does seem like a company where such tolerance and freedom exists. Canada is also the kind of country where this should be possible.

Furthermore, I'm a long-time software developer, starting back in the early 90s as a hobby, to make it my profession early this century. I love new, never before tried concepts and projects as can be seen in my portfolio to some extent. Innovation and imagination is in my blood. I think that Google, being such a young and ambitious company, is probably one of if not the best environment for a person like me to work in, especially considering their policy of letting employees work on their own projects using company resources. That's the kind of thing I really like.

I also have no problems working in teams, as long as things are done fairly. I will quickly speak my mind about things I'm not happy about and think that by doing so I'll do everyone a favour. This also seems like it's in line with how Google operates :)

Most importantly for me is of course that I can permanently escape the Netherlands and settle in a more friendly country, but I'm also willing to give a lot back to whoever makes this possible. I'm someone who keeps her promises and I vow that if Google helps me in this matter, I'll repay them with equal fairness. Even if I am made to program in Java :)

Maya

Heading Out On A Journey Of Many Firsts And Many Questions

2011-10-12T19:00:00.002+02:00

First time I'll undergo surgery. First staying the night at a hospital or clinic. First time a surgeon actually does his job. First time my life is changing for the better.

Uncertainty about whether the surgeon will decide to proceed with the introitoplasty. Questions about what the result will be if I do get the introitoplasty: what will this vagina of mine be like in terms of development? It still feels so strange to even be talking about it as a real thing.

By the end of tomorrow I should have at least the answers to the most essential questions, and know whether the introitoplasty will be performed. The surgeon will be doing an ultrasound for the orchiectomy as part of the standard procedure, and a transrectal ultrasound to examine the possibility of an introitoplasty. To be honest I no longer want to think about what it's going to be. I know what I'm hoping for and I know what would disappoint me greatly. One would mean a happy ending to the medical side of the story, the other would mean the continuation of this hellish nightmare.

Main reason why it would end the nightmare is that the introitoplasty would mean the ultimate evidence of me being intersex and a hermaphrodite. Without it people, including physicians, will keep questioning whether I'm intersex at all and ridicule me for thinking that I actually could have female reproductive organs. It'll maintain the doubt and possibly even worsen things if I know it's there but can't be operated upon. I'm not sure how I would handle that news.

Hoping for the best here... See you guys at the other side.

Maya

The German Surgery Appointment As An Elaborate Fake: Fact Or Paranoia?

2011-10-10T22:50:00.000+02:00

There's nothing I would love more than a happy ending to my medical drama in less than a week, but if the past seven years have taught me anything it is that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. I'm facing the same thing with the upcoming surgery appointment in Germany. Note that I'm not trying to accuse anyone of anything here, I'm just trying to spell out my doubts and questions here.

First of all I have never had contact with the clinic itself. I have sent them emails with requests for general information about what to expect at the clinic but not received a response. My surgeon, Dr. Pottek, said he would forward my questions as well, which brings me to the next point, namely that I have always communicated with this Dr. Pottek via an email address not connected to the clinic, but a personal email address at a German internet provider. I got this email address via my friend Sandra, who I have never met in real life and of whom I can not say that she is a real person or not.

My fear is that I'll be arriving at the clinic in Hamburg on Thursday afternoon, ask for Dr. Pottek (who is a real doctor at the clinic) and be told that there's no record of anyone with my name being expected at the clinic. So far there's nothing I can put against the earlier reasoning, and nothing which could ease my doubts. At this point I do have the faint hope that it is all real and not a hoax, but so many people have set up schemes like this for me in the past, regular people and even physicians, that I can't help but feel completely justified in thinking that it is all yet another setup, aimed at hurting me.

The clinic actually responding to my emails would help to ease my doubts, but I'm very doubtful... I really hope that I'm just paranoid, but trusting people is no longer possible for me.

I'll be over there, bracing for the pain of yet another massive disappointment...

Maya

Saying Farewell To The Child, Or: How Deeply My Country Has Betrayed Me

2011-10-09T15:43:00.001+02:00

In four days time I'll be traveling to Hamburg, Germany, where I will undergo the very first surgery ever in my life and also likely the most important one I'll ever have. With a bit of luck I will not only lose the little bit of true masculinity in my body (semi-functional testicles), but will also gain the last bit of female sexuality which has up till now been hidden and denied to me. This transformation goes far beyond the mere physical. With it I'll also leave behind the last part of the child inside me: the boy who wasn't a boy.

While the mental scars won't fade right away it'll still mean that at long last I have won the war to regain my real identity. In order to win this bitter-sweet victory I also needed outside interference. Part of me still can barely believe that it may really happen this time, that before next week the struggle for medical help and acknowledgement finally ends. I was twenty-one years old when I finally discovered what was going on with my body, and I'm now twenty-eight, with both physical and mental scars to show for it.

Part of coming to terms with these 'lost years' is somehow dealing with the treatment by my own country, the Netherlands. As I have documented in a very detailed fashion on my site and blog, there has been a constant denial of my intersex condition and a constant push to have me accept the lie that I had to be transsexual and was just one sex-reassignment surgery (and 3+ years of 'therapy') away from happiness. Here I can only draw two conclusions, based on the saying "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" [1].

Either the Dutch physicians, psychologists and politicians have acted out of malice, knowing very well the damage their brainwashing attempts would do, or they are so clueless and ignorant that they kept at their misguided attempts to 'help' me even as it became abundantly clear right from the start that it was the wrong approach. Whichever is the case, or whether it's a combination of both, the quick acceptance and help in Germany shows clearly what the right approach is like. If I had lived in Germany back in 2005 when I discovered the issue, I would probably have had medical help that same year and not had to suffer all these years of agony. I am more than just bitter about the way my country has and still is treating me. I feel completely betrayed and abandoned by them and regard the Netherlands as a lethal risk.

I would very much like to change the Netherlands or at least make it easy for intersex people to flee from it to safe country, but I'll need to recover from my ordeal first. Here is to hoping that I'll soon get hired by one of the Canadian companies I applied at or otherwise find my way into that country, or another country where I can be safe and feel welcome.

Now that I have finally reached this point it'd be kind of silly to have to admit defeat and commit suicide or so, right?

Maya

[1] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon

Things Really Don't Have To Be So Difficult

2011-10-05T23:21:00.000+02:00

A short while ago my German physician, Dr. Pottek, informed me about his findings with regard to the MRI scans I sent him. He basically confirmed the findings of the first German clinic who did the initial MRI scan and analysis. To quote from the email in which he describes some details:

"in one of the MRI files one can see something that could be the vanishing vagina.
I watched one of the interviews you have poste on your website where you told that you feel something with your fingers.
If this is the anatomical pendant to what I see in the MRI, it should be easy to open it and form an introitus.
We would have to compare these findings with the pictures of a transrectal ultrasound examination we will do here."

An introitus or introitoplasty is essentially using the scrotum to form labia. The inverse of introitus is scrotoplasty, whereby the labia are turned into a scrotum.

I also got a letter from Dr. Pottek to be forwarded to my insurance company. In it he confirms that I have an intersex body and that the orchiectomy is medically indicated to make the supporting hormone therapy easier. As described in the above quote he also wants to check out the vagina and notes in the letter that if he deems the introitoplasty possible, he will perform it together with the orchiectomy (castration). Depending on whether it is only the orchiectomy or both items which I will undergo during the surgery I will have to stay 3 or 5 nights.

Within a few hours all of my dreams, everything I have fought for in terms of medical recognition could become a reality.

It's such a wonderful feeling, even though there's still the lingering fear that it will all come crashing down again.

Tomorrow it's just one more week until I travel to Hamburg. Friday it'll be just one week until I find myself in the operating room. All I want to know is whether the introitoplasty is possible and if so, in how far the vagina is usable. Maybe I'll need hormone therapy to develop its development. I'll see.

Keeping everything I can cross crossed until the end of next week...

Maya

Why My Situation Is Little Different From Physical Torture

2011-10-04T19:15:00.001+02:00

A few moments ago I had a brief email-exchange involving sex-reassignment surgery. This brief exchange contained sufficient triggers to make me feel warm/cold and to develop a sensation of hurt, of wanting to get away from it, to forget about it as it was hurting me and I had to get away from something that unpleasant. Last night I was communicating with the German surgeon who I'll meet next week. During our email exchange I experienced something similar.

The reason for this isn't so hard, of course. I got a lot of traumatic disorders which are bound to make me feel horrible when I'm reminded of something unpleasant which for me is almost with everything at this point. It's only the extent to which it makes me feel horrible which differs, like how getting slapped in the face isn't nearly as painful as getting punched in the face. There are gradations in emotional pain. Yet how far does this pain go?

According to a fairly recent study [1] there is no distinct difference between emotional and physical pain, making the pain experienced by test subjects in this study equivalent regardless of whether its origin was emotional or physical (8/10 on the pain scale), with fMRI scans showing that the same brain areas are activated. Short conclusion is that experiencing emotional pain, whether it's from a break-up or traumatic experiences is virtually the same as experiencing physical pain. Hereby the gradations play a role, of course.

This brings me back to the title of this post. Thanks to the whole host of traumas I have experienced and still am experiencing combined with the constant triggering of those traumas because I have to keep re-experiencing them while I fight my way out of the situation I was forced into. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I also have, is characterized by the amygdala [2] basically going crazy as the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are unable to regulate it down [3]. This leads to an extreme emotional response, which also leads to very painful memories and experiences being remembered or imagined.

To briefly summarize it, what I experience on a daily basis is no different from experiencing severe physical pain. It's been over five years since I began to suffer from PTSD. During that time the emotional distress has increased and increased. Day in. Day out. With regular shocks: rapid increases in this distress. Suffering chronic pain can drive one to insanity and suicide as the pain keeps gnawing at him, without any respite or relief. Euthanasia is the preferred option by terminally ill people suffering from chronic pain, such as during the final stages of cancer.

I can feel the pain gnawing at me. Deep inside, where I can't reach it. During moments of what one could term insanity I find myself hitting my head as hard as possible. To drown out the pain inside it. To try to end the pain. It's always there, never giving me much respite. I never got used to it, I just learned to endure it.

If someone gets beaten up on a daily basis, people would obviously consider this to be a heinous act and demand to stop it. Why would it be any different when the victim is suffering from severe emotional pain? The fMRIs say that it's the same thing to the person in question, meaning that to the victim there is no difference except for the presence or lack thereof of physical injuries.

Meanwhile, today I'm also suffering yet again from a strong pain in my right knee, as a result from the physical beating I received at the hands of the Dutch police. The foot is numb, with occasional stinging pain. The knee area is almost unbearably sore and painful to the touch. The pain from this kind of blurs together with the emotional pain.

I guess I literally am limping along now, both physically and emotionally, while hoping for salvation...

Maya

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/29/news/la-heb-love-hurts-20110329
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Neuroanatomy

Having To Cancel My Surgeries Due To The Costs...

2011-10-03T23:52:00.001+02:00

Feeling quite shocked right now... just heard the costs for the orchiectomy and the vaginoplasty of which at least the former will be performed this month: EUR 3,500 and EUR 7,000. If my insurance company doesn't pay up and/or the surgeon doesn't want to file a request with them, I'll be absolutely, totally, flat broke, or I'll have to refuse the surgeries and be back at square one... Just... T_T

I don't even have the means to pay for an orchiectomy, that's the short story... which means no legal gender change...

Why am I even trying any more? I know I can't win...

Maya

[update:] Got a positive response from my surgeon. He will send me a letter for my insurance company tomorrow. I just hope that my insurance company accepts it...

Switching Between Stress Modes, Pain And Nausea

2011-10-02T20:25:00.000+02:00

The thing about focusing on one thing at a time is when that one thing finally seems to resolve itself and one gets a chance to look up, all the other things to be done are still there, waiting. Rebuilding my life is one of those complex undertakings. Now that the medical situation finally seems to have found an apparent solution with the German physician, other issues come popping back up with a vengeance.

One of those things is the major medical question I have been walking around with. Back in 2007 a first German clinic concluded based on MRI images that I have a closed-off vagina and it probably could be opened via reconstructive surgery (creating labia). A second German clinic confirmed this in 2008. Now with an apparently cooperative surgeon prepared to do things for me I would be crazy if I didn't discuss with him, right? I have suggested this to my friend Sandra as well, but so far I haven't heard a response on this yet. I think that it is something which should be discussed the coming weeks before I head off to Hamburg, Germany. If anything the physician can take a look at the MRI report and scans and tell me his thoughts. If I'm really lucky I'll be heading to Hamburg again then in a month time or so for the labia reconstruction. Maybe. Luck hasn't been on my side so far. It's just another source of stress now.

Since yesterday I have had this severe headache, nausea also while lying in bed, sudden strong pains - especially in the lower-right abdomen, where the undescended testicle is located - which instantly knock the breath out of me, and lots of pain in both hands due to the nerve damage. I'm feeling restless, agitated and apprehensive. I also feel like it's all moving too slow, that the help I was expecting to help me escape this country isn't forthcoming as I had hoped and basically that it's all just slipping away.

I guess I really don't feel like I'm part of reality. When I'm waving at people to get their attention they just can't see me. I'm just like a ghost. Already dead but still in denial of the fact. So very insubstantial.

And of course that I ended up like this, with permanent nerve damage, severe traumatic disorders and no prospect of a future is all my fault. As someone put it recently to me, it's all my deserved punishment for what I have done.

With the lack of help there is the distinct possibility that this statement is true. I really must be a horrible person. Right? I deserve the worst punishment imaginable. I should see everything around me crumble until I end up taking my own life while crying out the last drops of regret for my horrible actions.

Any other explanation defies reason.

Maya

Finally, Planning My German Surgery Vacation Trip

2011-09-30T14:06:00.002+02:00

My awesome friend Sandra just emailed me that she has made an appointment for me in Hamburg for the orchiectomy surgery. I'll be traveling there on October 13th, have the surgery on the 14th and stay there a few days to recover.

While I still feel a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, I'm mostly feeling relief at things finally moving forward and me being able to organize things again. There's nothing I hate more than depending on others. I guess I'm more of a leader type, as suggested by the personality tests I have done in the past.

The coming time I still have to arrange a few things, most notably the insurance coverage which has to be requested by the German physician, and the travel plan to/from the Hamburg hospital. The trip will cost me somewhere around 70-80 Euro, which is reasonable. I just hope I don't have to foot the bill for the procedure itself as well. It'll come down to the cooperation of the German physician there, I guess.

I'll be contacting my lawyer about the legal gender change as well, considering that a surgery date has been set. It's perhaps possible that she can file the request already, or at least prepare for it.

To be quite honest I'm looking forward to the trip. Going to a place where people will help me and where I'll spend a few days getting looked after. It should be quite pleasant. Only thing I hope is that I do have internet access there and can maybe take my laptop with me :D

Finally I would like to mention Sandra again, without whom I wouldn't be typing this. It's an awesome example of how people can help each other. Everybody knows a few other things than others, and a few other people who could be useful. That's why people shouldn't be afraid to lend their knowledge and network contacts to others. It's how society functions.

Maya

My Current Problem In A Nutshell

2011-09-30T13:53:00.000+02:00

Nearly seven years ago I went to the first Dutch hospital's gender team to attempt to get medical help with my intersex condition, to figure out what was going on and what my options were.
During those years multiple Dutch physicians and psychologists tried to brainwash me into believing that I was transsexual, etc. Sex-Reassignment Surgery (SRS) was more than merely suggested as 'solution'. Tests (mosaic test report, MRI reports) were faked.
Two German clinics confirmed that I am a hermaphrodite.
I have been suffering from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and probably other traumatic disorders for a number of years now, as confirmed by my psychotherapist. This is directly caused by the Dutch medical system and related.
An EMDR therapist I went to refused to treat my PTSD as it's too strong right now, due to the lack of medical help. The treatment could harm me.
I need to find a country to move to where I can get away from the causes of my traumas (the Dutch medical and related systems), where I can get medical help and trauma care. Moving away is the first priority.
Germany would be a good option except that I do not speak German, which makes it hard to impossible to find a job there. A country like Canada has good medical care, no bias against intersex people and a healthy economy, plus English is my primary language, allowing me to blend right in. It has my preference at the moment.

Maya

A Day In The Life Of A Stranger In A Strange Land

2011-09-29T21:43:00.000+02:00

This morning I once again woke up in what could be called my room, but isn't really. It's filled with full moving boxes and all the other elements of my life which I had to postpone while I try to find a way out of what seems like an impossible to change descent into death. It's a depressing sight, not to mention a constant reminder that things still aren't alright.

I had to take a shower this morning as I had an appointment at the beauty salon in Deventer. It's not easy for me to take showers any more, as it is a confrontation with this body of mine, which is a constant, painful reminder that it is what caused my life to spiral downwards like this. Or maybe it wasn't and it is this country I was born in which is responsible for what happened to me. I don't like assigning blame. I just want to do fun things in life and people to not be mean to others. Even if they're just following protocol. Following protocols, regulations and laws isn't being humane.

The stress of arranging such a simple surgery due to the difficulties encountered has pushed me over the edge in many ways. I couldn't even brush my teeth this morning without it causing me to start feeling nauseous and throwing up the breakfast I had consumed an hour before. I hate throwing up. It makes you feel so terrible and weak. Yet the stress is only going to get worse from here on. I wonder what's worse than throwing up which is caused by extreme, chronic, untreated stress? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Anyway, I digress. I was talking about my difficulty with taking showers as it confronts me with my body. Being confronted with the moving boxes in the room I sleep in, and the problem formed by my body. This morning I was also expecting to hear news from another clinic in Germany via my friend Sandra regarding the orchiectomy. That news turned out to be a 6 week wait for a EUR 150 intake. No good option. I still don't get why the Münster clinic need so long either to decide whether they want to help me. Eventually I succumbed and just told Sandra to arrange an appointment for next week, even if it was in Hamburg. Somehow it has to be done. I have been stuck on arranging this minor, 30-minute surgery for one and a half month now. It's part of the tragedy that is my life, it seems.

Thus I spent today's morning. Around noon I left for the trainstation for my appointment at the beauty salon. As I don't like to dress shabbily when going outside, I was wearing black leggings, short jeans and a white T-shirt with a colourful print on it featuring a French text. I put on some makeup as well. Just some mascara and eye-liner. I was glad it was a nice warm and sunny day today. I'm still not comfortable thinking about myself as a regular woman, though. There's still so much missing inside of me, not to mention the years of mental abuse by psychologists and physicians who tried to brainwash me into thinking that I had to be a guy. That on top of years of self-delusion which took me two decades to snap out of. I'm neither a guy or girl. I'm... something. I need therapy and help to get over this.

Going to Deventer by train was very familiar. Been going there for months now for these electric epilation treatments. While in the train I spent my time reading a newspaper I found there and in my current book, Stephen King's Black House. It's a good book so far. It's co-authored by Peter Straub, another of my favourite authors.

After getting off the train and not forgetting to check out with my digital public transport card, I walked out of the station hall into Deventer. I had to don my sunglasses as it was very sunny today. I made it to the beauty salon well on time as usual. I chatted a bit with some of the interns who work there, most of whom already know about my situation. I notice that I really enjoy this weekly bit of social interaction. It makes me almost feel like I'm not a reject of society. Until the appointment is over and I leave the salon, of course.

The electric epilation treatment is going quite well. Last week the beautician asked me to stop shaving part of the area that is being treated as she really can't see the hairs there otherwise. They're just getting too small. After the first treatment I got a back massage from one of the interns. They get to practice that way, and I get a free massage. I think it's a pretty fair trade, although part of me feels a bit guilty because I don't feel like I am giving back enough. I have that a lot. The massage was followed by another round of electric epilation. Most of the long hairs are gone now. Just got to heal up again.

After the beauty salon appointment I went to check out this lawyer I had contacted via email about two weeks ago regarding the damages caused to me by the police and others, but from whom I hadn't received a response yet. It was a surreal experience walking further into the center of Deventer. Decrepit buildings and randomly laid out streets. Lots of people around who didn't look like they were doing so well in life either. A few times I heard beeping and cat whistles behind me as guys tried to draw my attention. I guess I should be flattered. Part of me was. Another part hates acting like I'm a regular girl as I know the horrible truth. I also know that I can not live with this truth forever.

The lawyer's office turned out to be some shared building, and after pressing the door bell for the lawyer's office I didn't get a response, so I walked back to the station. On my way there phrases from various Stephen King books I have read over the years popped into my head. Mostly descriptions of people and surroundings. Decay being a prominent item. Around me I could see it as well. A crowded city, filled with people who are too tired to live any more but are going on anyway. Young people being oblivious of the decay and hopelessness around them. I did see some fancy stores in one street, though. It's not a place where I would want to live. It doesn't feel real.

Few things feel real any more, I guess. Humans are very good at pretending that reality is different from what their senses perceive. I guess it's also why so many people I talk to do not understand or see that my situation is anything but stable and without external stable I am very likely to end up dead. The constant pains in my lower abdomen which are almost unbearable are a reminder of this. Which pains are just in my head and which are real? Which pains are caused by the stress and which are due to some malignant medical condition?

In a proper world I wouldn't have gone through all of this. I wouldn't have suffered at all. I wouldn't have severe, untreated PTSD.I wouldn't have to flee the country I was born and raised in. Little wonder that I so badly want this suffering to end that I'm ready to quit life altogether. After the nosedive my life took, seven years ago, there's absolutely no sign that things are improving. So far it's just more of the same old promises-and-betrayal. Maybe I'll get the orchiectomy performed after all and my legal gender changed, but what then? Will I make it to Canada or another safe country? Will I ever get treatment for my PTSD? Will anyone powerful ever admit that I was treated horribly and arrange protection for me?

More promises. More pending betrayals. More broken dreams. Just the endless waking up in a room surrounded by the ruins of my life, and no way to fix it. I can't do anything, it's been beyond my powers for years.

This isn't a life. This isn't an existence. It's just an endless, cruel nightmare which some demonic god put on repeat. I'm only playing along while I still have this little shred of hope that it will end one day and this world will no longer feel like part of the nightmare, with everyone just put there to make me feel even worse.

Today there's still no conclusion to the orchiectomy adventure either. Haven't heard from Sandra since this morning. Kinda worried. I hope I'm feeling okay tomorrow. Waking up feeling suicidal is a risky thing. I have already made sure there's nothing in the room where I sleep which I can use to kill myself with. Nothing can keep me from punching, scratching and strangling myself, though. The ability to harm myself and feel physical pain is my only weapon against this nightmare at this point anyway. Only through it can I keep a connection with reality and feel human again for a bit. Without physical mutilation I would already be dead. It's pathetic and sad.

My life is sad. Tragicomedy, or just tragedy. Don't most tragedies end with the death of the main character? I wonder how mine will end... Just a bit longer until the curtains are drawn after the last act completes. The currently final act is about which will give out sooner: my mind or my body. Both suffered so much abuse the past years. Both are on the verge of collapse. It's going to be exciting.

And in a way I'm relieved that there is a good chance that I will be slipping quietly out of this life. Would have loved to have given it another whirl, but one has to be fair about when there's no chance to win any more and gracefully give up.

*bows as the curtains are drawn closed*

Maya

Quick Update Regarding Orchiectomy And German Clinics

2011-09-28T18:49:00.000+02:00

Last Friday I sent an email to a clinic in Nordhorn, Germany regarding the orchiectomy (castration) procedure. Didn't hear anything on Monday. Had my awesome German friend Sandra call the clinic on Tuesday. Turned out that they didn't receive my email. Resent it. Heard that they don't do the procedure. Got redirected to a clinic in Münster. Sandra sends them an email and we wait for response. She also talks with another urologist in Hamburg who agrees to do the procedure. It's a very long journey from here (near Enschede) to Hamburg, though.

Today Münster clinic gets a call from Sandra, she hears that they'll need five days to investigate the legality of the procedure. I already know it's legal. The first surgeon also knew it was legal else he wouldn't have agreed to perform it. Annoying. Sandra sends email to a clinic in Osnabrück, but before she can call them work time is over. The central reception confirms that the email was received and forwarded.

Tomorrow morning I finally hope to get the appointment. Hopefully for next week. It's an easy drive to Osnabrück from here. Can't wait to get this whole tragicomedy over with. Definitely can't take more stress. After the response of the Münster clinic I got very strong suicidal thoughts. Not good.

I'm also extremely grateful to my fantastic friend Sandra without whom I wouldn't even have accomplished this much. Keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow now...

Pretty please? :(

Maya

Please Help If You Want Me To Have A Future

2011-09-26T08:19:00.000+02:00

Staying in the Netherlands would mean continued discrimination and persecution due to my intersex condition. I would be refused any medical help, receive more hostility from physicians, psychologists and politicians. My untreated PTSD would likely result in a continuously degrading physical and emotional condition, as well as various auto-immune diseases. Even ignoring that I do not have the financial means to support myself in this very expensive country, staying where I am now will mean my death within the short term. Either due to medical complications or by my own hand.

I have to go somewhere else. Germany was one option, but I lack the financial means to support myself there, even though it's cheaper there. I would need someone to support me, or get a job. Nobody has offered to pay my bills, and German companies are unlikely to hire me considering that I don't speak German and with my troublesome background.

Similarly, Canada would be a very good option to move to, but it's a one in a million shot. I'd need someone to sponsor me, or I am not even getting into the country. Why would a Canadian company hire me considering the expenses of moving me there if they can just hire someone local?

I would apply for refugee status, but the United Nations hasn't finished adding the 'persecution due to intersex' clause to the refugee definition. Maybe next year.

Conclusion: without external help my chances of survival are just above zero.

Anyone got a suicide pill for me? It too would be very welcome help, as I am sick of fighting what turned out to be a futile struggle to even merely exist.

Maya

Never Trust Anyone, Especially Not Dutch Physicians

2011-09-24T11:00:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was quite an unpleasant day. Not only did I have my traumas kicked to the point of feeling physically ill and even right now still suffering from severe flashbacks, but I also had the urologist I had an appointment with last week Tuesday call me and basically brush me off, telling me to find a German physician myself.

The former incident was a combination of two things. First was finding out two days ago that people had been talking about me on some random forum (http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=57009&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=2625), referring to me as a 'tranny' and such, which I found hard to ignore as it hits the uncertainty and lack of self-esteem I have pretty hard. The second thing was a girl admitting to me that she was involved in the production of amateur porn. That latter incident especially hit me very hard. Feeling 'physically ill' isn't strong enough a term to describe how I felt. I'm pretty sure the combination of both items caused me to wake up at around 3 AM feeling very suicidal.

It may seem extreme to respond so severely to someone admitting such a thing, but I have always had difficulty with people who participate in the 'adult entertainment industry', as the euphemism goes. After my rape, sexual assault/abuse, etc. this has turned into a strong aversion against anything related to pornography. I can't watch it, I can't hear about it... it just makes me feel very, very ill, both mentally and physically. With rapid medical care for my intersex condition and the right trauma care, I could probably reduce the severity of these responses, but so far it seems unlikely that this will happen any time soon.

The incident with the urologist was pretty screwed up as well. I and my mother had been calling the urology department of the hospital where this Dr. Zweers works repeatedly this week, but even yesterday he hadn't even so much as looked at the request for a status update which was put on his desk on Wednesday. When he finally called me yesterday at around 5 PM he said that he hadn't found anything useful during the three days he spent at that urologist conference in Germany, and could only give me the name of someone who might be a urologist in Frankfurt called M. Solm. A Google search didn't turn up anyone with that name. Needlessly to say, I feel that Dr. Zweers was trying to get off easily and didn't have the nerve to tell me so. It wouldn't be the first time I experience this with Dutch physicians.

Luckily my mother remembered the location of a German clinic which is quite nearby. I sent that clinic an email with the request. Hopefully they'll respond positively and I can still get an appointment for that orchiectomy within two weeks time or so. It would be so nice to have the legal gender change request filed with the judge before this month is past.

In other news, a Canadian friend (married man with children, nothing too suspicious :) ) offered to send my CV to some Canadian companies in the hope that one of them might hire me, sponsor my visa and that way get me into Canada. Canada is a pretty good country for intersex people from what I have heard and seen, has a healthy economy, very beautiful nature, my best friend ever lives there and most people I know online live in North-America. It would also be very helpful to live in a country of which I speak the language better than the language I learned first. For these reasons I hope that I can get into Canada. Somehow I have to get a stable future, and the Netherlands is not the place for that, as yesterday's incident with the physician has made clear yet again.

I would very much appreciate it if people could ask around at Canadian companies for me. My CV/resume and portfolio are available on my website, www.mayaposch.com. For the full CV with contact information you will have to contact me. Thanks in advance!

Maya

End Of The Line? After Years Of Abuse Maya Hopes For A Future

2011-09-21T13:05:00.000+02:00

She is intelligent and attractive. She speaks many spoken and programming languages fluently, and is a quick study. One would expect her life to be going quite smoothly considering her credentials. Instead she is considering ending her life because she can no longer see a future for herself. How could this happen? What went wrong?

Maya was born in 1983 in a small Dutch village. The first five or six years there was nothing unusual about her, aside from maybe how easily she became friends with everyone. Then for some reason Maya became quiet and began to withdraw into herself. It was the first sign of what was wrong, yet nobody could pick up on what was the matter. For fifteen years she'd stay like this, with even the discovery of her significant giftedness in 2002 offering only a partial explanation.

Puberty was disturbing for Maya, as her body didn't develop the way she had expected it to. Back then Maya still had a boy's name, as at birth they had assumed her to be a boy. During puberty she did however experience breast growth and developed a feminine skeleton. Later tests showed that she only had very low testosterone levels. It wasn't until 2005 that she discovered on her own that she was intersex, and later hermaphrodite as specific diagnosis. This is where things went wrong.

Even though two German clinics had confirmed this hermaphrodite diagnosis using an MRI scan, Dutch physicians and psychologists would deny this diagnosis, claiming that the MRI scans made didn't show anything unusual, ignoring Maya's physical build and attempting to brainwash her into believing that she had to be transsexual and wanted to be a woman. Maya did however constantly maintain that she was happy with her body the way it was, and that she was in fact a hermaphrodite. Dutch hospitals proceeded by faking a mosaic test and denying to perform more examinations.

After nearly seven years of this, Maya was forced to acknowledge her defeat; thanks to the refusal by the Dutch medical world to even classify her as being intersex and the brainwashing attempts she was diagnosed by her psychotherapist with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), mental conditions caused by extremely traumatic events.

Also due to this constant battle and the late discovery of her intersex condition she had been unable to develop herself emotionally, make friends, finish an education (though she did do a lot of self-study), or build up an income. Forced to live with her mother who has to get by on welfare, Maya longs desperately for a future, and a home. Somewhere where she can feel safe and protected. Some place where she can get the medical help she needs, as well as treatment for her traumas.

This place could be in Germany, but due to her poor financial situation, lack of income and her daily fight against her traumas, Maya fears that this is a new battle she can not win. She would therefore ask anyone who is reading this to somehow, some way help her get this future she so desperately longs for.

Please.

Maya

The Big Question Of Life's Worth

2011-09-18T09:47:00.000+02:00

I do not like calling myself depressed, suicidal or any of such negative terms. What it's all about is a balance of life's offerings, past, present and future. So far my problem in making up this balance is that nothing can seem to weigh up against the terrible things done to me by the Dutch physicians, psychologists, politicians and police. It is the main thing which keeps me from seeing life in a positive light and actually consider the possibility that being alive can be a good thing.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder... Dissociative Identity Disorder... they're all just words, but they are words which indicate an end condition caused by something so horrific one's mind can't deal with it and stay sane. Thus it's all filed away, like toxic waste dumped in the oceans. It's gone, but it's still there. You can't ever get rid of it. You can't ever deal with what has happened. Others can't see the gaping, constantly bleeding wounds in your face, on your abdomen, chest, limbs and everywhere else which make you look like something from a really gruesome horror movie.

What has happened is that all forms of happiness, joy and positive thinking have been ripped out of me by what I have experienced. The best I can achieve is a state of emotional numbness. Not being able to feel ever again would be a blessing. The images, sounds and other sensations of all those horrible things just won't leave me alone. Not when I'm awake. Not when I'm asleep.

What else does life have to offer to balance this out? What do you tell a soldier during a lull in the fighting when he has lost most of his comrades to enemy fire, as well as his wife, children and home during an enemy raid? What can one put against something so horrific to make life worth it again and stop all those horrible memories from appearing all the time, unwanted and hurtful?

I still haven't found that which will make me want to continue living. For now I'll just be sitting here, on a bench in front of the burned out remains of what used to be my innocence and home.

Maya

Asking Human Rights Watch Why They Omitted Intersex

2011-09-15T09:25:00.001+02:00

A brief while ago, Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/) published a report on the human rights violations by the Dutch government through its forcing of people to get sex-reassignment surgery if they want to change their official gender. Many other countries have already dropped this barbaric practice, including Spain. The report can be found at: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/09/13/controlling-bodies-denying-identities-0

Now,the report only refers to intersex people in the most basic of terms, which is ridiculous since intersex is a far larger group and suffers from a similar problem in addition to many other severe problem due to regulations and laws. This is why I sent HRW the following letter:

---

Dear Sir/Madam,

In your recent report regarding human rights violations in the Netherlands (http://www.hrw.org/reports/2011/09/13/controlling-bodies-denying-identities-0) the main focus is on transsexuals, with only a brief referral to and no mention of intersex, even though this latter group is many times larger (1 in every 25) than the former and suffers many of the same and various additional issues. It's also so that many if not most transsexuals are in fact intersex, either because they got forced genital surgery as a child, or because their intersex condition never got discovered and diagnosed.

Is there a particular reason why HRW seemingly ignored intersex in this report? In the Netherlands there's law 1:24 of the Dutch civil code which technically should allow intersex people to change their official gender, but which comes with the same surgery requirement. I am currently going through this procedure, having found a good lawyer who allows me to dodge some clauses of this law, and am forced to undergo orchiectomy to qualify for it (being infertile as a male, in this case). This procedure has to be performed in Germany, as Dutch hospitals would only do the orchiectomy as part of an SRS.

In my case I was born as a hermaphrodite, with no external opening for the vagina. For seven years I have attempted to get medical help including examinations and a diagnosis for what exactly my condition entails. I am okay with being a hermaphrodite, but only recently did I discover why I didn't get any help here: Disorder of Sexual Development, or DSD policies. Every resistance I encountered was due to physicians and psychologists pushing me towards 'fixing' my 'birth defect' by following the transsexual protocol and becoming a 'regular' woman.

Due to this resistance, the PTSD and other traumatic disorders I have suffered over the years, I have found myself forced to migrate to Germany. From what I have seen, my situation isn't a fluke, and I have seen much disrespect shown to transsexuals in the Netherlands at the VUMC's gender team.

I sincerely hope that HRW can expand the current report, or release a new report more focused on the general issues encountered by those who do not wish to conform to or do not fit easily into the binary male/female pattern.

Thank you for your attention,

Maya Posch
www.mayaposch.com

Project Manager for World Intersex Society for Humanity:
http://www.mayaposch.com/wish.php

My Future Lies In Germany

2011-09-13T13:47:00.000+02:00

After yesterday's blog post, my mother went to the family doctor's office to inquire after their reasons for refusing to provide a referral letter. She took the letter I wrote for the urologist with the reasoning behind my orchiectomy (castration) request with her. Thanks to her my family doctor finally relented and this morning I picked up the referral letter and went to see this urologist, Dr. Zweers.

Short version, the usual mess with the assistant calling for a Mr. Posch, many apologies and such from her side, and then Dr. Zweers himself. It didn't go bad at all. This doctor finally is one who is simply doing his job. He understands my situation, would like to see it carried out right away, but in the Netherlands in my situation that can only be legally done via a gender team. Or in Germany.

It just happened to be that Dr. Zweers is going to a urologist conference in Germany today, so he'll try to find a urologist there willing to perform the procedure and contact me about it. I expect to hear more next week.

The main thing I'm taking away from this is that Germany is indeed the right place to go to for someone like me. The Netherlands is horribly restrictive in countless ways, and not to mention bloody expensive in every regard. What I should find in Germany is proper medical care, and a relatively cheap place to live, surrounded by the beautiful nature of South-Germany. I'll take it :)

Maya

Looking For Peace On A Battlefield

2011-09-12T16:47:00.000+02:00

Today I had to go to the police station to give yet another statement. The doctor's office which wanted to charge me for destruction of property now also wanted to charge me with threatening the doctors and others there. Even though this is obvious nonsense as I had warned them many times in advance about my PTSD and DID conditions, and it was their negligence in performing their regular duties which triggered things. It's now up to the Justice Department to decide on this.

Further I got a very nasty call from an assistant of my current family doctor, who is back from vacation. This assistant told me that I won't get a referral to a urologist after all, as he wants to 'prevent me from getting disappointed'. They told me to go to the gender team in Amsterdam, at the VUMC. The same place where I got my initial PTSD. Mentioning this didn't help. Another hospital I called, where a friend had already had contact with a urologist there, I got told that I might get an intake one month from now and it was very doubtful they could help me there. I am getting the impression that they all think that I'm some kind of icky transsexual who is trying to cheat the system and thus refuse to help me.

A few days ago my insurance company also refused to cover the electrolysis therapy I have to undergo to remove all facial hair. I had to request coverage under the term 'transsexual', as they do not know the term 'intersex', yet both cases are similar enough that it shouldn't give any issues. The request got rejected because a) I am still officially listed as being male, and b) I should have provided an indication for the necessity years ago and it's now too late.

I honestly can not deal with any of this any more. Nothing is possible. Nothing can be done or changed. Everything I try or do is wrong or misguided.

I wish I could request asylum in Germany or so.

I wish I could escape from this battlefield.

I wish I could escape to some place where I don't have to fight for a change...

Is there such a place? Does anyone know any? Can anyone help me? Please... *cries*

Maya

Nursing The Raw Pain Inside My Heart

2011-09-11T17:32:00.000+02:00

Today my brother and his new wife dropped by. It was the first time I saw them together, and it reminded me why I had avoided such a meeting so far. It evokes just far too many negative feelings inside me. They left earlier and I'm left with raw pain and sorrow tearing their way through my very soul. Note that I don't blame them for anything. They're just what they are: normal people.

I just got dealt a really bad hand of cards even before I was born which would disadvantage me for the rest of my life, which would make my youth a hell and stunt my emotional and social development. It would prevent me from making friends at any stage in life.

I feel like a small child. Just playing around while ignoring the world until something suddenly makes me look up from the sandbox I was playing in, and notice that all my fantasies are just that.

Why does it feel like I get all the hardships while others breeze ahead in life? The terrifying pain of not having any reasons for why my life has to be a Hell drives me towards the only action one can take in the face of ultimate meaninglessness: defying the terrors of life by terminating it, thus taking away the means through which it can hurt me.

I'm a child. A terrified child. A child locked in a closet by its parents for so long, it has forgotten how long it has been. All I know is uncertainty and sheer terror. I would dream of a better life, but I don't know how. There's just this darkness.

Maybe some day...

It'll be fine...

Keep fighting...

You're so strong...

...

There's only darkness. Only loneliness. Only this hole in my heart which makes me want to scream out in pain. Just voices whispering to me in the darkness. If only I could end it...

Maya

Saving An Utterly Ungrateful World

2011-09-02T21:01:00.003+02:00

All I ever wanted was for people... for everyone to be happy and have light hearts filled with joy. Not burdened by anything other than naivety and good intentions I set out to change the world, a long time ago.

What I didn't count on was the darkness which fills people's hearts. From the hostility and uncaring ignorance of psychologists and politicians, to the willful evil practiced by physicians, manipulating me into accepting a fate I would never be happy with, let alone could live with. As the saying goes, do not attribute to malice what can be attributed to ignorance. With all the information out there and being taught at medical schools in particular, there can be no claim of ignorance. It's pure, undiluted, pitch-dark malice. Mutilating infants, teenagers and adults alike. Causing untold mental traumas.

And then the real kicker... those so-called organizations which claim to concern themselves with helping people like the intersex? They are only interested in petty politics. Try to find a single person who was helped directly by them and I'll be amazed. These organizations, whether they claim to campaign for intersex, transsexual or homosexual people, do not participate in any kind of public education, whether it's through demonstrations, providing educational materials to schools or even passing out leaflets. They do not provide shelters or other forms of direct care like the Red Cross does. There are countless volunteer organizations who manage to help thousands of starving or otherwise suffering people, and these 'human rights' organizations fail to do anything at all? How in heaven's name is this possible unless they are willingly pulling us, the victims, the wool over the ears?

When I was trying to get help in my situation, being persecuted, discriminated against and being denied medical help, I have begged organizations like OII to help me, and never got a single response from them. Yet when I had the nerve to design my own intersex logo and start a webstore (http://www.printfection.com/mayaposch) I got attacked for using the male/female symbols ("symbols of our oppressors"). When I started my own organization (http://www.mayaposch.com/wish.php) for intersex rights, I got attacked viciously by people from OII. People I had never got a response out of suddenly started accusing me and others who had joined me of talking wrongly about them, slandering their name, and that they did help people directly (by talking...). That was when things kind of snapped inside of me.

Nearly seven years of dealings with physicians, politicians and psychologists have caused me enormous and permanent harm in the form of PTSD and virtually every other traumatic disorder in the books. It is beyond sad that I now have intersex 'activists' attacking me for having the nerve to questions their actions and daring to go my own course. Worse is that it is doing horrible things inside of me. More loneliness and rejection. More people accusing me of things which aren't true, forcing me to defend myself while I'd rather run away but I can't go anywhere... I spent about an hour crying today.

I have no desire to fight. All I wanted was to be happy. For everyone to be happy. Yet with the way things are now, I can find absolutely no joy in life. There is too much darkness covering everything. I hope to survive the coming months by abandoning my efforts to save the world and focusing just on myself. Hopefully that will keep the stress levels down enough to avoid triggering my traumas yet again. The thoughts flashing through my head during those episodes are far from pleasant. I'd rather not mutilate or kill myself...

Maya

Not Getting Immediate Medical Help Kills Me

2011-08-29T17:49:00.000+02:00

I thought that I wouldn't get too nervous about getting the date for that surgery appointment, but I guess I was wrong, as I found myself getting nauseous during lunch and throwing up. Felt so incredibly sick afterwards.

Once at the doctor's office I found out that I'm not getting a surgery appointment just yet, but an intake at the urology department of the local hospital. They will then have to refer me there to a hospital which can perform the procedure as they don't do it here at the Almelo hospital. Original appointment date for the intake was September 21st, but after call by me with the urology department I managed to reduce this to the 13th, so just over two weeks from now.

Only thing I can say is that my PTSD got triggered pretty badly by this. Yet another roadblock. Yet again the feeling of having something I need denied to me. Yet again 100% uncertainty. Yet again waiting for... something. I'm not sure what I'll do in the case this urologist refuses to approve the castration. And even if he does, I'm pretty sure it'll take at least a month until it can be performed.

Today I threw up and started hitting myself and tearing chunks of flesh out of my arms again. I can't take this pain.

Why, damnit? Why?! *breaks down completely*

Maya

Semi-Final Intersex Shirt Designs, Please Comment

2011-08-27T19:57:00.000+02:00

After the feedback on the previous design proposals I have picked the first design (A) and after a small redesign of it thanks to constructive criticism combined it with the two most popular texts. Here they are:

Initially these designs will be available on white t-shirts only, but other colours and even other items (coffee cups, anyone?) would be possible. I'm also thinking of providing a design featuring just the logo. Thoughts?

If there are no major complaints, I'll put these two designs and possibly the logo-only (which colour(s)?) version tomorrow online in the webstore, with the free-to-download designs (200 DPI PNGs) soon available as well.

Thanks for your help, you guys are awesome so far :)

Maya

Soon I'll Become Less Of A Man

2011-08-27T14:10:00.000+02:00

After my last talk with my lawyer regarding the official gender change I wasn't sure how easy it would be to fulfill the one tricky requirement my lawyer couldn't do anything about on her own, namely proof of me being infertile as a male. This 'proof' turned out to basically result in a castration as the easiest and most pragmatic way. As it turned out, it was pragmatic enough to convince my current replacement family doctor.

The main arguments for getting a castration are that I have been taking testosterone blockers for over four and a half years now, something I can't keep up indefinitely, there's also the issue that it's the only good way to get my official gender changed and finally I do not really need them for anything, as I'm probably already infertile, and one of the testicles hasn't fully descended which means an increased cancer risk and has to be surgically treated.

On Monday I'll call my doctor's office to hear when the appointment at the nearby hospital is. It's a fairly simple procedure, akin to vasectomy [1]. However, instead of merely severing the vasa deferentia and leaving the testicles in place so as not to disturb their use in producing testosterone, with castration the testicles are removed completely. It's a procedure which can be completed under local anesthesia and take only about half an hour. Afterwards the patient can go home immediately.

One other thing I have requested is to have a biopsy performed on the testicles after extraction, so as to find out out of which tissues they're composed, which could give a further clue as to how my body is put together. I'll have to keep an eye on my hormone levels as well during the months after the procedure. It's hard to predict exactly how they'll change. I plan to stop with the testosterone blocker 1-2 weeks before the hormone levels get tested, if the testosterone level is still <0.7 nmol/L, it's fine and I can quit with taking them for good.

In theory my estrogen levels shouldn't change noticeably after the procedure. However, if the 'testicles' are in fact hybrid testicle/ovary-tissue,then I'll have to take more estradiol to compensate.

So, after the procedure has been performed, I'll let my lawyer know, so that she can get started on requesting my official gender change. Hopefully within a few months time I'll then have a more fitting official identity and made the first real move towards a body I won't have to feel conflicted about. Not conflicted in the sense that I might desire to become a 'regular' woman or so, but more in the sense of knowing whether what can be felt through the skin is truly a vagina or not, and whether I'm really an XX/XY chimera. Basic facts requiring basic methods of examination, so far denied for asinine reasons.

At the moment I'm feeling somewhat relieved at this progress, but also fearful that somehow it'll be denied again. The past nights I have slept quite poorly and have been haunted by nightmares. I'll be so relieved once this is all over and I can move on with the remaining items towards becoming a whole person.

Maya

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasectomy

Getting My Official Gender Changed: I Need To Lose A Few Organs

2011-08-25T16:34:00.000+02:00

I just finished a nice chat with my lawyer regarding getting my official gender changed. In short, all demands in the law to be used for this change can be complied with, except for the one in which I have proof from a physician that I am infertile as a male. I know that I am infertile, but I need to present such proof to convince the judge. This is the only sticking point. Financing is no problem either.

The best way to ensure that I get this proof is to get a castration, i.e. have my testicles or whatever they are removed. I have tried to get this procedure performed before, but the UMCG refused, saying that they'd only do this as part of a sex-reassignment surgery. Yet at this point it's essential that I get this performed, else I'll be stuck with this wrong gender for a very long time.

To be honest I'm not sure where to try to get such a procedure performed. There's the whole list of PTSD triggers related to bad experiences with physicians which is making things difficult for me already. There's also the whole list of hospitals where I have been already and where I got met with hostility and ignorance. I don't mind paying for the procedure myself as it can't be that expensive, so maybe I should try it in Germany or so. Any help with this would be more than welcome.

Worst case I could always try it myself, right? I mean, how hard could it be to remove a few easy to reach organs with just a sharp knife needed? :)

Yes, there's a tiny bit of hysteria in there. I'm not looking to mutilate myself. Just got a lot of bad experiences and feeling miffed that the only way to actually get some improvements going is to beg more physicians. Physicians who have previously humiliated me and denied me help. Maybe seeking a German solution to this may be the way to go.

Ideas, anyone?

Maya

Getting My Official Gender Changed: Let The Games Begin

2011-08-24T19:13:00.000+02:00

So in brief, for the past six and a half years I have had the promise of having my official gender changed if I just cooperated and got recognized as an intersex person by the medical specialists here in the Netherlands. The legal provision to have said gender changed in official documents is given by a law in Dutch civil laws, specifically article 1, sub-article 24 of the Burgerlijk Wetboek. A few requirements are listed in said law, such as it being proven that the person in question is in fact intersex and the person in question also being infertile as the gender which is being abandoned.

The proof is generally obtained via a cooperative medical specialist who can then testify to this. Since I lack this due to law 1:24 BW being a dead law while the Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD) policy is in effect, as this ensures that no intersex person is ever recognized as such, instead being classified as possessing a birth defect and forced to undergo surgery, I am forced to appeal to the spirit of this law. I am most definitely infertile as the gender I wish to abandon (male) since I am incapable of ejaculating, do not even possess a prostate and there's every doubt that I even have regular testicles. I am also most definitely intersex as I have outwardly male genitals in appearance, while I possess a body which is most definitely that of a woman.

My current situation of having an official identity of 'male' is also causing significant problems for myself and my environment, as both gender indications are used interchangeably and where the male version is used, especially in public situations such as a hospital's waiting room, or when picking up medication, etc. it is most confusing to staff and others to have what appears to be a regular woman stand up when they call out the name of what they assume is a man. It is also extremely humiliating for me in addition to being embarrassing for the aforementioned staff.

As having an official male identity while this totally clashes with reality is no less cruel than doing the same to any regular woman, I do not foresee the judge having major issues with applying 1:24 in this case. Having my first name changed on this basis certainly went far easier than my lawyer then could have suspected. Having my official gender changed thus follows in the same pattern.

Tomorrow I'll be making an appointment at a lawyer's office in the nearby city of Deventer for a first chat during which the feasibility will be discussed. There'll also be the matter of paying for it all. My legal insurance only covers claims, and the government-based coverage which was provided for the first name change last year hasn't been assigned yet. Even then they managed to turn 'intersex' into 'metrosexual' in the request form for said coverage. My contact today with the government office providing assistance on legal issues like this kind of coverage simply referred me to a 'gender institute' as the lady who replied to my email basically admitted to not having a clue about gender changes.

It's a not so promising start, but I hope that the lawyer I'll be talking to soon will be more open to it, if only because it's a more interesting case. As for my part, I just hope that I can somehow fund it without having to resort to begging my readers for more donations.

Stay tuned,

Maya

Activism Also Means Pragmatism

2011-08-22T10:51:00.001+02:00

Blind activism is no better than extremism. Assaulting a fortress without any means of penetrating it is suicidal and pointless. Pulling a Don Quixote [1] may seen noble and heroic to oneself, but one's environment will still be laughing and shaking their heads at what are clearly the rantings and actions of a mad person.

Some recent examples of this kind of lunatic behaviour can be found for example in the actions of COC Netherlands, the organization for homosexuals in the Netherlands. They expressed their outrage at the Minister of Education not forcing schools to educate their students about homosexuality and related topics, and started a petition aimed at this Minister to change her mind. Seems reasonable so far until you realize that the Minister in question didn't forbid education students about this topic, and there was nothing stopping COC from approaching schools with educational materials and such. Maybe it's not as grand as forced education, but it's hypocritical and sheer lunacy to wring one's hands and complain about the wrongdoings of the government when oneself hasn't been involved in attempts to change the situation.

Another example comes from OII [3] where some of the Australian group expressed their disgust at the intersex logo I had proposed in my previous blog entry:
"I am not so comfy with Intersex being described/symbolised using Male femal [sic] symbols. It kind of bys [sic] into the binary that opresses [sic] us IMHO"
"I reject the sex binary and gender binary without reservation.I will not adopt the symbols of oppression, sorry."

No room for compromise or pragmatism. Reading those responses made me feel sick to my stomach. I don't like rhetoric, especially not when it's extremist rhetoric. As I responded to these statements:
"The logo stands for the two extremes of male/female with the wide diversity of other forms in between. If anything it breaks with all existing symbols, and most importantly it doesn't try to portray intersex as a 'third sex'."

Note that neither OII nor ILGA has produced a widely used symbol for intersex, and neither bother with educating the masses. I never heard about either organization until a few years ago because they are so completely unknown. They hide in the shadows, try to talk with politicians on what they deem equal footing, but since they have no weight due to their relative anonymity they're readily ignored.

With organizations like COC, OII and ILGA pretending to fight for the rights of homosexual, transsexual and intersex people, it's no wonder that nothing positive is happening. They're essentially spouting rhetoric at anything they don't like, never search fault by themselves and therefore end up rejecting the 'normal' people, instead preferring to tilt at unassailable targets, like politicians. Wind mills are far more considerate and easier targets in comparison.

Thinking about how extremism and unreasonable, even hypocritical behaviour of the very activists who are supposed to save the oppressed are eradicating any chance of this succeeding makes me feel beyond ill. Humanity truly may be doomed.

Maya

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
[2] http://www.coc.nl/
[3] http://www.intersexualite.org/

Help Me Design Intersex-related Shirts

2011-08-21T16:23:00.000+02:00

I have been toying with the thought of creating a design to be printed on t-shirts and similar items, to promote the awareness of intersex. To this purpose I have created a logo, and would like to add one of a number of texts to accompany the logo on some shirts. I have already set up an account with a company which will print and sell the shirts for me (world-wide). I'll also make the templates to make your own shirt at home available on my personal site.

First, I made two versions available of the logo. Please let me know which of the two you prefer, and which colours/styles you'd like to see:

Design A

Design B

Second, your preference for having versions of the shirts with just the logo, or should all have texts?

Third, the texts themselves. I got a few example here, please add your own in the comments and let me know what you think of the ones here and those suggested by others.

Intersexy
Intersex Inside ™
More than just male or female
Not Just Male or Female
Enjoy Being A Bit Of Both
A Bit of Both
Proudly Intersex
Intersex, So What?
Warning: Intersex Person

Coming up with catching phrases is never easy :) Please do go wild with them and let me know what you came up with. Do keep in mind that texts have to be respectful, clean and generally suitable for display in public places.

Now, get creative :)

Maya

X-Ray Results: No Infection, But Something Worse

2011-08-20T09:52:00.000+02:00

For the past years that I have had the symptoms, I figured that they were unrelated to my stressful life, and that I likely had something infecting the lungs or similar. A CT scan last year showed that my sinuses are clear, and last Wednesday's X-ray of my lungs show that they are clear too. Despite this I suffer from the following symptoms:

Shortness of breath
Hyperventilation
Constant feeling of being cold
Extreme nausea
Abdominal cramping (very often after eating)
Stabbing pain in the chest, making breathing painful
Frequent headaches
Strong pain in limbs, rendering them almost paralyzed
Dizziness
Coughing up sputum
Difficulty swallowing

This list is virtually identical to the one for 'Panic attacks and panic disorder' at the Mayo Clinic site [1]. The additional symptoms can be further explained by the fact that untreated PTSD - which I have - has a tendency to undermine and weaken the immune system, even leading to auto-immune diseases in some cases.

An intersex friend of mine, also a hermaphrodite, warned me for Toxic Shock Syndrome [3] and Endometriosis [4], both of which almost led to total organ shutdown for her, which then led her to find out about her intersex condition. The severe stabbing pains I regularly experience in my lower abdomen may be related to endometriosis or a similar condition. I have experienced said abdominal pain since early puberty, and regularly had to endure it. At times the only way to deal with it is to lie down and do nothing but grind my teeth and wait for it to pass. As a child I once thought I was dying, it was that bad. I had to be carried into the car to go to the doctor. Sadly by the time that we arrived there it had already passed and I got accused of just pretending to skip school.

At any rate it has become overwhelmingly clear at this point that if I don't get real, proper medical help soon, there's a good chance I'll end up on the Intensive Care due to something as fun as cascade organ failure, an auto-immune disease or something else equally fun. It's hard to tell at this point which symptoms are being caused by the PTSD complications, which by my intersex condition and which by other, external diseases taking advantage of my weakened immune system.

On Monday I have an appointment with my current family doctor again, this one seems to possess a lot of common sense and was the one who got me that x-ray of my lungs to rule out lung infection. Hopefully he can see the wisdom of pursuing more examinations, and I don't get waved away like my usual family doctor does. Fortunately that one is on vacation right now.

The effect of this all on my emotional stability isn't very positive. I had hoped that I would just get some antibiotics for a lung infection and that'd be the end of it. Instead I'm facing a number of complications and possible other diseases, each of which is enough to take me out, but which combined would be as good as a death sentence. I'm beyond merely terrified. Maybe mortified. To face death like this, and in the knowledge that the people around me who can save me are unlikely to help.

Maya

[1] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/panic-attacks/DS00338/DSECTION=symptoms
[2] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/DS00246/DSECTION=complications
[3] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/toxic-shock-syndrome/DS00221
[4] http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/endometriosis/DS00289

Humiliated Into Submission

2011-08-17T18:58:00.000+02:00

Today I went to the hospital to have an x-ray taken of my lungs due to a possible lung infection. After spending about half an hour in the waiting room I got called in. "Mr. Posch?" the assistant-physician asked. I got up and went to her to have the x-ray taken. I could feel every eye in the waiting room focused on me, burning a hole in my back with unanswered questions.

Thing is that this is me:

I'm 175 cm tall, and weigh about 61 kg. That's 5'9" and nearly 140 lbs for those who do not use metric. I got a size A cup and European shoe size 41. I'm one of those lucky few women who can order anything in terms of clothes online and have it fit without issues. And yet this assistant-physician didn't make a mistake. The hospital she works for has me registered as being male. Their system is linked to the central citizen registration system, Burger Service Nummer (BSN), of the government, which also has me registered as being male.

And yet I have never received any surgery while only capturing admiring looks from men. What happened here is that I'm a hermaphrodite, a person having both male and female reproductive organs, which is a condition which is a subset of intersex conditions. A wide variety of intersex conditions exist, many of which aren't as readily apparent as my condition. Ergo many people are intersex without being aware of it. It occurs in up to 1 in every 25 births.

As I explained the above to the assistant-physician as she tried to confirm she had indeed the right person with me, she asked why I didn't just have my official gender changed to prevent such confusing situations. I replied that this isn't possible since the government doesn't recognize intersex, only offering official gender changes after someone has submitted to the transsexual protocol and received sex-reassignment surgery. The thing is that in many countries, intersex is called Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD), placing it in a similar category as various birth defects and urging immediate surgery, even if the medical necessity isn't apparent at all.

Because of this, each year countless children receive surgery almost immediately after birth to 'correct' this 'birth defect'. All too often it is the physician to decides on the sex of the child. Other times it's the parents who decide, based on their preference for a boy or a girl. All too often this leads to traumas later in the life of a child, when they feel that they're in 'the wrong body', or simply object to having the choice made for them. Many so-called transsexual people are for this reason actually intersex.

In my own case, German private clinics have determined that I have a closed-off vagina in addition to the rest of the genitals, which have a male appearance, but do not function as such. I do not have a prostate, my hormone levels have been quite ambiguous since puberty for which I now take hormone-replacement therapy, and as far as can be determined I have probably never been fertile. I would love to have the closed-off vagina opened up using labia surgery, also because of the long-term health issues of having it closed-off. Further I'd like to have a mosaic test performed to determine once and for all whether I do in fact have XX/XY mosaicism, which would have led to my hermaphroditism.

Instead the reality is that because of DSD examinations aren't possible, let alone treatment for my intersex condition. All I can do is submit to DSD and get a surgery forced upon me which I do not desire and which will take away part of myself. By resisting I have had to endure over six and a half years of Dutch psychologists and physicians insisting that I was just a regular boy, that I was transsexual, that I was suffering from autoparagynaecophilia, that I was crazy, etc., while discarding the German results and faking a mosaic test in order to convince me to just follow the transsexual protocol and give up on this nonsense of wanting to remain as I am.

My refusal to give in has led to me suffering severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among other traumatic disorders. The brainwashing attempts never stopped, Dutch politicians never stepped in to interfere, instead approving the DSD approach and a real intersex movement doesn't exist yet in the Netherlands, or anywhere else. About half a million intersex people in the Netherlands alone and we're being herded like tame sheep. The constant humiliation driving us into submission.

At this point I ask you to read the first paragraph again and imagine how it must have felt to me. Then imagine having to go through this at least a few times a week, always realizing that there is no way to change this.

I was born with this body and I am comfortable with it. I can see how my body is superior to that of a regular woman and know that I would never want to become 'normal', even if that's at all possible due to my experiences with this body and everything around it. My opinion on the DSD approach is that it is inhumane, humiliating and a downright violation of human rights. It leads to unneeded surgery on infants who can not give their consent, and the discrimination and persecution of intersex individuals.

It is time that politicians and physicians faced up to reality: nobody wants to walk around with a true birth defect, but nobody wants to have their bodies mutilated without their consent or approval when there is no medical need to do so.

Maya

Moving To Germany

2011-08-16T14:36:00.000+02:00

A number of days it became quite clear to me that improvement is necessary in my situation, and quickly. Since there is no miracle situation and all countries, while different in severity, mistreat intersex people, a pragmatic solution is required. A few hints that Germany is a much better place, medically, politically and socially, combined with my own experiences in Germany, also with the private clinics there, were all that it took to convince me to try my luck there.

My current idea is to move to a town or city in South-West Germany. What I'll need help with is selecting the best location for me, also with an eye on further medical treatment, and to arrange healthcare insurance. Having some people around to guide me for the first weeks at least wouldn't be bad either.

In other news, tomorrow I am getting an x-ray to see how bad the infection in my lungs is. Today I visited the family doctor who replaces my regular one during the latter's vacation, and he was a lot more reasonable and professional, indicating his disbelief at there not sooner an x-ray having been made, or other tests performed. By early next week I should know what the results are.

Maya

Remind Me Why I Am Doing This Again...

2011-08-12T09:02:00.000+02:00

Every morning this year it's been the same story. If I didn't have some nightmare I don't remember any more from which I wake up with my fists closely clenched against my chest, I'll be waking up feeling quite alright until the first negative memories begin to trickle in through the daze of fitful sleep.

From that moment on I'll be going through such intense feelings of loneliness, abandonment, frustration, anger, humiliation, sadness and terror that I'll be struggling to not kill myself right then and there. A lack of easy means to do so is pretty much the sole reason why I'm still alive.

The reason why things are like this is because of a single acronym: DSD. Disorder of Sexual Development. It is the catch-all phrase for physical conditions where the development of an individual didn't result in a perfectly normal and socially acceptable man or woman. It is what the European Union, the US and many other places have decided to shove intersex conditions like mine into.

This leads to the situation where not being a regular male or female means only one thing: you're a freak but we're here to help you become normal. You'll be so happy once you're normal. Just a regular male or female.

I'm a hermaphrodite. My body is mostly female, but has enough male elements in the genital region that nobody would mistake me for a regular female when fully undressed. I have lived for twenty-one years in the understanding that I was male, while my body underwent a strong feminization during puberty. It has torn me apart, and I still find it really hard to deal with my youth.

I don't have to expend any effort to be seen as a regular woman in public, even at swimming pools. I'm fine with the way my body is, though I would like to get labia surgery to open up the vagina which is also present. It's there, so why not use it? This is my body, I was born with it. It's functional and healthy. What disorder?

My options as provided by the government and physicians here are to either undergo the transsexuality protocols, and undergo sex reassignment surgery. A risky procedure, which would remove any trace of male development in my body. The other option is to undergo beatings and constant humiliation, having medical care denied in any form or shape (I can't even get help for my suspected chronic bronchitis at the moment...), and live a terribly unhappy life.

So why don't I get SRS? Why don't I give up on being hermaphrodite? Because it wouldn't help me deal with my youth, it wouldn't help me deal with the PTSD I have suffered during the past years. Because it's not what I want, nor what I and others who know me feel is right for me. It'd just traumatize me even further.

Undergoing SRS is like voluntarily entering the gas chambers at Auschwitz. I'd be giving up my existence, the person I truly am right then and there.

For real development disorders which lead to life-long discomfort and health risks I can understand why surgery is recommended. Nobody would opt to live with a malformed spine or a not fully closed up skull. Those are conditions which should be corrected because there's no justification for not correcting them, unless your goal is torture.

I don't have a development disorder. Other than a standard check and diagnosis which should be required for most if not all intersex conditions to ensure that there's no increased risk of cancer or so due to development glitches which could be present in anyone anyway, there is NO medical need to use something as heavy-handed as sex-reassignment surgery. It's an unnecessary risk and unnecessary waste of tax money.

But do I have a choice? How long can I last until I break? After the terror of getting beaten up the Dutch police and spending time in jail with no idea how long I'd be staying there I don't think there's much to give any more. I'm still clinging on to life, even started a new blog (http://mayaposch.wordpress.com) which is only about programming and basically shows the real me, the person I want to be. Not this pathetic, traumatized pile of misery.

This morning I spent some time again thinking about suicide. There really isn't much to say against it, is there? Slow death or quick death. I'll pick the latter. Simple.

I don't want to die...

Maya

Please Make Homo & Transsexuality Organization COC Aware Of Intersex

2011-08-11T08:35:00.000+02:00

Recently the Dutch Minister of Education refused to allow education about homosexuality at Dutch schools. This was met by a lot of ridicule from the homosexuals in this country, as well as many others. The organization for homosexual rights in the Netherlands, http://www.coc.nl, set up an online petition to request education at schools on homosexuality and transsexuality: http://petities.nl/petitie/voorlichting-over-homoseksualiteit-op-elke-school

While I have signed this petition, I also sent COC a number of emails, requesting that they acknowledge and include intersex in this petition as well. After all we're all one big group, facing the same ignorance and irrational fears. We should stand together, not exclude each other. I won't exclude homo and transsexual people from my fight from restoring human rights, and I think it would be hypocritical of COC and similar organizations if they did exclude some groups. Either you're fighting for the human rights of all people, or you're just as bad by ignoring those of others.

You can send an email to COC at info@coc.nl. Please also CC the email to Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch politician in the European Parliament involved in LGBTI rights, with whom I am in contact. Her email address is sophie.intveld@europarl.europa.eu. Do send me a copy of the response too via the contact form on my website or directly if we have emailed before.

Here are the English translations of the two emails I sent to COC the past weeks:

---
Dear Sir/Madam,

How is it possible that the petition of COC Netherlands at http://petities.nl/petitie/voorlichting-over-homoseksualiteit-op-elke-school doesn't mention intersex people? We intersex people make for a large group of people in the Netherlands and we have the same and worse problems than homosexuals and transsexuals.

I and other intersexuals would very much appreciate it if intersexuals too would be included in this petition. We also have a petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/uphold-human-rights-for-intersex-people which is focused on the world-wide rights of intersex, transsexuals and homosexuals. Possibly you can pay attention to this as well.

Thank you in advance,

Maya Posch

---

Email #2:

---

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wanted to not withhold from you the following article on the systematic eradication of homosexuals, transsexuals and intersexuals: http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/08/endlosung-to-inter-trans-and.html

Considering the fact that the about half a million intersexuals in the Netherlands have to experience similar and often worse experiences than trans- and homosexuals, including forced sex-reassignment surgery, I consider it incomprehensible that COC Netherlands ignores this group, both in her current petition as well in her general policies.

In my view it's incredibly ironic and tragic that COC with this excludes a part of her target audience in such a way. We must combine our forces, not ignore each other.

Maya

Second And Final Letter From Dutch Queen Beatrix

2011-08-09T14:21:00.000+02:00

English translation:
---

Dear Ms Posch,

I hereby confirm receiving by Her Majesty the Queen your letter of July 25th 2011.

Unfortunately I have to inform you that in connection with the ministerial responsibility of the Queen, it is not possible to provide any further help.

The Director of the Cabinet of the Queen,

Ms M.A. Looye

---

In short, you're not important enough, please go away. A Queen who doesn't care about her own subjects. A Queen who is powerless. A Queen who prefers to see her subjects suffer and die rather than interfere.

This isn't my Queen. This isn't my Government. This isn't my bloody country.

A prison. That is all this is. A prison for the insane. With the insane being the guards.

I want out....

Maya

The Endlösung To The Inter, Trans, and Homosexuality Question

2011-08-04T18:57:00.003+02:00

"Regarding the Sexuality and Gender Question, our leader is determined to clear the table. He warned the inter, trans and homosexuals that if they were to cause another social rebellion, it would lead to their own destruction. Those were not empty words. Now the rebellion has come. The destruction of the sexuality and gender rebels must be its necessary consequence. We cannot be sentimental about it. It is not for us to feel sympathy for the sexual and gender rebels. We should have sympathy rather with our own Normal people. If the Normal people have to sacrifice more in yet another rebellion, then those responsible for this conflict will have to pay for it with their lives."

"None of our leader's prophetic words has come so inevitably true as his prediction that if sexuality and gender rebels succeeded in provoking another rebellion, the result would not be the destruction of the Normal people, but rather the wiping of these rebels. This process is of vast importance, and will have unforeseeable consequences that will require time. But it can no longer be halted. It must only be guided in the right direction."

"As for the sexuality and gender rebels, well, I can tell you quite frankly that one way or another we have to put an end to them. Our leader once put it this way, if the combined forces of these rebels should again succeed in unleashing a revolution, that would mean the end of sexuality and gender rebels. ... I urge you: stand together with me ... on this idea at least: save your sympathy for the Normal people alone. Don't waste it on anyone else in the world" [1]

For far too long a sickness has been creeping into our societies, a sickness which threatens the very existence of the human race. The result of this sickness is that more and more individuals lose their humanity, instead devolving into a lesser kind of human, if they can even be called humans any more. They choose to give up Human Sexuality, instead choosing to practice a twisted, perverted form of it, one which does not produce offspring and of which the mere thought is enough to make any Normal person feel sickened.

Some of them can not help it, of course. They are born with deformed bodies which do not allow them to behave in such a manner. The right approach which is being taken where possible and where not hindered by overzealous and sadly misguided parents is to correct their deformities so that they can at least live more or less normal lives as productive members of society. These are the intersex children. They are to be pitied, but at least they have some chance of redemption, assuming they choose to accept it.

Worse are the transsexual individuals. Their sickened minds create for them the illusion that they have to be the other sex, even if the mere thought of this is preposterous and the execution of such a change obviously medically impossible. For these individuals it has to be ensured that they can not procreate after discovery of this illness to prevent the further spread of their diseased genetic material. Medical experiments on them which allow them to partially change into the sex they desire to be can serve as interesting means of gathering medical and psychological data.

Finally, the homosexual individuals. These do not procreate, but can be useful members of society. Their sickened delusions of attraction to the same sex should be ignored and ridiculed whenever possible. Placating them can be done by allowing them to marry, since this doesn't directly threaten society, assuming the rules of ignoring and ridiculing are kept in mind. Finally, organize events where homosexual individuals will be put on display as oversexed, crazed and mentally unstable individuals, reinforcing the stereotype that homosexuals aren't Normal.

The largest group of these three is that of intersex individuals. They form a group of about half a million individuals in the Netherlands alone. Fortunately they are completely unorganized and won't put up much of a fight. Those individuals who haven't been corrected yet at birth will be guided into one of two options: either they give up on claiming to be intersex and minimize social disruption, or they will accept the generous offer of being made Normal, through a similar kind of surgery as suggested for transsexual individuals. The success of this will differ wildly on the type of intersex condition, but the expectation is that most if not all of them will choose this latter option.

Allow me to say how tragic it is that this Endlösung can not be carried out with the ruthless and most admirable efficiency of the Nazi regime. They managed to exterminate so many undesired individuals in such a short amount of time. If only we could reproduce this feat, we could get the state we Normal people all desire within as little as twenty years. Instead we have to go about it in this round-about way.

One benefit of this, however, is that we get to carry out the most large-scale psychological and medical experiment ever. Countless millions of individuals who can be put in the most impossible situations and forced to make impossible choices, while their environment can be adapted to suit the experiment in question, it's any scientist's dream. Even better is that nobody will care about it. Not like with the experiments ran by the Nazis, which gave us so much invaluable information about the human body, but of which the scientists involved were imprisoned or executed. [2]

It truly is a relief to not have to adhere to the Nuremberg Code or Helsinki-derived rules and regulations normally involved with human experimentation.[3][4] Humanity would be able to progress so much faster if we could leave behind reservations about using the inferior specimens in society for such purposes.

Huge strides have been made in implementing the above plans over the past decades. Homosexuals have been rendered virtually harmless and transsexuals seem to cooperate without issues. Both of these are being properly ridiculed and ignored where appropriate. No major issues are expected with either of these groups.

Intersex individuals are cooperating somewhat successfully. The decision to not teach about intersex at schools and suppress any mentioning of the term has worked brilliantly in making almost everyone unaware that it exists, even for some of those who are born with a form of it. Those who do realize it generally choose to accept the first option, to our surprise. The few individuals who can not pick either option for some reason generally commit suicide.

It is our hope that with the continued implementation of the above program we'll one day manage to exterminate every trace of this sickness from society, either through natural causes or as a result of our experimentation of select individuals.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution#Historiographic_debate_about_the_decision
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Code
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Helsinki

Footnote:

The above should be a parody, with quotes lifted from Nazi figures like Joseph Goebbels (quote 1 & 2) and Hans Frank (3rd quote) with slight modifications, and an exposition written in the same style, but aimed squarely at a more current problem. Or maybe not so new. The Nazis murdered an estimated 10,000 homosexuals in their camps [5], and treated them in a manner which was even more cruel than with their other captives. After the war it also took many years for governments to even acknowledge that the Nazis had been targeting homosexuals. It took the EU no less than sixty years (2005) to acknowledge the persecution of homosexuals during the Nazi regime.

What is the difference between the human experimentation performed on prisoners by Nazi doctors and the treatment of those with different sexual preferences or with a 'different' body? Both are cruel and unusual, violate many basic human rights, and violate every single part of the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) [6] concerning human experiments (Title 45, Subtitle A - Department of Health and Human Services, Part 46 - Protection of Human Subjects) [7].

Experiments are performed on newborn intersex babies to make them 'normal', causing significant psychological effects and often damage in later years, as well as harmful medical side-effects. Intersex individuals are placed in situations of chronic stress, involving exclusion from society, denial of medical care and other human rights and forcing them to undergo unneeded surgery while ignoring the health repercussions these entail.

The ridiculing and ignoring of homosexual and transsexual individuals which I referred to in the above text has been a constant factor in their treatment. I didn't make it up. It's a real thing. The events I referred to in reinforcing the stereotypes about homosexuals are the so-called gay parades, a phenomenon abhorred by most homosexuals as well as bi-sexual and any other something-sexual human being with his or her head screwed straight onto his or her shoulders.

Whether the Final Solution to the Sexuality and Gender Question as I put it in the first quote is really something willingly and knowingly engineered by world governments with the goal to exterminate and pacify those who do not strictly adhere to the biological and social conformism of 'male' and 'female' is something I do not know. All I do know is that the effect is the same, whether or not scientists involved are even now busy recording the activities of me and other intersex, transsexual and homosexual individuals around the globe.

Some may start yelling at me for invoking the 'N' word so strongly in this context, but in the eyes of myself and many others it's very much justified. What is happening here is as much a Final Solution as the herding of undesired individuals into concentration camps was. It's just less visible, but no less tragic.

Maya

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_homosexuals_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Federal_Regulations
[7] http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_10/45cfr46_10.html

The Choices Offered To Me By My Enemy, The Government

2011-08-02T23:15:00.000+02:00

Feeling pretty crappy the past few days as realization sinks in. It's a truth too horrible to behold or consider for very long.

The choices I have as a person in this country, considering that I am intersexual are the following: I can opt to cease my attempts to gain recognition for my intersex condition, cease all attempts to get it diagnosed and treated, and live the rest of my life explaining why my ID cards say that I'm male while I most decidedly do not give that impression to people. Silent despair.

I can also opt to give up on my claims to being intersex and embrace the world of transsexuality, pick a sex (male or female) and receive surgery to become that sex and gender, officially as well. I'll still have my PTSD and other traumatic disorders, which then still can't be treated because the underlying causes haven't been dealt with. Quiet misery.

The option I desire is to be acknowledged as being intersex, have my official gender changed to 'female' for convenience's sake and to fit my own feeling of being an intersex woman, receive medical care to ascertain my exact intersex condition using a mosaic test (XX/XY hermaphroditism?) and such, as well as determine long-term health risks of my intersex condition. I'd also wish to have the testicles removed so that I no longer have to take testosterone blockers as these increase the possibility of an embolism. The right testicle is also partially descended, which forms a cancer risk. Finally I'd have labia created to open up the vagina which was indicated by two German private clinics.

Only the third option would solve my situation. Only the third option would make me happy. Only the third option would get me the care I require. Only the third option is the right option, morally and ethically.

The third option is the only option which is being actively denied to me and every other intersex person in the Netherlands by the government and physicians. This makes the government and physicians our enemies, as they are willing to discard our lives for their petty believes and convictions. They wish to deny and exterminate every trace of intersex people, through denial and forced surgery.

They are the enemy, yet they are holding us hostage. They are the government who should uphold the human rights of all citizens. They are the physicians who have taken an oath to do no harm. They're all liars and criminals for breaking their own laws.

Is there anything I can do? I don't think so. I have no future as long as I only have the first two options.

I wish I wasn't born intersex... I wish I could be intersex and happy... I wish people didn't hurt and kill those who are different from them.

I guess it's all too much to wish for... is it?

Maya

I'm Terrified Of Dying, Yet I May Be The One To Kill Myself

2011-07-30T18:46:00.000+02:00

Imagine feeling so torn about your life, so filled with memories of traumatic experiences and no clear outlook on improvement. Imagine feeling despair welling up from deep inside you. Imagine realizing that you have nowhere to go, nothing you can do about it, nothing to do but keep waiting like you have done since what feels like the beginning of time. Imagine seeing everybody else being able to live their lives. Imagine all this frustration and anger being without target and turning towards yourself.

Imagine all this hatred, pain and agony coming crashing back, enveloping and choking you. There's no way to fight against so much pain. The first few times you'll be able to hold it off, but it grows stronger, as your situation doesn't change, doesn't improve. Eventually you'll succumb to it more and more easily.

It starts with merely punching yourself a few times. Then scratching. Then tearing off bits of skin. Then blunt trauma. Cutting. And worse each time. You don't want to do it. You know it's not good. You feel more miserable after each time you do it, but you are left no choice. You wish you could direct the pain, hatred and frustration towards a more useful purpose, but there isn't one.

I don't feel proud of what I did earlier to myself. I can feel the bruising and scratches all too well on my abdomen. I managed to at least spare my wrists and hands this time. Limiting the collateral damage. That's the extent of my control. I have to give in to this urge to harm myself or it'll start tearing my skull apart until I'll do it anyway, or worse.

When I begged and asked for help in the past I didn't want to put too much weight on the inevitability that I'll end up inflicting permanent damage to myself, or even end up mortally wounding myself. At this point I'm too terrified of myself to shy away from this, though.

I'm not sure how long I can hold myself together. I'm not sure how long I can hold back that time when I'll inflict serious damage to myself. The past few days I have been more unstable than before. I need help and support to stabilize me. I need something to change fundamentally to change in my life.

Please, I'm begging anyone willing to listen... please save me. I don't want to die... especially not by my own hands.

Maya

This Body Which I Am Not Allowed To Have

2011-07-28T21:10:00.000+02:00

I have a complete and healthy body. I am intelligent. I have good social skills. This obviously leads to people wondering what makes me pursue all these things with the medical and political systems. I am what I feel like, right?

Unfortunately, my body was taken from me at an early age, and I have been denied the chance to regain it ever since. What I currently inhabit is a temporary shell, a make-shift construction which allows me to exist, but only temporarily. Until I regain my real body.

I lost my body when I was only a few years old, around the time when children begin to become aware of their own bodies. It was then that I realized that my body was missing. I desperately tried to patch together something resembling a body I could call my own, but despite everything I tried it never turned into a real body. For many years I lived like this, frantically trying to ignore that I had a fake body, while everybody around me was discovering their real bodies as they matured and grew into adults. Not me. My body wasn't capable of that.

I was forced to watch while everybody passed me by. I was just a mind trapped in a fake construction. My real body was nowhere to be found. Where would I search for it? I had no idea. I almost forgot at times that my body was only fake as I got used to the constant pain of its loss.

When I stumbled over my real body, nearly seven years ago, I was at first overjoyed that I would finally get my real body back. I would finally get to catch up on everything I had been missing out on during over one and a half decade. I couldn't believe that it was so easy to find my real body, that it was just in a slightly different location than for others. I could have found it sooner if I had searched a little better, or had received help.

Then, as I tried to cast off my temporary, fake body and exchange it for my real body, this was denied. My fake body was my real body, so said people who supposedly were specialists in this area. Worse was that I needed their help to adapt this real body and make it a part of myself.

Many insisted that this real body didn't even exist, that it was just a flight of my fancy, that I was seeing things which weren't there. Others offered me another fake body. I wanted to yell at them to just give me my real body, that it was right there and that it was they who needed to have their minds examined. No use. My body just floats uselessly over there, almost within reach.

I'm trapped in this fake body. I want to rip it off, tear it to pieces, even if by doing so my own existence is erased. Everything is better than a fake existence. I don't want to live a lie. I don't want to have a fake body.

I can not live, or even exist like this.

I can not understand the cruelty of others in denying me my real body.

Why are things like this?

Why?

Why?!?!!

Why...

Maya

I'm Only A Toy For Others To Play With

2011-07-27T19:15:00.000+02:00

Two days ago I sent a second letter to the Dutch Queen Beatrix, the English translation of which can be read here http://www.mayaposch.com/downloads/letter_to_dutch_queen_beatrix_20110725_english.pdf in PDF format. In it I tackle the points raised by the Dutch Minister of Health in her response to my first letter, as well as express my outrage at such a humiliating response. As I mentioned to people I talked about it last week, the Minister's response was akin to wishing someone who is lying on the ground while getting the stuffings kicked out of him good luck and a happy life.

My second letter therefore had as focus to defuse the arguments made in the Minister's response, namely that there is an existing and ready to use law to have one's official gender changed for intersex people, and that the resistance I encountered with the medical system here was for my own protection to avoid unnecessary surgeries. As I also pointed, especially that latter point carries a lot of irony since with the medical system here not acknowledging the existence of intersexuals, hence never diagnosing them as such, the only way to get one's official gender changed is to pretend to be a transsexual and get a sex-reassignment surgery. Irony thick enough to cut with a laser cutter.

The medical system doesn't care about people like me, instead of preferring to play with us like predators with their prey. Same for politicians. Same for the justice system. Additionally because of the uncertainty in our lives we become an easy prey for those who enjoy abusing people. If I had received the medical help I should have been provided with as part of the human rights package I'm quite sure I would not have had to suffer sexual, physical and psychological abuse. Instead I got toyed with like a cat playing with a semi-stunned mouse, just barely keeping it from getting away each time it tries to escape.

Worse is that this pattern isn't limited to the Netherlands. Systematic human rights abuse, discrimination and persecution occurs all around the globe, making sure that there is no safe place for intersex people to escape to. Everywhere we're being toyed with.

A famous quote is 'Do not attribute to evil that which can be attributed to incompetence'. In this case I'm not sure what we're dealing with, however. Is the systematic suppression and persecution of tens of millions of people world-wide not something which has been deemed evil and to be outright rejected by any civilized country? Especially in Europe, which saw many millions of homosexuals, gypsies, Jews and other groups of people deported to concentration and destruction camps during the second World War. You would think that especially here people would be adamant against a repeat of such a horrible thing.

Maybe it's that it's not visible enough. We intersex, transsexual and homosexual people aren't being rounded up like cattle and transported to camps. Instead it's a worse kind of persecution: one of denial and suppression. It's still there, but it's hidden and covered up, not unlike the systematic abuse of young children by Catholic priests. The latter was unveiled recently, but long before that it was well known that it was happening. How could a society stand by and watch on while every year countless children suffered abuse at the hands of perverted old men who called themselves 'Men of God'? Are these children only toys? Do they not matter either?

Where does this terrorism come from? Should we distrust the entire system, as promoted by Anarchism? Are it the self-complacent fat cats at the top who can not concern themselves with the miniscule and irrelevant lives of the regular populace? Have medical specialists and even common physicians become so detached from reality and so captured by money and protocols that the harm they're doing to their patients is considered irrelevant?

Here in the Netherlands the medical system is on the verge of collapse. Indications include:

A rapid increase in the number of babies dying right after birth.
Hospital infections.
Managers deciding who gets surgery first.
Managers and surgeons opting for cheaper.
Inferior replacement hips instead of proper ones.
Expensive surgeries being cut more and more in favour of more profitable cheaper surgeries.
And so on.

Combine this with the other indications in other parts of society, such as shrinking the available houses on the social housing market and putting them on the private market instead, rampant speculation in the housing market which has increased prices more than five-fold since the late 90s, making it almost impossible to finance even a basic house. The course of the current and preceding governments in the Netherlands has been one towards privatizing, having even hospitals 'compete' for 'customers'. The result is a decline in the quality of medical care, increasing expenses, far more highly-paid managers, a crumbling infrastructure with public transport becoming more and more expensive.

The only conclusion one can draw is that we're rapidly moving towards a situation not unlike that in 19th century England, where the Industrial Revolution devolved into the worst abuse of a population by an elite minority since the time of the French Revolution. Humans rights are an annoying thing to the elite. It limits them in their ability to gain more power, control and money. Eventually any elite power, if given enough room, will become corrupted by said power. And the victim is the populace. You. Me. Everyone. Intersexual people. Transsexual people. Homosexual people. Bisexual people. Anarchists. Humanists. Christians. Muslims. Jews. Atheists. Scientists.

Everyone but the elite is just there to be toys to be played with. Sometimes toys do bite back, though. Sometimes.

Maya

Rainy Days

2011-07-24T19:05:00.002+02:00

It's been raining almost non-stop here since yesterday. I could be very cliche and say that it matches my mood. It would also not be an exaggeration. Much like my current mood, rainy days are days where one huddles inside, trying to find a spot outside the rain and waiting for the rain to end. Many things grind to a halt.

I have been working since last Saturday on this Android smartphone application for the client who currently employs me in a freelance fashion. I have previously done some work for them already, a simple PHP script used for monitoring their servers, and I guess they were pretty happy with it. Of course, one of the reasons I got that project in the first place was because a friend of mine, Michael, works there too. IRC in that regard is far more useful to me than networking sites like LinkedIn. To be frank I still haven't figured out how that site is supposed to work in the first place.

Anyway, this Android project isn't something I had expected to be working on. If you had told me I would be working on a Kamasutra-like application for Android a year ago I would have declared you insane. First of all because I hadn't done any Android development work at that time, and secondly because of the many traumas I suffer from related to sexuality thanks to having been able to work off the checklist of sexual abuse items.

To be frank, I don't think I'm fine with this kind of work, I do not enjoy looking at the pictures or videos of the available positions, or read the descriptions, but I think that by doing this kind of work and not having others involved while being in a safe location, out of harm's way, might just take the edge of those traumas. I'll still flip out if I hear, see or read others discuss their sex life, but the mere mentioning of sex might just stop making me feel sick. That'd be progress, I guess.

Anyway, I'm on track to finishing this application on schedule, by Wednesday next week. After that I hope to get more projects from this company. Freelancing Android and other programming work really isn't that bad. It allows for a lot of freedom and you pay far less taxes than when employed. Keeping the revenue flowing is the trick, though. That's why I'm glad that Trevor and I are getting close to releasing TileWars, our first game for Windows.

Trevor has been working on it all this time, dedicating all his time to it. The coming weeks we'll be putting the actual game together, after finishing the splash intro, menu screens and such fluff. It'll be wonderful to finish that project and I hope that lots of people will buy it once it's available on Steam. I hope to update the Nyanko website with screenshots and further details about TileWars soon, so stay tuned.

This coming week I have got nothing, aside from finishing this Android project, working on TileWars and visiting the beauty salon on Friday again. Maybe I'll meet that nice guy who recognized me last Friday again. It would be fun. Albeit I hope to talk one day about more than just my troubles due to being intersexual and being persecuted for it. Waking up each morning is still very difficult. I wish I had someone who took care of me, sheltering and protecting me. Giving me the life I so wish for but which was cruelly taken away from me during my youth, together with my human rights.

And still the rain continues...

Maya

Response From Dutch Health Minister

2011-07-23T19:28:00.001+02:00

I received this letter from the Dutch minister of Health on July 14th:

English translation:
==========================

Dear Maya,

Her Majesty the Queen has asked me to respond to your letter of May 8th, 2001 because the subject falls under my responsibility. I can tell you the following.

I have read your letter with a lot of interest. You describe how at a certain point have discovered that you are transsexual. Afterwards you discovered on the internet the term intersexuality, with which you can identify much better.

You write that many hospitals were not interested in examining you as an intersexual person and I conclude from your letter that you're very disappointed about this. After a search of six and a half years in the Dutch healthcare you have now put your hopes into foreign help.

I regret that you haven't found that which you were looking for in our healthcare and that this has been troublesome for your personal life as well. Looking over your letter I think that you mostly feel the need for recognition and I can find myself in this.

The subject intersexuality also has the interest of the House of Representatives. Recently the Minister of Education, Culture and Science has answered House questions regarding the battle which people in the Netherlands with an intersex condition fight to get (medical) recognition. Although those answers mostly apply to the legal status of people with an intersex condition (it involves the reporting of the sex in the birth certificate and the passport), they also refer to the medical reality. In that connection is the 'Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders' relevant. This guide line is created in 2006 by medical specialists and advises physicians to avoid hurried and medically not required surgeries. This possibly explains the reluctance which you encountered at the hospitals which you have visited.

Although I sympathize with your situation I have to point out that the responsibility to medical action lies with the professionals in the healthcare. As a minister of VWS I can of course not take such a professional responsibility upon myself.

I include the House questions which I just mentioned and I conclude this letter in the hope that you'll finally find the recognition you seek. Finally I gladly wish you all the best for the future.

Best wishes,
the Minister of Healthcare,
Wellness and Sport,

Ms E. I. Schippers

==========================

The included attachment referred to in the letter basically comes down to that intersexual people in the Netherlands can legally change their gender without issues, as a law exists for this already (1:24). I have of course encountered this law already when I was discussing my first name change last year with my lawyer. The requirement for this law is that you are recognized as being intersex by a hereto approved physician. Sadly the physicians in this country refuse to identify people as being intersex, rendering this law pointless.

I will be writing a follow-up letter to the Queen and send it next week. My first letter was mostly just an overview, and since this Minister clearly did not bother to even glance at my website I will have to put the relevant items into the letter itself.

My response to the above letter is mostly one of extreme bitterness. To have my troubles just brushed away like that and with her having the nerve to rub it in by pretending she cares. It really, really hurts really badly. If this doesn't underline why action is required to give intersex people their human rights back, I don't know what will.

Maya

Grass Roots Movement

2011-07-22T19:40:00.000+02:00

Today I went to my weekly appointment at the beauty salon in the nearby city Deventer. While the usual electrolysis treatment was hardly surprising after all this time, it was really fun to meet a new intern who is working there at the moment. A somewhat shy and very gentle girl, we had a very enjoyable talk while she used me as a practice subject for a foot massage in the mean time. She was very curious as to what my situation was, and I found it very pleasant to explain it to her.

The beautician herself had caught a re-run of the BNN TV show I appeared in last Wednesday. They're doing a re-run of the entire 2010 season at the moment, and she just happened to catch that episode. She hadn't seen it yet, so it was a pleasant surprise for her as well.

While waiting in the beauty salon I also talked with this really friendly lady, with whom I discussed my situation and my campaign as well. She was very curious to how such a terrible situation could be in a country like the Netherlands as well. I ended up giving her my business card so that she can look at my website.

On my way back from the beauty salon I decided to pop into this phone store to see whether I could get a cover for my new phone. While looking at some covers on display, I suddenly saw this big black guy enter the store, walk towards me and put his hand on my shoulder. I think I must have blacked out a bit, as next I know we're chatting about how he has seen me on that re-run on TV as well and recognized me as I walked past his shop. I told him that I don't have people recognizing me like that often. I gave him my business card as well and we had a nice talk until I had to leave to catch my train.

Once back home I wrote an email to the Humanitarian Broadcast channel here in the Netherlands about the campaign for giving back intersex people their human rights. Maybe they'll even bother to respond.

Regarding getting recognized, it is my experience that people do recognize me a lot more often, but as I noticed when I was sitting with a few others in front of the entrance to the photography exposition early this month, it was clear when people recognized me, but they'd quickly avert their gaze. The natural response for a Dutch person appears to be to avoid any confrontation and prefer to talk about a person behind her or her back. I'm not saying it's bad, just that it would be nice if Dutch people learned to engage more often in spontaneous conversation. Maybe it's indicative of the reason(s) for the lack of political and other change in this country. This country's culture is nothing if not hyper-conservative and outdoing even the US when it comes to enriching the rich.

I watched the news earlier on the bombing in Oslo, Norway and the shooting elsewhere in that country. Just horrible. When I visited Norway back in 2007 I very much enjoyed the people and culture there. To see its tranquility torn apart like that without any reason just brings tears to my eyes. I am well aware of the feeling of wanting to be and feel safe, and I can imagine the terror of the Norwegian people as they try to figure out whether they should flee or stay where they are.

Meanwhile I'm working furiously to finish this Android smartphone application. I'm supposed to finish it by Tuesday next week, so it's going to be a rush to finish it on time. It's fun to be working freelance-style on a paid project again, though. My skills are very much appreciated by the company which hired me, and they are ready to offer me a lot more work after this. I bought my first Android smartphone to use for testing the applications I develop, a Huawei U8800 IDEOS X5, which is comparable to a Google Nexus S, a mainstream to high-end phone. Not as cool as the Galaxy S II or similar high-end phones, but more than suitable for everything from playing videos to running 3D applications.

After yesterday's blog posts one might wonder how I'm feeling today, to which the most basic reply is 'tired'. I'm still promoting the petition, even today while talking to these people, I'm just not putting my hopes on anything. As I wrote yesterday, I can not see a future right now, and all I can do is wait until one gets handed to me. The only thing I know is that I need to find a place where I can feel safe. It'll probably take a miracle and a granting of refugee status and/or humanitarian protection to accomplish that, though.

Hope is for those who can see a glimpse of the future. I can not even glimpse a future, ergo I have no hopes.

Maya

I Want To Stop Crying...

2011-07-21T23:20:00.000+02:00

I have been crying nearly non-stop for two hours now. I just can't stop. There's so much pain inside. I feel so tired. I feel so weak. I feel like something really broke inside. I don't feel like hurting myself right now. That's good. Probably is only a matter of time before the sadness and grief turns to anger and finds a target in this despicable body of mine.

Please, please, please... allow me to stop crying. Allow me to experience a happy life. If that's possible. If it really exists. I don't know any more. Nothing makes sense. From what I hear and have experienced, being intersexual is an automatic death sentence, involving rejection, painful (physical) treatment and abuse, discrimination and worse. How could I ever hope for things to improve with all that being true? Who would take care of me? Who would protect me?

Worst is all those people saying how attractive I look and how hot I am. Why am I cursed with this hideous body? Why this torture? Why did things end up like this? Why? Why? Why?

There are only two possible ways out of this nightmare... one is for me to get help, the other is for me to die. I'm more than open for suggestions on the latter. I'm still afraid of pain, and the more gruesome ways to die, but at this point it sounds like the only plausible way out.

As for the former options... I'll believe it when I see and experience it. If the severity of my situation won't even be acknowledged by anyone who can help me, how could I ever get help? It's a chicken-and-egg, a catch-22 scenario. There is absolutely no way it could ever work out.

I'll just keep crying some more...

*hits self on head so hard she screams it out in pain*

*runs off to throw up again*

Maya

Nervous Breakdown

2011-07-21T21:20:00.000+02:00

Just experienced yet another nervous breakdown. The experiences the past days of so many brief surges of hope followed by disappointments is too much for me to take. I can clearly no longer promote the petition, or otherwise be actively involved with anything. Guess my final stand didn't last very long.

I'll be focusing on the few things I do have control over and which are useful to my life, such as my work. There's no future for me as a person at this point, and I clearly lack the energy in addition to being too traumatized by the past six plus years to fight for any kind of improvement. Hence I'm giving up on it, instead leaving it to others to take over this burden.

Please... don't say it'll be fine, or to give it some more time. It just hurts me to hear such obvious fabrications. You know it's not true as much as I do.

I and others have asked people with a lot of influence to promote my cause. They never responded, except for one former Dutch politician who deemed the petition too unreliable to support. After a short burst the number of signatures is stuck at 260. Not even a single percentage of what is needed to get the attention from something like the United Nations. Pointless.

I'll stop worrying about it. I should worry less. All I have to worry about now is how my life will go from here. Will I be dead in a few months? Weeks? Days? Will sudden help arrive and my life become all fine? The only thing I am certain of is the here and now, and I hate it with a passion. Hate and frustration are the only two things I have plenty of.

I have said many times that I do not want to die, that I just want to be given a chance. Please give me a chance...

*sees all the leering and laughing faces around her and breaks down in tears again*

Maya

More Medical Incompetence: My Lung Infection

2011-07-19T09:58:00.000+02:00

For over two years now I have suffered from a significant increase in mucus production ('slime' produced in the lower airways and coughed up), as well a near-constant cough and episodes of shortness of breath. I have written about this before already a few times. When visiting multiple family doctors and ER doctors over the past years I have been given the following range of diagnoses: 'nothing unusual', 'just a bad cold', 'a slight infection in the chest, will pass in two weeks', 'asthma'.

First of all, the persistent cough is a very big hint, together with the increase in mucus production: "A change in the amount, color or tenacity of sputum is often extremely significant and may indicate the presence of a bacterial infection or other type of lung condition, such as pulmonary edema, chronic bronchitis or bronchiectasis." [1]
"Bronchitis may be indicated by an expectorating cough (also known as a productive cough, i.e. one that produces sputum), shortness of breath (dyspnea) and wheezing. Occasionally chest pains, fever, and fatigue or malaise may also occur. Mucus is often green or yellowish green and also may be orange or pink, depending on the pathogen causing the inflammation." [2]

There's a big difference between asthma and chronic bronchitis, the latter being part of the group of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases (COPD): "Distinguishing between asthma and COPD can be quite challenging, even for the most seasoned medical professional. In fact, COPD is often misdiagnosed as asthma, leading to ineffective treatment and management of the disease.

Although asthma and COPD share similar characteristics, they are two very different animals in terms of disease onset, frequency of symptoms, and reversibility of airway obstruction. " [3]

Looking at the symptom comparison, plus considering the additional symptoms which are not part of asthma, but are part of COPD like the mucus production and the consistent cough it seems pretty clear that we're talking COPD here, and not asthma. For one, the symptoms of having restricted air is near-constant, and just worsens at times. The inhalator I got from my current family, the one who insisted it had to be asthma without even listening, having a scan made or anything, does exactly nothing positive, as is to be expected if it is COPD.

So, in a nutshell, my experiences in this matter are pretty much a mirror image of those with my intersex issue, with symptoms ignored, no proper examinations carried out and the patient not being taken seriously. If they did, they'd do the following:

"The presence of a productive, long-term cough that lasts 3 months out of the year for 2 consecutive years points doctors in the diagnostic direction of chronic bronchitis.
A diagnosis of chronic bronchitis is made by obtaining a complete history, including family, environmental and occupational exposure, and smoking history. Diagnostic tests may include:
    Arterial Blood Gases
    Chest X-ray
    Pulmonary function tests
    Complete blood count" [4]

The nasty thing about chronic bronchitis is that it's irreversible, and will lead to reduced lung function during the life of the patient. Treatment is required to prevent further degradation of lung function. If it's truly what I have, then treatment is required immediately.

Unfortunately, as I pointed out with my comparison with the intersex case, it's unlikely I'll find a doctor willing to take me seriously in this country. I'm really not sure what to do here, considering that without treatment my lung function may be degrading every day a bit more. Help?

Maya

[1] http://copd.about.com/od/glossaryofcopdterms/g/mucusproduction.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_bronchitis
[3] http://copd.about.com/od/fa1/a/asthmaorcopd.htm
[4] http://copd.about.com/od/chronicbronchitis/a/bronchitis.htm

Open Invitation To Join The Revolution

2011-07-15T08:36:00.000+02:00

Dear Sir/Madam/Other,

We are all aware of the inequality and oppression in this world. Most recently people in Middle-Eastern and North-African countries rose up against the dictators who had made their lives miserable. Some of those dictators have or had been in power for over twenty years. This is the most visible kind of oppression, where an entire population aside from a very small elite suffers, and even then it took so long for anything to happen. What it took was for a Tunisian man to set himself on fire out of protest in the capital city.

When I was born, in 1983, most of those dictators were already in place and I never knew these countries as anything other than poor dictatorships. I am now twenty-seven years old, twenty-eight in a few months, and it has taken those countries that long to realize that a revolution was necessary. Similarly, it has taken me this long to realize that another revolution is required as well. Much like how the people of Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Libya and the others fought or are still fighting for personal freedoms and basic human rights, there is a world-wide group of people who are being systematically discriminated against and persecuted. These are those who do not fit into what's 'normal' and 'regular', particularly when it comes to sexual diversity.

Intersexual people like me are suffering the brunt of this, with it not being recognized by the governments of many countries and the United Nations (UNHCR) not recognizing intersex either, including not as a reason for assigning refugee status when these people are being persecuted and wish to request asylum in another country. Not that there is a safe place to flee to, though, as I found out when I tried to do so. Australia is one of the more liberal-minded countries when it comes to this subject, but even it doesn't fully recognize it or offer medical treatment. Many intersexuals still opt to undergo sex re-assignment surgery to become a 'regular' man or woman, or their parents opt to have surgery performed shortly after birth. In fact many transsexuals are actually intersexual people who have been mutilated like this after birth and feel that the wrong decision was made.

My story started seven years ago when I began an adventure which as it later turned out was actually a war. The subject of this war: intersexuality. The victim of this war: me, with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder and various other traumatic disorders and physical injuries. The cause? A complete refusal by the Dutch government, medical specialists and psychologists to even acknowledge the existence of intersexuality, let alone consider the option that I might be intersex, as well as the use of force when I refused to play along.

After even having been put shortly into jail and suffering abuse at the hand of Dutch police I decided at first that I would leave this country, until I found out about the above issues. There is no place to flee to, basically. This is why I decided to start my own revolution; by giving up on trying to escape and instead facing the problem head-on. I believe that one should stand up and fight for what they believe in. What I believe in is that intersexual people should be given full humanitarian protection, full human rights, recognition by every government and medical instance and that treatment should be both available and covered by insurance.

My only crime was to be born like this, why should I suffer for it? Why should anyone suffer for being born different? Why do I not have the right to be recognized for what I physically am? To get a diagnosis and peace of mind since intersex conditions often have an increased cancer risk? Why are billions spent on fertility treatments each year, usually fully covered, despite this putting a burden on society, while 'non-regular' people are denied even the most basic medical needs for their condition?

I invite not only intersexual people to join this revolution, but also transsexual people, who are being persecuted and discriminated against around the world as well, as well as homosexual people, of whom even in Amsterdam each year over a thousand are beaten up for being what they are, and further anyone who believes in justice and equality for everyone. This is my final stand. There is nowhere to go from here but through the oppression.

Everyone is invited to the revolution.

Maya Posch
www.mayaposch.com

Sign the petition at http://www.change.org/petitions/get-humanitarian-protection-for-intersex-people

Putting Australia On Hold; Indefinitely?

2011-07-14T09:20:00.000+02:00

The past time everything has seemingly revolved around getting me to Australia, and getting me a job. OII Australia's response was exactly like that too. Once I would be in Australia things would turn out fine, or so people assured me. Not so.

The future I'd jump into would mean living in some expensive rented room heavens know where, trying to find a job and making ends meet after spending most of my money on getting to Australia. Would this make me happy? Would this really solve the issue which caused me to leave the Netherlands in the first place.

Last night's dream forcefully reminded me of this, and my friend Trevor also warned me that I was moving far too fast yesterday. In the dream I saw all those things which in some form symbolize happiness. In the dream I experienced intimacy, careless happiness, a child's innocence and so on. When I woke up I felt sick. Looking at the twisted reality I was building for myself, stripped of any form of happiness.

Most importantly is that in this reality which had been spun partially by myself and by others there would be no space for my intersexuality, and for the reasons why I can not build up an existence in the Netherlands. How could six and a half years of psychological and physical torture and brainwashing together with an unhappy youth be brushed away carelessly like that? I suffer from a collection of traumatic disorders worse than what most soldiers and abuse victims are forced to deal with every day. Does this not matter? Shouldn't I receive professional care for this?

A person's personality and behaviours are formed by one's surroundings and memories. If you refer to me, you basically refer to the reasons I described above. They formed and shaped me over the past two decades plus. I can not suddenly pretend I'm not like that. I already have to wear a mask in daily life to hide the worst pain and suffering. I could not conceivably manage that for the rest of my life.

No... there still is no future at this point. I know where I need to head towards: where I as a person, together with my past is taken seriously, acknowledged and where help is available. A humanitarian protection visa and the accompanying special humanitarian protection program in Australia would probably be an example of this, but so far I have received no help in ascertaining that this would work, or to carry out the necessary steps.

Where I am now is not the right place to be. I'll never become happy here. I can not grow or live while I stay here. It's still better than making another mistake, fleeing with unseeing eyes, much like when I fled to Canada only to return in misery a few weeks later.

What did I suffer for again all those years?

Maya

Australia At Last, Yet Should I Be Happy?

2011-07-13T20:13:00.000+02:00

Today an Australian friend from Sydney said I could crash at his place and he'd ask friends whether they had a spare room. Another friend is also looking around for me. Once I have a room the countdown to my move to Australia begins. It might be as early as this week.

Now that it is quickly becoming a reality, I'm assaulted by so many doubts and fears. Why shouldn't I stay here, where everything is familiar and safe? Why go to some strange place and use up all your savings? Why? Why? Why? Today I don't think I can answer those questions. My resolve of the past months which led me to consider Australia seems to have vanished for the time being.

I have requested a price quote from an international moving company. I will possibly book my plane ticket this week. Things are moving forward, but to where? I don't know where I will end up, only in 'a room', surrounded by people I have never once met in my life, and with the daunting task of finding a job lest I run out of money within a month or two. I don't know how much support I'll get there, or whether I'll remain a stranger all the time.

Of course I'm used to the Dutch way of doing things, where most people never bother to learn who their neighbours are. I hope things aren't like in Australia, but I'm feeling so very small and so very afraid.

Maya

Wanted: Miracle

2011-07-13T10:18:00.002+02:00

So the world doesn't want me at the moment? Doesn't want my skills? Doesn't want me to show what I can do for it? I will just have to stop trying then. A future is something is something other people have. I'll just have to stay in the present and maybe a bit in the past as well. Maybe a miracle will occur and the world will accept me.

Until that time I'll just... exist.

Farewell, and maybe I'll see you again, in the future.

Maya

Hunger Strike

2011-07-13T07:51:00.001+02:00

Yesterday OII Australia seemed to make a U-turn on their offer of help, seemingly telling me to figure it all out on my own, without help from their side. This led to me taking an overdose of a certain medication, fortunately not fatal.

Now I'm feeling all on my own again. I don't know how or even why I'd go to Australia. It's so much work, so much trouble and I can't do it on my own. Never done it before, and I'm so tired that I start crying at the slightest.

My hunger strike kind of just happened. Been eating less and less the past weeks until lately I almost began to feel disgusted at eating something. Two days ago I almost had nothing but lunch. Yesterday I didn't eat anything. Today I'm not feeling hungry at all.

What would happen if I just stayed here in the Netherlands? I'd never be acknowledged as being intersexual, I'd never receive help with it. I'd have extreme difficulty finding a job due to my lack of formal education, I'd remain a burden on my mother for heavens know how long and I'd never be able to be myself. Plus this is the country which discriminated against me, refused medical help and even tried to brainwash me. Should I just take all that and pretend nothing bad happened?

I can't take it already right now.

What I need is a place where my intersexuality is acknowledged, where I can easily get a job with my qualifications and where I can mostly be myself and where I already have quite a few friends. A country like Australia, in other words.

Just obstacle after obstacle keeps getting thrown in my way. OII Australia most recently seemed to tell me that I can just rough it out, staying at youth hostels and such until I find a job and a place to stay. I can imagine what that would do to my emotional state, as I was in a similar situation back in 2007 when I went to Canada and had to stay in a motel for a week while things got sorted out. It was one of the most terrible experiences in my life.

I need safety and comfort. Not another prison cell with its restrictions and limitations. All I ask for is someone, a family or someone else to provide me with a place where I can stay for a bit, and some help with getting a job. Is this really too much to ask?

Until such a miracle happens I'll be counting down the about 3-4 weeks until my hunger strike becomes life-threatening. At this point I don't think I have much concern for my own life any more anyway, thanks to what others have taught me.

Maya

Friends Nearby; Friends Far Away

2011-07-11T22:10:00.000+02:00

You say you care about me. You say you love me.
You hug me. You embrace me. Closer together isn't possible.

You say you care about me. You say you love me.
You hug me. You keep a bit of distance.

You say you care about me. You say you wish me the best.
You hug me. You keep your distance.

You say you care about me. You wish me the best.
We shake hands. We'll probably never see each other again.

You say you care about me. You wish me the best.
We never so much as shake hands. The smile might be true.

You say you care about me. You wish me the best.
We just randomly met.

You say you care about me. You wish me the best.
You sent me a message and never follow-up on my response.

You say you care about me. You wish me the best.
You live at the other side of the world. They're just words.

You say you care about me. You say you'll help me.
I don't know who you are. Who am I?

You say you care about me. You say you'll help me.
You vent your frustrations on me. I feel miserable now.

You say you care about me. You say you'll help me.
I'm feeling so terrible right now. Where are you?

You say you'll be there for me. You say life is worth living.
I couldn't take the pain of life any more.

Where were you?

Maya

The Many Questions In The Agony Of Being Intersexual

2011-07-10T10:26:00.001+02:00

Today I have fallen ill again. Unsteady legs, dizzyness, difficulty focusing both my eyes and my thoughts. Only a general feeling of misery. Yesterday I was sneezing and coughing constantly. In this all I'm quite certain it's the result of the chronic stress I have been suffering from for at least six and a half years which is now manifesting itself in a gradual decay of my immune system and general health. The official term for this is decompensation [1], which is part of the third and final stage in the General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS) stress model [2] as developed by the discoverer of stress, Hans Selye.

In Selye's original article [3] he describes an experiment on rats which got exposed to stressors. During the first stage (Alarm) they suffered severe physical degradations in their organs to the induced stress, which they mostly recovered from during the second stage (Resistance). After a certain period the third stage (Exhaustion) sets in. During this final stage the rats began to show symptoms similar to those in the first stage, yet instead of eventually improving many of the rats died before the experiment was stopped. This indicates that chronic stress is in fact lethal due to the physical degradations it effects.

Looking at my own case, it's not hard to identify stressors. First of all there are the countless questions, each of which cause a significant emotional response:

Why was the possibility of me being intersexual never entertained by Dutch physicians?
Why was the possibility of me being intersexual never entertained by Dutch psychologists?
Why did I have to wait half a year for the first appointment at the VUMC hospital and call myself when they said it would take 4 months and they'd call me?
Why did they keep asking/telling me that I wanted to become a woman?
Why did the VUMC hospital only perform a quick physical check-up by someone inexperienced with IS?
Why was the diagnosis of hermaphrodite by German clinics ignored by all Dutch hospitals?
Why didn't the Dutch hospitals discuss their findings with those German clinics?
Why did the UMCG hospital fake a mosaic test, pretending that one tissue would suffice for it?
Why does every Dutch radiologist have another interpretation for the tube which is clearly visible on MRIs?
Why did at least one Dutch radiologist mention the presence of two testicles in the scrotum where only one was visible?
Why were all the clinical symptoms regarding the prostate, palpable structures underneath the skin, hormone balance etc. ignored?
Why did the AMC hospital come up with the not-existing diagnosis autoparagynaecophilia, pretending it was all in my mind?
Why did the VUMC hospital want to have me taken into a psychiatric place instead of perform examinations?
Why is the lack of existing medical protocols a reason to not perform appropriate examinations?
Why did the Dutch politicians not care about this situation?
Why did one Dutch politician accuse me of lying instead of the doctors lying to me?
Why don't I know yet what my body is like?
Why can't I live a normal life?
Why isn't there a safe place for someone like me?

And so on and on and on...

If the GAS model is correct, then I am probably in the third and final stage now of Exhaustion. After six and a half years of constant presence of stressors this isn't too surprising. It took the rats in Selye's experiment only 1-3 months to move from phase 2 into phase 3. The stressors of getting arrested and spending a night in a jail cell with all the uncertainty about whether I would get out on the second day must have really pushed me over the edge.

Why did all of this have to happen? Is there a quick way to get me into a stressor-free environment? It seems essential based on the available evidence that something is done soon. I'm not so much talking about suicide, although that is a distinct possibility considering past behaviour, but mostly about the severely negative effect on my immune system, presence of harmful visceral fat [4] and other health issues.

Another stress factor got added yesterday when I learned that while Australia is a lot better for intersexual people, there are still stupid and backwards limitations, all of which act as additional stressors for me, and clearly overburdening my system. I can notice that I am in the Exhaustion stage, as I can not find a way to deal with it, put it aside or just accept it.

A voice in my head, one which sounds quite calm and reasonable, keeps stating that it is a much more reasonable and logical option to take my own life than to continue this struggle which I obviously can not handle any more. It's literally too much for me to take at this point and only rapid external help can save me at this point.

I'm Exhausted. End of the line.

Maya

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decompensation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_%28biological%29#General_Adaptation_Syndrome
[3] http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/10/2/230a
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visceral_fat#Physiology

OII Australia To The Rescue?

2011-07-09T14:45:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I got into contact with Karin Gottschalk of OII Australia. OII stands for Organisation Internationale des Intersexues, the international organization for intersexual people. The Australian site can be found at http://oiiaustralia.com/. Her response was so matter of fact and friendly that I found myself wondering why I hadn't contacted OII before. Maybe it were my previous negative experiences with such organizations, I guess.

What OII Australia can apparently offer me is support for my intersex condition, help with finding a job and getting settled in Australia. It's all volunteer-driven, so it won't be an easy ride, but at least these are people who know what is like to be intersexual. So far it's a stark contrast with my contacts with transsexual people, including those in Australia. I'm not sure where this difference comes from, all I know is that I much prefer the intersexual side. Maybe it's because intersexual people aren't so desperate to belong to one of the strictly defined groups of males and females? I don't know.

Anyway, things are looking up a bit now, for which I am grateful. Now to see whether this is just a breathing space before things go south again, or that it's finally up from here.

Things I do not really like so far about the picture being painted for me is the difficulty is getting hormones for Hormone Replacement Theory. Most seem to order them online as I used to do as well. It's much easier to get them locally instead of waiting a month for them to arrive. I'll have to see about this.

There is also the matter of getting the examinations and tests I require. For surgeries everyone seems to go to Thailand, which fortunately is only a small hop from Australia. For examinations and such I'm not sure where I could go to and who would pay for it. These uncertainties ruin my mood, still. Some physician has to be interested in a unique case like mine, right? Right? :(

Above all I notice how incredibly tired I am, and how little it takes for me to start crying and shut out the world. I am pretty sure this is what they call a burn-out. It really makes it extremely difficult to cope with every-day life, let alone complex things such as a relocation. There can be no opportunity to recover from this burn-out, though. Not here in the Netherlands where I can't keep from flinching every time I see a police uniform and medical help won't arrive until intersexuality is officially recognized by the Dutch government by perhaps 2050.

Once in Australia I will need someone to hold my hand as well, as silly as it may sound. Just to help me get settled into a routine and to consult with about medical things.

Just please... no more setbacks. I am sick of feeling filled with agony and despair. It hurts so bloody much. Make me believe that life can be fun and relaxing instead. Last time I felt like that I must have been 5 years old or so...

Maya

Hospital Appointment And The Things I Gladly Leave Behind

2011-07-04T20:56:00.000+02:00

The thing I like about traveling by train and other public methods of transport is meeting new people. On my way towards the hospital I ended up chatting with this girl about her notebook, DSLR cameras, the HKU school where I was yesterday since she wants to become an interior designer and she didn't know about this school yet, and of course my troubles in this country. I handed her my business card before she had to leave the train. I talked with a few other people as well, and got some very grateful 'thank yous' after assisting others, but that first conversation was the most remarkable, I think.

At the hospital itself I ended up talking about my issue as well when I had to register. Two ladies behind the counter were quite interested in my story so I gave them my business card as well. Ditto for the girl behind the plastic surgery department counter. All quite interesting and pleasant.

The actual appointment was less fun. The surgeon in question was a very twitchy, absent-minded person. Soon into the discussion it became clear that he was taking an offensive stance and I was back to defending myself, as I have gotten used to with Dutch physicians and such. This attitude would not change at all during the appointment. What I found annoying was that this surgeon kept pushing me towards having an artificial vagina installed, without any apparent interest in finding out whether I already have one. Finally he also called in other patients when I had left for a minute to go to the toilet, meaning that I had to wait ten minutes or so in front of a closed door with my belongings still inside.

There was no mention of the scan or x-ray with contrast dye and when I steered towards the subject, he stayed dismissive, and jumped to various conclusions. I didn't get the impression that he really believed my story, and wasn't particularly interested in examining me. What he did suggest was to have an ultrasound performed, but after a lot of calling back and forth with the radiology department it was decided that they just needed the MRI scans which I had with me on an USB stick. Then some confusion when I arrived at the radiology department as the people at the front desk didn't know about this request to have them read in the MRI scan data.

After spending more time waiting I got told that they couldn't use the JPEG files included in the scan data I have, but require the original DCOM format. Ergo they have to ask for this data at the OLVG and Erasmus MC hospitals. My presence clearly wasn't needed or required. The surgeon's conclusions based on the MRI scans will also be discussed by phone, two weeks from now. Good thing that the journey was kinda fun.

It was a good thing that I didn't have any expectations for this appointment, as otherwise I'd surely have felt disappointed. As things stand now, I merely feel that it is a confirmation of the reasons why I am leaving this country. Another confirmation are the frequent flashbacks I suffered today, with details like a side table design reminding me of the table in my jail cell, and a dress a little girl was wearing at the hospital reminding me of the bag they made me wear at the jail. Very unpleasant memories and still far too real.

Hopefully the last pieces before I can go to Australia will fall in place during this and next week. I got one friend helping me with that politician and the professor we got referred to, and the asylum request, and another with the housing part. Other friends are helping me with various details around finding a job and such. Ideally I would like to get a chance to heal up once I'm in Australia. Spend a month or so adjusting, and letting the bad memories fade somewhat while adding new, fun memories. Professional help might be welcome too, considering that I do suffer from PTSD and such, not unlike a soldier returning from a war zone.

We'll see.

Maya

It Doesn't Really Matter Any More

2011-07-04T08:33:00.000+02:00

In a few hours I'll be leaving for a hospital appointment at the other side of the country for an x-ray with contrast dye which should indicate whether or not I have a vagina there. A friend arranged this for me via a surgeon.

Just like yesterday's visit to the photo exposition, today's appointment is an - even stronger - confrontation with everything that is wrong about me and my life. I don't even care what the result of this examination is. All I can feel is sick, nauseous and completely miserable. My emotional state is distinctly unstable and I can't stop crying.

I did some reading up on Australian asylum and humanitarian protection programs. They might be an option. I don't know. I will have others look into it for me. Much as I need others for everything else. A job. Housing. Everything. There's nothing I can do myself.

I feel so worthless. Weak. All I can do is feel miserable and cry. Part of me insists that I'll never make it to Australia. Not in my current state and not with the limited help I'm getting at the moment. I'm actually beginning to feel extremely suicidal again today. I simply can't take the facts of my existence any longer. By hitting and inflicting physical pain upon myself I can draw myself away from a suicide attempt somewhat, but it's a losing battle.

There's nothing I would like more right now than to take a pill, vitally injure myself with a knife or otherwise cause my own death. Everything is better than to suffer like this.

No one cares. Or I wouldn't be writing this. What am I hoping for anyway... I should just get this over with instead of wasting more time and energy on writing useless posts like these. F*** this all. F*** all of you useless people. F*** this useless world. I'm through with it. Just...

I'll struggle on anyway, until this last thread of sanity snaps.

*winches in pain as she hits herself on the chest and abdominal areas some more*

*cries*

Maya

Photo Exposition And The Things I Leave Behind

2011-07-03T21:03:00.000+02:00

I guess today was all about feeling torn about my decision to leave the Netherlands. This morning I felt a bit nervous about the photo exposition in Utrecht I would be visiting, which made my stress levels spike and made me feel nauseous and miserable. I still dragged myself to the train station, though, and once I arrived at the HKU school building things improved rapidly.

Being among people who are interested in me and above all feeling part of something, belonging to a group and purpose is amazing. I talked to a number of people there, including the photography student herself. Most interesting person I met there was this Muslim girl from the fashion part of the school. Her project was about analyzing and dissecting the 'world of fashion' to discover the authentic identity of a fashion product. I.e., whether there is a point where an article of clothing or shoes are just that and not a brand or a model or an ideal world. Imagine plain deodorant versus Axe with its 'Axe effect', whereby application of this deodorant will draw hordes of sex-crazed women to the guy in question. Ideal world versus reality. I thought it was fascinating and I was pleasantly surprised to encounter such a project among those at what is after all a school for the arts.

Also fun was this project by a Chinese student, involving glass structures which while balancing on a central point would lead water from a reservoir to a plant on the other side of the central point, causing a balancing effect between the two sides which could be very telling depending on what you set it up to measure. I thought it was very elegant in its simplicity and I expect to see this product in stores soon :)

As for the exposition involving my pictures, it was set up slightly different again than from what was described to me last time I talked to the photography student, Milou. Aside from it being a tad dark it was very well set up, with one having many different angles to look at things, and a need to search for the next photograph and piece of text. Milou had also used some pictures from my photo gallery I took a few years ago to complement her own pictures. I thought it was a nice touch. As for responses from people, when they leave the exposition they are generally 'shocked', in the sense that they didn't expect it, and are impressed by it. Although my name or the name of my condition is never mentioned, it does make it clear that such a physical condition exists. And that's where it all starts from, I guess.

Near 5 PM it neared closing time and Milou walked me to the bus station. When the bus arrived we said our goodbyes. I don't know when or if I will see her again. It's been about a year since we started working together on this project and it's been a lot of fun, and an anchor point for me. The positive reception of the project at her school, both by her teachers as well as her classmates, most of whom I have talked with, was amazing. I'm so glad that Milou contacted me for this project and that I had the honour of being part of it. It didn't make it easy for me to return home from Utrecht. Nor did the severe headache I was suffering from at that point.

I'm not sure whether it was the headache which made it hard to keep my eyes open and impossible to read in my book, but as I was sitting there in the train home I began to recall the things which are good in this country. The people I met at the HKU today, for one. But also so many little things I have grown accustomed to, like the trains, the landscapes... it's hard to express it really, but I nearly started crying while sitting there in the train. I guess part of me will miss this country, but as with everything nothing is absolute. I will miss the good parts of this country, while being grateful I'll be rid of the bad parts.

What I need the most now is to find a home in Australia. I'm not sure what it'll look like, and it'll probably change during the first few months that I'm there. But a home it shall be nonetheless, with a little bit of help from my friends and acquaintances. Getting dumped straight into a 40-hour a week work schedule doesn't work, if only because of the massive jet lag and the emotional turmoil I will undoubtedly feel as I adapt to my new surroundings.

Uncertainty is no fun, especially not while I feel this torn inside.

Maya

A Foothold In Australian Politics

2011-07-02T18:26:00.000+02:00

Last Tuesday an Australian friend (I guess I should start saying 'mate' by now) sent an email on my behalf to a politician in Melbourne, regarding the issue of intersexual and similar people who leave their country due to intolerance and persecution for their condition. With this politician also being intersexual my hope was that I could get some help or advice from this side as well. What I didn't know was whether I would get a response at all, or if I did, how long it would take and what the contents would be. My only experience with politicians regarding this issue has been with Dutch politicians, which as described before has ranged from near- to complete disinterest, so while I had some hope my expectations weren't that high.

Naturally I was aware that Australia is a lot more considerate and aware of sexual diversity in its attitude and laws, and for crying out loud, the politician receiving the message is quite like me. Still, I had no real idea of what to expect.

A few hours ago I received an email from the friend... sorry, mate who sent the email with news about the response he had received from the politician. Not only did this politician inquire about more details, a reference was also provided to a professor at a local hospital. Only took about four days. Not bad. And the response itself was far beyond what I could have imagined. The follow-up from our side is now to provide the requested details, mainly about my case. I'm quite thrilled to see how this will develop from now on.

In other news, I'm awaiting news on a job in Sydney and got a very real job offer waiting for me in Newcastle. With a bit of luck I'll get to choose between jobs next week and begin to make final arrangements for my move to Australia. A slight sticking point in this is Dutch bureaucracy: my beautician has called my insurance company a number of times about the price quote they demand for approving full coverage for electrolysis treatment, but each time the person who supposedly handles such things wasn't present. It's silly because first of all such a price quote is impossible as treatment duration differs per person and is unpredictable, and because they don't have the right person available on this special phone number during office hours, and second it's silly because everyone who qualifies has to go through this futile routine.

What I should get once this request is approved is close to 4,000 Euro, which I have saved up over the past three years. Not that I'm financially in such a tight spot, but it would give me some more breathing space with such a big change in my life coming up.

Maya

What I Expect From Australia, Or Please Cut Me Some Slack

2011-06-30T20:30:00.000+02:00

Today's post is very much a continuation of Tuesday's blog post (http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-i-am-leaving-netherlands-forever.html) on my reasons for leaving the Netherlands. As my target country where I am escaping to is Australia, I'll try to outline in this post what my expectations and hopes are.

First of all, I'd like to state my desire to really contribute to Australia, both its economy and its culture. I'm the type of person who likes to give back. My hope is that I'll get what I need to get started from people in Australia as well as its government. This is also one of the sources of my fears. The last thing I would want is to end up all alone in Australia, in a place I can not afford to pay for, with dwindling financial resources and no backup. Notice that I have never known financial security so far, and that the only reason why I haven't ended up on the streets is because I have had family and other people support me, even if it did turn out they had ulterior motives.

Being able to support myself hasn't been an option for a long time because of my struggle to first understand myself, leading to the discovery of my giftedness and my intersexuality, and then against the medical and other parts of the Dutch healthcare system in a futile attempt to get them to help me. Meanwhile I haven't neglected my intellectual side, however. I know various languages, many programming languages, system architectures and basically at least something of every branch of science and technology. My photographic memory and insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding have been a great boon and still form a major part of who I am and where my interests lie.

Where things get tricky is that I need financial stability in Australia, but thanks to my traumatic experiences in the Netherlands I'll need a recovery period, both for my physical and emotional injuries. My hope is that something can be arranged here, together with some medical treatment. I'd still like a diagnosis of my intersex condition and treatment options. I guess the central theme here is that I require safety and acknowledgement of my physical condition. A stable platform from which to proceed after the dust of migrating has settled.

I will be moving to a completely foreign country after all, where I do not have any friends I have ever met in real-life. At the moment they're just contacts via IRC and email. What I am so terrified of, as I described earlier, is to end up all alone and without support. I would just have fled from a country where the system has actively pushed me towards my death, only to end up in a place where I'll be forced to fight for my survival again. I'd very much like to get a break here. Take away the worries about finances, a place to live etc. for at least a few months until I can get onto my feet.

Above all I require lots of love and attention :) Here in the Netherlands my mother cares a great deal about me, but is helpless on her own to improve my situation. My younger brother, who has been in New Zealand and Australia in 2009, supports me completely as well. Further I have my current beautician who has been very kind to me so far, and a couple of Dutch people I know via IRC who also support me, some of whom are eager to go along with me. I crave for people who will similarly be kind to me, help me where they can and above all make me - a stranger in a strange land - feel welcome.

I hope this rambling post has made some sense to you. It's very hard to put things down when they're mostly emotional in nature. My hope is that the impression it left you with are that I'm an asset to Australia and a good person to have around or even befriend, someone who will repay kindness in kind. The impression it shouldn't have left you with is that of an unstable, homicidal maniac, in which case I probably should rewrite it :)

Maya

Life In The Face Of Murderous Uncertainty

2011-06-30T08:17:00.000+02:00

Putting up a brave face towards the world. Because it is expected. Because it makes one feel still somewhat in control. Because the alternative is to be a sobbing pile of misery.

Inside, one only feels turmoil and pain. Every moment another soldier of Hope is brutally slaughtered by the armies of Uncertainty, Frustration and Agony. There is nothing one can do about this conflict. Not without outside help. Where is this help? More uncertainty.

Uncertainty stretches on until far beyond the horizon. Maybe there is something better beyond the horizon? Maybe the path of Uncertainty will finally end there? Maybe. Maybe it will continue on forever. Forever, until things end in a brutal fashion. One keeps walking, even if every step feels like walking bare-foot on shards of glass.

One hears the cries of the other damned most clearly and painfully. A reminder that help isn't guaranteed to arrive. The voices of others are heard in the distance. Laughing voices. Ignorant voices. Useless voices.

Waiting for that one voice which tears apart these ashen skies, freeing one from this prison and unleashing one into a world of Certainty and Safety. Waiting for a miracle. It feels so very futile.

Easier to just take one's own life and unleash oneself into Certainty, even if it's the Certainty of Death. Still one keeps walking, as long as the tiny flame of Hope hasn't been fully extinguished yet.

Why can't all those happy voices help me? Why are they ignoring my suffering? Why don't I matter?

All hope extinguished.

Maya

Why I Am Still In Mortal Danger, Or Help, I Don't Want To Die

2011-06-29T08:05:00.003+02:00

The first time I tried to commit suicide was in 2009, when after about four years I had to acknowledge that it was unlikely that I would be receiving medical help. I tried strangulation, but failed and afterwards I learned to suppress the sadness, rage, anger, fear and other negative emotions associated with getting persecuted for having the nerve to be myself. The persecution and my despair at it only got worse after that.

January of this year I tried to commit suicide again, this time with an overdose of sleeping pills. The reasons were multiple. First the same reasons as for the first attempt, combined with me losing what I at that moment considered to be my home. I survived this attempt as well and tried to find a solution to my situation, eventually acknowledging that I was being persecuted and that my only option was to leave this country.

The past few days I hadn't been feeling all too well. For weeks I have had this strange, nauseating headache, probably induced by the stress caused by all the uncertainties regarding whether I'll be able to make it out of this country alive or not. After multiple weeks of trying to arrange things and only have a temporary visa to show for it, I have zero faith in me actually getting out of this alive.

PTSD flashbacks have been getting worse. I often find myself back in jail, experiencing the despair of utter hopelessness. Then I snap out of it and realize that my current situation isn't much better. I'm completely at the mercy of others at this point, and they at least to me seem more than happy to let me rot in this jail called the Netherlands. Every shred of hope I cling to gets ripped away. It now seems unlikely that I'll be able to get a job in Australia. The family of this friend of my mother hasn't responded after weeks, even after me sending an email myself, probably because they don't want to deal with a freak like me. Maybe it's all inside my head, and everything will turn out fine, but I can say without lying that nothing up till this point has worked out and that my situation has only grown increasingly more desperate.

Last night I went to bed feeling kind of down. I had been suffering from terrible pains in my wrists and hands that day to the point where I had to take double my normal dose of painkillers to deal with it. Once in bed I began to slip into a flashback-like state, which wasn't a flashback. I was imagining committing suicide by stabbing myself with a knife. I could feel everything, find myself longing to carry this out for real, and not finding myself rejecting the idea at all.

I tried to fight against this idea, but it literally is like fighting a bear. It is that I don't bruise easily, or my entire chest would be completely blue and black. All one can see of my struggles are the nail marks where I dug into the skin of my abdomen and tried to rip chunks out. It was so terrifying. I didn't know whether I was going to win this time. I so badly want to live, but it just doesn't seem possible. A third suicide attempt seems inevitable at this point, and I'm almost ready to surrender to the idea.

Yesterday a friend sent out a message on Twitter asking for people to find me a job and safety in Australia, but it was already the second time she did this. I am not expecting anything of it. Everybody around me will just keep living their lives which really aren't that bad, even if they complain a lot about it.

I am disgusted with my body. It's not human. I can not place it. It's not accepted. It's not acceptable. I can't see my own family as such, because they are normal, and I am some kind of alien freak.

It would probably be best if I did kill myself for real this time. I'm just futily keeping myself going with the razor-thin veil of hope that people around me do want me to exist. If I commit suicide it is because I'll be convinced that everybody wants me to die, or doesn't care one bit about my existence. Why do I have to die again? What is my crime? Clearly this body is the reason why I have to die, and my crime is existing. Obviously. I wonder why I didn't see this before?

I fuckin' hate this all...

Maya

Why I Am Leaving The Netherlands Forever

2011-06-28T09:50:00.001+02:00

I figured I would post a slightly more upbeat post for a change. The motivation for this post is that the reasons for why I'm fleeing the Netherlands to find safety in Australia are scattered on my blog and site. I'll try to briefly summarize the reasons in this post.

The very first thing to go wrong in my life which was due to the system in this country was the way my giftedness was handled. As I describe in the summary on my main site, I have a pretty rare form of giftedness, which makes me a 100% visual-spatial learner as opposed to the more usual step-by-step learner. On top of that I have an auditory deficiency which is due to said giftedness. Basically I have to translate auditory (spoken) items to and from my internal (visual) way of thinking. I think in pictures, essentially, where most people think in words.

The education system wasn't ready to deal with a case like mine, and like every other gifted person in the Netherlands I had to suffer through school until things finally went lobsided. My giftedness and the way it turned me into an outcast even during primary school wasn't handled at all by my environment. There is no place for gifted people in the Netherlands. It's all about dumbing down the system enough for the bottom 50% of society. If you're stupid, you get help. If you're smart, you're expected to take care of things yourself. Hello under-performing and rebelling against society.

Next up on the list is of course my intersexuality. I'm far more bitter about the way this got handled by this country than about how my giftedness got handled, and it's the primary reason why I'm fleeing this country. To put it as short as possible, the past six and a half years I have been persecuted for my intersexuality, have been denied medical help and have been mentally abused by psychologists in their attempts to brainwash/reprogram me into believing that I wasn't intersexual but something else.

For the medical side, I have a nice list summarizing what went wrong: http://www.mayaposch.com/irregularities.php

Issues range from a refusal to perform examinations/tests to lying about tests supposedly performed (faking tests), to physicians making up nonsensical diagnoses which do not even exist, or are a derivation of a condition made up by some psychologist who has been rejected by everybody else (gynaephilia, expanded into autoparagynaecophilia: http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/05/autoparagynaecophilia-explained.html ). The diagnosis intersexuality has not been made in the Netherlands, but has been by two German private clinics, who have been ignored by the Dutch physicians.

While I have experienced a lot of other unpleasant things the past years, including rape, sexual assault and abuse, these pale in comparison to the event which finally made me decide to leave this country: http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/05/taking-nightmare-notch-further.html

I suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2011/05/dissociation.html) as well as various other traumatic disorders. This led to the earlier linked event where I snapped after a family doctor's office didn't do their job (again), broke a few glass items and was promptly arrested by the police and thrown in jail where I spent the night. Result: nerve damage in my wrists from the cuffs being put on as tight as possible, bruises all over my body from getting grabbed, punched and bashed into walls and car doors, and damage in my right knee of which I'm not sure how serious it is. No apologies were offered from the side of the police or the family doctor's office.

Currently I suffer from severe anxiety and panic attacks as a result of this last experience. Compounded by all my previous experiences it has really opened my eyes to the truth; that the Netherlands does not recognize sexual diversity, whether it involves homosexuals (regularly beaten up and bullied), transsexuals (gone into hiding a long time ago) and intersexual people (neither the medical system nor the Dutch government recognizes their existence).

Earlier this year I attempted to lobby the Dutch government into acknowledging the existence of intersexuality, but without luck. Only party I got a bit of contact with was Groenlinks (Green Left), but I recently got accused by my contact person there of lying about the physicians lying to me. Considering that politicians are supposed to represent the people, that was a pretty disappointing experience.

The contrast between the Netherlands and Australia couldn't be greater: Australia recognizes the existence of intersexual people, my Australian transsexual friends are quite happy about the situation there, there is an intersexual politician in Melbourne, and there are many clinics which specialize in cases like mine. Maybe it's the proximity to Asia (Thailand especially being famous for its sexual diversity), but from what I have seen and heard it's heaven compared to the Netherlands.

The shocking truth is that the Netherlands isn't a tolerant country. When I tell people this they initially don't believe me, but when I describe the things 'different' people have to suffer in this country, they can only agree. It took me a while to accept this truth as well. After all I was born and raised in this country, and it is with a heavy heart that I'll be leaving it. But it's the only way. The only way to survive. The only way to let the world know what is happening in the Netherlands.

Edit: At the request of a friend I'm adding some information on my skill set and job I'm looking for in Australia. My resume can be found at http://www.mayaposch.com/cv.php and my portfolio at http://www.mayaposch.com/portfolio.php. Basically I have a lot of programming experience in various languages (C/C++, PHP, Java, C#), am familiar with various OSes (Windows, Linux, BSD, etc.), hardware architectures, and am also very good at technical writing (documentation, etc.). Outside programming I have experience with many spoken languages (Dutch, English: fluent; Japanese: getting there), managing teams (fansubbing group, software projects), running a business (software company since June 2006). And so on. I proud myself on being very versatile and a quick learner.

The job I'm looking for in Australia is probably in the ICT sector. I would love to work on a fun game development project, or something else that's fun and exciting. I'd also like to work on less exciting things, such as writing financial software, if it pays enough and the work environment is pleasant. I have gone through a lot of stressful experiences I have to learn to deal with, still, and it would be nice if some allowances would be made because of this. Also with an eye on my medical situation.

Maya

Casting Off This Cursed Body

2011-06-25T19:59:00.002+02:00

Today was simply yet another one of those days where everything comes together to remind me of the wrongness of my existence. Or more precisely that of my body. Getting called a liar for merely writing about the facts in my life, and having it rubbed in repeatedly that something like me does not belong in society with my intersexuality, infertility, age and so on, combined with absolutely no updates from Australia for yet another week. So I have a visa. Big deal. My physical location doesn't seem to matter.

My existence doesn't seem to matter.

Forget I even exist.

I'm sorry.

Farewell.

Maya

Fighting Back Terror And Uncertainty

2011-06-23T19:58:00.003+02:00

On the practical side things are going relatively well. I have signed up with a couple of Australian recruitment agencies and am in the process of establishing contact with politicians there as well. With some luck I'll have that job in Australia within a month.

Physically and emotionally... not so well. I have the feeling that all the stress of the past six and a half years are finally catching up with me, making me feel more worn out than ever before. I have to constantly fight off visions of things going wrong before or after I arrive in Australia. There are so many doom scenarios to pick from, it's beyond terrifying. That's why I keep insisting that others should be helping me. I can't do this all by myself. It's just making things far too hard for me.

When one Australian friend helped me fill in the visa and pay for the request, it was already such a relief. I do not want to let others do everything, I just don't want to feel like I'm struggling along by myself while everyone else is watching on smugly and pretending everything is fine. It's not. Every minute that I'm awake is a struggle. To believe in myself, to believe in this dream, to believe in things working out with a job, place to live and everything.

And of course there's the whole medical side. My disgust with sexuality and relationships has taken on a form I have never experienced before. It all leads to this intense fear I feel inside that I'll never receive help and acknowledgment for my intersexuality condition. That I'll be living in Australia and that it'll take years before I get a chance to have it examined, diagnoses and treated. Meanwhile I got lower abdominal pains caused by a partially descended testicle to further scare the heck out of me. I don't know whether leaving my intersex condition untreated will or will not shorten my lifespan and/or lead to nasty complications. I don't know, but it's so easy to find out. If I get help. That's why I feel so terrified.

I don't want to be left alone. Not in this situation. Not with this body. I want to feel like life is worth living, not to contemplate suicide every day, hour or even minute. I want to be useful to others, to humanity. To myself. I want to feel like I am human. I want to feel like it is okay to have a body like this. Because right now I absolutely do not think it's okay to have a body like this. I hate this body, and I hate this country which has made me loathe this cursed body.

I too want to sometimes feel at ease and do something as pleasurable and despicable as masturbating without feeling filled with hatred and loathing afterwards, in addition to fighting off flashbacks and thoughts of everything unpleasant and depressing. I don't want to remember getting raped, sexually assaulted, abused or dating the wrong people.

For now I can have none of this. People who say that this is not true are part of this mob who are smugly watching me struggle along this dark road. I want to yell and scream at these people, these shadows to go away, to leave me alone. I would prefer just the solitude over their mockery. I'm not human. I do not really exist. I get it. Now go away.

Above all I guess it will take time for me to regain my humanity once I'm in a safe place, which hopefully will be Australia. If I had to describe a story which closest matches my experiences of the past decades in this country, I would say Alice in Wonderland, but not the cutesy Disney version. Instead I'd point at the 1988 Czech movie rendition: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095715/

Nothing so far has made a lick of sense, same as in that movie, and I do not feel that I have been in a real world during any point. My life has been threatened repeatedly. My existence denied and persecuted. The whole world around me a mockery of life. It's beyond surreal and straight into undiluted horror.

All I want... all I long for is to have a house - a home, with a garden where I can sit quietly outside in the gentle sunlight, to then close my eyes and as I listen to the sounds of birds around me realize that everything, for the very first time in my life is right.

Not all dreams turn out to be lies. I wonder where mine will end up at once the dust has settled.

Maya

Disconnect. Pain. Nausea. Progress.

2011-06-22T19:01:00.000+02:00

Not much I can say at the moment. I'm feeling extremely nauseous at the moment again. This in addition to the constant headache I have been afflicted with since last week. For too many days now I have been feeling weak, irritable, restless and apprehensive. The flashbacks of all the terrible things which have happened to me in this horrible country are becoming more and more frequent and stronger. My escape from here is coming closer, but so very slowly.

I'm still hunting for a job in Australia, and although I realize it's only been about two weeks since I started with it, it's so incredibly hard to keep up the hope that it'll work out. It's the only thing I'm waiting for now. Everything else, be it housing and such can be arranged with relative ease, but a job... nobody likes hunting for a job, and neither do I. The only thing I can be grateful for is that Australia doesn't have this fascination with pieces of paper which say that you possess certain skills, but instead favour proven, real-life skills over them.

The money from my insurance company which they still owe me for the electrolysis therapy seems to be coming closer as well. Today I received a letter from them indicating that thanks to specifying 'transsexuality' instead of 'intersexuality' it had passed through the first selection stage and had been handed to a medical advisor. The only thing they want from me is a price quote. I talked with my beautician about this, and she told me that this doesn't really work since the kind of therapy I'm receiving doesn't really have a fixed or easily predicted duration. I got her a phone number at the insurance company after she said she'd call them for me. Waiting for the results now.

Meanwhile the pain in my wrists and hands hasn't relented yet. When they're not hurting I can notice that I lack strength in both hands, especially when grasping something, or making a fist. Nerve damage sucks. It's also a very stringent and most real reminder that my life is under a far too real threat while I'm in this country. I'm terrified of doing anything to further provoke the forces that be in this country lest the cops decide to have another go at me. Above all it reminds me that whether I'm in or outside a police cell, as long as I'm inside this country, there is no significant difference. Either way I'm trapped.

The past few days I have begun to feel more and more disconnected from the world around me. Part of me has already escaped to Australia, it seems. It makes me feel torn and in some ways confused. I hope that I soon get that job and I can begin to make final arrangements for my departure.

As I look outside while I'm typing this, I can see a rainbow in the rainy skies. I hope it's a good sign.

Maya

Love And Warmth; A Sense Of Belonging

2011-06-12T13:08:00.001+02:00

This morning I posted the following on my Facebook profile:

"I guess what I long for is to be part of a warm, loving family/group of people. My own family is neither, except for my mother and brothers. Friends I have never had in this country for some reason. I will leave this country with few regrets, hoping to get some of the warmth and love I have never known in my new country."

Yesterday a friend of my mother offered to get me into contact with some family members of her who live in Australia. They're a few years older than me and have been in the Netherlands as well, so they should be able to understand my situation somewhat. A letter was written since this friend of my mother doesn't use a computer let alone internet and therefore doesn't have any email addresses or such things. No problem, it'll just take about a week to get the letter and a couple of my business cards to South-Australia :)

One of the things which terrifies me about migrating is that of ending up in yet another place where I have to fight for everything. My life so far has consisted out of following the path I was supposed to follow until everything derailed after finishing high school and I have been drifting about with a clear sense of where I want to go, but without the ability to get there. Meanwhile everything kept falling apart around me, with my parents divorcing, a number of moves, and of course my run-in with the fantastic healthcare in this country.

There are some parts of my early youth which I fondly remember, but they're few and get scarcer as my memories become more recent until it's all a blur of confusion and pain. The comfort of a loving and warm family and/or group of friends is something I have never truly experienced beyond a few small glimpses.

Part of this is because of my family, both from my father's and mother's side. Neither consists out of very tight or warm families, further illustrated by examples such as that of one of my cousins who committed suicide a number of years ago due to getting abused sexually for many years by an uncle. Now she is dead because she didn't get support from her family or the justice system in this sickening country, and the person responsible is still walking around, free to continue his actions. This is the kind of warmth and loving one can expect in this country and from its inhabitants.

And I'm sick of it.

I am sick of seeing people being unhappy. I am sick of people treating me like I'm some kind of freak. I am sick of having to apologize for my existence. I am sick of having to fight against the urge to end my own life as well because I feel so unwanted by my environment. I am sick of looking back at my life and getting depressed. I am sick of looking at my future and only feeling a bleak sense of despair.

Above all I am sick of being alone in everything.

My dearest wish at this point is to be welcomed in Australia. To have people help me get settled. To have a fun job there. To not have to explain my situation every time I have to show my ID. To have people help me with my intersex condition. To have friends with whom I can play videogames, work on projects or just have fun. To feel a part of a loving, warm group of people who genuinely care about me.

I like to think that I am a gentle, caring and sensitive person who only wants herself and others to be happy. So far this attitude towards life has just resulted in getting punished at every turn. Not understanding why being a good person gets me punished all the time is the main reason why I am having difficulty with hanging on to life. I mean, if just being myself is not accepted by my surroundings, then why would I keep trying?

In a sense everything at the moment comes down to the choice between staying here in this cold, unforgiving, intolerant and above all heavily prejudiced Netherlands and most likely die a tragic death at my own hands, or take a gamble, move to Australia and hope for the best.

All I hope for is that being a kind, intelligent and skilled person is enough to help me survive over there.

Please let it be true...

Maya

Escape To Australia: Progress Update

2011-06-10T19:49:00.002+02:00

The first hurdle has been passed: my visa request got approved right away, basically as soon as the office in Australia opened. No 8 weeks processing time as the site mentioned, but about 4 hours, most of which was during the early morning hours in Australia when everything was still closed. It's a good start.

Next up is finding a job. This should be easy since I'm looking for an IT job, programming, video editing, software engineering or similar. See the resume on my main site for details. I got some friends looking around for me, and I have put my resume on Australian job sites and submitted it to various companies. Considering the booming IT market and lack of people to fill positions I should have no trouble finding a job.

Once I have a job I'll know where I'll be staying in Australia and can arrange for a place to stay, whether it's temporarily at someone else's place or that I'll already arrange an apartment. This is the part where things get quite fuzzy.

I'd like to repeat once more that I have no intention of abandoning the company my colleague and I have build over the past years. I still want to work full-time in Nyanko and earn my income from it. I want my colleague to be happy with everything as well and get his income from the company too. It's only fair, and with all the plans for the future we both have, it would be beyond a shame to let it all go to waste.

A job is a financial crutch in this case. There's no realistic way for me to otherwise establish a foothold in Australia. But it also nets me a lot of benefits, including a social connection with the people there and a clear focus in my life while I get settled, without any significant worries about the financial side.

Today I also contacted another Australian TV channel regarding my story. I hope at least one TV channel shows an interest in my story. It would really help me with getting settled in Australia if I got some recognition, not to mention the help it would provide to people like me who live in societies as intolerant as that of the Netherlands.

Maya

Setting Out To Find Happiness, At Last

2011-06-09T21:00:00.000+02:00

Looking back at my blog posts of the past month it seems incredible that so much has happened in such a short time. One point has been driven home quite sufficiently during this single, hectic month. This being that there is absolutely no way I could stay in the Netherlands. There's no recognition of or acknowledgement for people like me. It's even gone so far that my experiences of the past six and a half years can only be described by the term 'persecution'. Whether this persecution was intentional or a symptom of a wider problem with this country and its bureaucracy and government is beside the point. What matters is that it is the wrong place for a person like me.

Last week I took the decision after much consideration and consulting various friends and other knowledgeable contacts that I would be moving, permanently, away from the Netherlands and settle in Australia. Today I filed for a work visa. The expectation is that I'll be departing for Australia by August at the latest.

Why Australia? For one it has sexual diversity acknowledged in its laws, it's also very tolerant of people who are 'different', has an intersexuality movement, many clinics specializing in such conditions and even a politician who is intersexual and is fighting for the rights of intersexuals and such. The contrast with the Dutch politicians who prefer to pretend that there's no such thing as intersexuality and would rather that transsexuals and homosexuals didn't exist either.

People from outside Europe with whom I have talked about the difficulties I have encountered here in the Netherlands due to my medical condition have expressed shock and disbelief. The general assumption seems to be that the Netherlands is a beacon of tolerance and respect, while this couldn't be farther removed from the truth. With homosexuals regularly getting beaten up in cities like Amsterdam, and chased away in other places, transsexuals gone into hiding, and intersexuals nowhere to be seen (in the Netherlands and Germany combined I'm the only intersexual person with a website), it is more of a Hell hole than one could have imagined. I know that it has taken me a long time to finally acknowledge this truth, and it is with a saddened heart that I'll leave this country which I once considered to be my own forever behind me.

What awaits me in Australia? Assuming that my visa application gets approved without issues, I'll be arranging a job and a place to live during the coming months with the assistance from various friends and their contacts. So far things seem to be working out relatively smoothly there. Main concern the coming time will be to cover the financial side. My insurance company received a third request for full coverage of electrolysis therapy yesterday, this time using 'transsexuality' as the reason since 'intersexuality' is not in the list of known conditions the government provides. My current GP thought this was ridiculous as well, especially considering that it's technically the same thing in this case and there aren't that many applications.

Assuming this request gets approved I'll get over 4,000 Euro, which should help me finance the whole operation. I'll also be working more than ever on finishing up Nyanko's first PC videogame together with my esteemed colleague. Releasing this game before I migrate will increase my funds significantly, will give me some room in my schedule since the project will be finished, and above all I feel I have the obligation to my colleague since he has put his heart and soul into the game and the game engine and tools behind it. I'd be a horrible person if I would drop the project and only focus on my own happiness.

I could never be happy at the cost of others. This is also why I'm hoping that I'll get a lot of support in Australia, from the intersex movement and others, so that I'll soon find my own place. I have already contacted the Australian media in the hope that they have an interest in my story and reasons for coming to Australia. Others need to know what has happened the past 6.5 years. For theirs and my sake, as well as that of those like me. At least that way the years I have sacrificed will have had some purpose.

Maya

This Country Only Expects Me To Suffer

2011-05-28T08:28:00.003+02:00

Physicians who can only lie to me. GPs who do not understand me and have me arrested when I snap. Police who use excessive force and cause me severe injuries, both physically and mentally.

I have been crying since this morning, as well as occasionally punching myself on my head, my chest and abdomen. I can't deal with what has happened to me and what has still happened. At this point I can only think of how much I want this pain to end. But that requires people to help me, which has been proven to be impossible, as physicians in this country will only lie to me, and foreign hospitals will reject my case for stupid reasons.

As I wrote to my psychotherapist earlier, this country has knowingly and willingly made me suffer, and yet I am not allowed to take my own life. If they offered me a suicide pill I'd gladly take it. My situation can only be described as suffering, and what people are doing to me as torture.

I'm going to try and stay alive for another few weeks or so and see whether anything changes. I doubt it, though. No promises about not slitting my own wrists the coming weeks either. I can't take much more of this pain.

Curse this all to Hell...

Update: as might be expected, a DID personality fragment had taken over. This one seems to center around the betrayal I have suffered over the years and contains such memories and traumatic events. It has been shelved again for the moment, but I'm feeling utterly exhausted and drained right now, and most decidedly not happy.

Maya

Dutch Physicians: A Trinity Of Lies And Deception

2011-05-27T21:05:00.000+02:00

I have to write this to express my rage at some recent and some not so recent discoveries.

The first huge lie I was presented with was that of the ridiculous diagnosis of autoparagynaecophilia, which has been fully analyzed in an earlier post already.

Yesterday and today I confirmed two more lies, these involve the genetic testing, specifically that of the mosaic testing. Earlier I mentioned that their statistical probability of 99% exclusion of mosaicism was nonsense, as two tissues wouldn't be sufficient for that. There's lie number two. For the third lie I quote the following:

"Often, most or all of the cells of a single cell type will be composed of a single cell line, i.e. The blood may be composed prominently of one cell line, and the internal organs of the other cell line." [1]

By telling me that a test performed on white blood cells alone (single cell type) was a mosaic test by itself, they lied yet again. When I was talking to this American Medicinal Chemist/Biochemist I mentioned before, he mentioned that he had talked to MDs and that the suggested number of samples would be about 20-30.

Mosaic testing is commonly performed during IVF procedures (Preimplantation genetic diagnosis) using the FISH procedure, where it's relatively easy spotted as you're talking about only a dozen cells or less. In a fully developed organism there's no telling which cell line ended up in one part of the body and which in the other. To have the geneticist of the UMCG hospital here lie to me so blatantly is just inexcusable.

I'm more than disgruntled. I'm furious, and rightfully so.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28genetics%29

Maya

Peripheral Neuropathy Continued: Right Leg

2011-05-27T16:33:00.000+02:00

One week ago around this time I got released from prison. It feels like a few months ago. It's one experience I will never forget. It still pains me to my very soul what has been done to me during those two days. Its horrors have changed me for life.

What it has changed as well is my short- and medium-term outlook. Yesterday I mentioned that I have confirmed peripheral neuropathy in both arms. This morning my right foot suddenly began to turn numb and has now spread to my entire lower leg and knee. My ability to walk unassisted has been almost completely impaired now. Muscle response is alright, but I can not coordinate my movements, as I can not feel enough to compensate, making it likely that I'll fall if I try to walk.

While I was imprisoned last week I was limping due to my right knee hurting a lot. Last Saturday I noticed huge bruising on the back of the right knee in addition to the bruising on the knee itself, as shown on the picture I took. Apparently the nerves in my right knee suffered traumatic injury as well. Only left leg seems to have escaped unscathed. So far.

The numbness and pain in my hands keeps getting worse as well. Today I started on painkillers (ibuprofen), but it's not enough to make the discomfort and pain go away. Last week's nightmare hasn't ended yet. It's still continuing, constantly reminding me that my situation is most likely hopeless, that there is no way out of it, and that there will be no medical specialist or surgeon there to help me. That's all a lie. The only way is down, towards certain doom.

Or so it seems. There's a possibility that this one surgeon will accept my case, but that's over a week ago now and I haven't heard anything yet. Most likely he has rejected the case already, like everyone has. There's also a possibility that the Minister of Health will interfere in my case, or that questions will be asked thanks to my contacts in Dutch politics. But neither is very likely. There are more important issues to deal with in this country, even if they do not improve the situation for common citizens.

Because I'm not the only person in this country who is suffering because of the failings of the medical or healthcare system. I'm not the only one whose situation has worsened significantly due to the strict adherence to protocols. Pretty much every month there's a new story in the news about failings in the healthcare of this country. One never hears about politics interfering in this, however. I'd be shocked if they did now.

It'd be nice, though.

Yesterday I talked with an American Medicinal Chemist/Biochemist who is interested in my case, and whose wife (a molecular biologist) did her BA thesis on intersexual issues. One thing he commented on was the claim from the UMCG hospital here that after testing 2 tissues for mosaicism, it was concluded that the possibility of mosaicism was less than 1% (99% exclusion). The truth lies with simple High School statistics: 50 and 50 is only 75% exclusion. To reach 99%, you'd need to test a lot of samples, the exact number of which can be calculated using continuous probability distributions [1].

It's not the first time that physicians in this country have lied to me. I doubt it's the last.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_theory#Continuous_probability_distributions

Maya

Peripheral Neuropathy

2011-05-26T20:31:00.002+02:00

"Peripheral neuropathy often causes numbness and pain in your hands and feet. People typically describe the pain of peripheral neuropathy as tingling or burning, while they may compare the loss of sensation to the feeling of wearing a thin stocking or glove.

Peripheral neuropathy is caused by nerve damage. It can result from such problems as traumatic injuries, infections, metabolic problems and exposure to toxins. One of the most common causes is diabetes.

In many cases, peripheral neuropathy symptoms improve with time ― especially if it's caused by an underlying condition that can be treated. A number of medications are often used to reduce the painful symptoms of peripheral neuropathy."

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/peripheral-neuropathy/DS00131

That's the issue I'm dealing with at the moment with my wrists, hands and to some extent my arms. The skin of both hands are partially numb to touch, the sensation you get when you have a leg that has 'fallen asleep'. It's a very annoying sensation to have continuously.

Further I feel sudden stabbing pains, like someone is pricking me with a needle in my finger tips or other places. The burning and tingling sensations occur during the day a few times.

So last week I, under influence from my DID personality fragment, destroyed a few glass items, got injured in the process, and got arrested and treated so forcefully that I suffered nerve damage in my wrists. Sounds like a wonderful story, doesn't it? It's currently impairing my ability to work, as typing on a keyboard makes my hands feel fatigued, painful and burning after a while.

Isn't it amazing to be a Dutch citizen? Have medical specialist harass and make fun of you for your medical condition and refuse to treat you, have psychologists make up things on the spot and call you crazy, and when you do get angry once after over half a decade, you get arrested and treated like you just killed a bunch of people. I'm so proud to live there, it almost brings tears to my eyes. Oh wait, that's from the agony of my situation.

*rants on*

Update: someone else pointed me to the following item on Wikipedia:
"Cheiralgia paresthetica is a neuropathy of the hand generally caused by compression or trauma to the superficial branch of the radial nerve.[1] The area affected is typically on the back or side of the hand at the base of the thumb, near the anatomical snuffbox, but may extend up the back of the thumb and index finger and across the back of the hand.[1][2] Symptoms include numbness, tingling, burning or pain. Since the nerve branch is sensory there is no motor impairment.[2] It may be distinguished from de Quervain syndrome because it is not dependent on motion of the hand or fingers.[3]

The most common cause is thought to be constriction of the wrist, as with a bracelet or watchband (hence reference to "wristwatch neuropathy"). It is especially associated with the use of handcuffs and is therefore commonly referred to as handcuff neuropathy. Other injuries or surgery in the wrist area can also lead to symptoms, including surgery for other syndromes such as de Quervain's.[4] The exact etiology is unknown, as it is unclear whether direct pressure by the constricting item is alone responsible, or whether edema associated with the constriction also contributes.[2]

Symptoms commonly resolve on their own within several months when the constriction is removed; NSAIDs are commonly prescribed.[3] In some cases surgical decompression is required.[3] The efficacy of cortisone and laser treatment is disputed.[3] Permanent damage is possible."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheiralgia_paresthetica

Maya

Response From Dutch Queen Beatrix

2011-05-24T11:21:00.001+02:00

A few weeks ago I wrote and mailed a letter to the Dutch Queen Beatrix. A few moments ago I received the response, written for her by the director of the Queen's Cabinet. I have saved a scan of it here:

http://www.mayaposch.com/gallery/index.php?gallery=important&image=letter_from_dutch_queen_beatrix_resized.jpg

Translated into English it says (forgive my crude translation):

"Dear Ms. Posch,

At the request of Her Majesty the Queen I confirm receiving your letter of May 8th.

Your letter has been forwarded due to ministerial responsibilities to the Minister of Public Health, Well-being and Sport."

So it seems like my letter passed the 'looney bin' test, got read by the Queen and has now been passed on for further consideration to the Minister most suitable for my case. It makes me feel a tiny bit fuzzy and warm inside.

Maya

Leap Of Faith Towards A Better Future

2011-05-23T14:34:00.001+02:00

I just returned from a trip to the nearby city to formally end all relations with the psychological center there, the crisis center/Dimence I talked about before. I made it very clear to them that their behaviour towards me while I was at the police station was unacceptable, in not recognizing the trauma involved in asking me to return to my cell, among other things. I have also described how it is the medical progress which helps me feel good and improves my emotional stability, whereas psychological help can have no effect and at most worsen the situation, by bringing things to the surface. Remember that my EMDR therapist refused to treat me at this point because she was afraid that bringing back all those memories would destroy me.

I also went to the emergency room at the Twenteborg hospital. There they informed me that my wrists are fine, but that my right wrist is experiencing severe swelling, which is pinching off a few nerves, which causes the numb sensation. This should return to normal on its own. The x-rays looked clean. I'm glad it wasn't anything serious, even if my hands and wrists still hurt a lot.

Everything seems to be focusing on a hopefully upcoming appointment with a plastic surgeon. This week there should be the final approval. During one or more appointments there would then be exploratory surgery or similar and possibly any further surgery. It should provide me with the answers I have been seeking for over six and a half years. I wouldn't say that I'm obsessing about it, but the thought of having the closure to such a long period so nearby is beyond tantalizing.

It would also finally get rid of scenes such as at the ER earlier, where I had to use my old hospital ID card from 2006, with my old name and such on it. It took a lot of confusion and explaining before the lady behind the counter accepted that it was my card and not some guy's and that I'm not a guy, but not officially a woman either. Then again the same explanation with the doctor who saw me. I just want to get rid of such scenes. Wishful thinking isn't going to help me there. Psychological treatment won't help me there.

Please allow me to be just me. One examination. One surgery.

Please...

Maya

The Slow Recovery Process

2011-05-22T10:26:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I have been talking a lot with friends about my recent experiences. Especially those from the US were quite shocked at how the police treated me, as that is absolutely not standard procedure in the US. Their support has really helped me and still helps me somewhat deal with this recent trauma.

Physically I'm still in a world of pain. I can shuffle, but not really walk, my shoulders, back and arms are very painful and sore, and my biggest worry are my wrists, which were incredibly painful for a while already. Especially the right one, since it developed this tingling sensation in the right thumb area, indicative of nerve damage. Since motion in it is still fine I'm hoping that by not over-exerting it it'll be fine.

I really really hope that no permanent damage has been done to my wrist or hands/arms by the rough police treatment. I'd be beyond devastated if I learned that I'd be partially handicapped for the rest of my life. It'll be hard enough already to live with the memories of these events.

Tomorrow I have an appointment at Dimence, the psychological center for this region. They want to offer me psychological help. I'll tell them the same thing I told them last Friday: psychologists and psychiatrists in this country are partially responsible for my troubles and never once has one helped me. Either they offer me concrete proof that they are going to and can help me or no deal.

I feel as though the healthcare system in this country is akin to a pack of wolves, circling around me, waiting for my attention to slip so that they can strike and tear out my throat. I can not trust anyone. Rely on no one. Everyone whose profession it is to help is actually there to do harm. This is the fact I have yet had to bitterly accept this week.

There's only a minor pinprick of light at the moment. I told before that a friend has found a surgeon willing to do exploratory surgery and such. Next week he'll get the final confirmation if everything goes right and that may mean the beginning of the end of at least the medical drama in a matter of weeks.

Will it happen? I don't know. So far I can find no fault in it, but trust is something fragile and easily lost. I do trust this friend to find the right people and to do everything he can to help me. I can rely on him. The real question is whether I can rely on this surgeon, I guess. I don't know this person, and although I have never gotten so far as to have an actual surgeon look at my case I remain cautious.

Else the wolves will devour me.

Maya

Taking The Nightmare A Notch Further

2011-05-21T10:26:00.000+02:00

Today's story is a long one. It is a good idea to be acquainted with my earlier analysis on dissociation, as well as the follow-up documents I sent to my GP. See the preceding blog posts for these.

Lately things at my GP's office have been going a bit difficult, such as them not preparing referral letters. When I talked with my GP about getting an appointment at the local hospital she said she'd call me once she knew more.Yesterday I learned that she had made an appointment by about the next day. On Thursday however I still hadn't heard anything from her, so I went to the GP's office to ask whether she had already done about about setting up that appointment. The assistant said my GP would call me later that afternoon.

Half an hour before the GP's office closed and with no phone call yet my mother and I decided to go there to ask what was going on. I think I may have taken some passion flower extract-based pills earlier that day, but I can not recall for sure. Looking back I'm fairly sure that I started off that Thursday with one of my DIS fragment personalities already worming its way into control.

Anyway, my mother and I walk up to the front desk at the GP's office and my mother asks about that phone call and whether we can talk to a doctor. Later my mother told me that I volunteered some background information, to which the assistant replied with something along the lines of that she didn't know about that stuff since she wasn't a doctor. I figure that was the final trigger, possibly enhanced by those passion flower pills, which made me quite agitated that one time I took them before and got exposed to stressful triggers.

I remember only flashes of what happened next. Me trying to pull out the sliding glass dividers of the front desk. My right hand moving to crush a glass vase or vases to my left, on the desk. The realization from my real personality which had been shoved to the back of my mind that I was hitting glass and that I probably just had badly injured myself. There was no stopping, though.

Initial damage count was those glass vases or vase, some plant thing shoved around a bit, a sign knocked over to a 45 degrees angle and the glass top of a model thing there in the lobby. Oh, and one decorative vase.

It was at that point that I finally bothered to look at my right hand noticed it being covered with blood, as well as the floor being covered with it. I regained enough control to sit there, leaning against a side rail, next to a puddle of my own blood while holding my hand up high so as to decrease the bleeding. My mother pressed a tissue against my bleeding hand. She was expecting the GP assistants and/or a doctor to run out to help, but instead they had totally locked down the place.

After what seemed like an eternity two police agents came, who started talking with a male GP. After a few moments they moved away to talk privately. Feeling that something bad was going to happen to me again there was one more violent surge from the fragment personality when I got up, tore down a glass display case and exited the building. I was walking there slowly when suddenly I heard running behind me and I was painfully grabbed and smacked into the side of the building. Lots of yelling about spreading my legs. They wanted to put hand cuffs on me. It didn't seem to work. I got pushed onto the ground rather painfully. The cuffs were put on really tightly. I screamed in pain and begged them to loosen them. They told me to shut up.

They told me to stand up and walk, but the pain was so intense from those cuffs that I nearly blacked out, so they dragged me to their patrol car. They tore part of my clothing in the process. I was put in the rear seat, with a female agent holding my neck and smacking me into the side door every time I begged her to loosen the cuffs while they drove me to the police station here in Rijssen.

There I got dragged out of the car again, into some kind of room, got stripped of my bag, jacket and shoes and then thrown back into the car again. This time lying down while the agent was sitting on me. After what seemed like an eternity of agony we arrived at the police station in Borne. There I did manage to walk on my own, to prevent more agony. I got pushed into a cell, forced onto my knees and got stripped down to my panties and socks. I was so shocked and traumatized by then that I was totally dazed.

So when they asked me to cooperate to put on the prison garment I didn't respond within the ten milliseconds you are given to answer to each order and was thrown onto the bench slash bed and left lying there mostly naked for a while. It was cold there and I was shivering. I wasn't feeling too upset yet, mostly dazed still.

After a while a doctor came in to look at my hand, they put on the prison garment, a kind of bag you'd use for potatoes, and I was told that I'd be taken to the hospital to check for glass splinters in my hand. I was taken there in a police van used to transporting criminals. They didn't find any glass splinters at the hospital. I got driven back and was told to sleep. I refused dinner. They had TV there, four channels. It eased the pain a bit. I heard I was charged with destruction of property.

I couldn't sleep at all, curled up in a make-shift bed on the floor in the end and dozed off a bit when the doctor came in again. I had been screaming and crying a lot, he said, scaring the guards. I pointed out that my hand was bleeding again. He took me to his office, I got a bandaid for it. I asked whether I could go the toilet at the other side of the hallway, but one of the guards told me to use the toilet in my cell. It was humiliating.

The rest of the night I spent watching TV, tearing a roll of toilet paper to pieces and finally dozed off for a bit. I refused breakfast and tried watching TV while screaming and crying every once in a while. It was like the walls were closing in on me. I'm not claustrophobic, but the sensation of being there in a cell, with nothing to do, nothing to decide, nothing to live or exist for except for that one moment when the cell door or the little hatch in it opens... it's the perfect definition of Hell as far as I'm concerned.

I must have pressed the intercom button at least a dozen times. Begging to help me each time as I was going crazy and was getting urges to hurt myself. They said they were looking at my case at the station here in Rijssen and that they'd be here soon. Soon meant another few hours.

I got my hormone pills, well, they gave me the whole Cyproteron pill while I only take half a day, and one Progynova, refusing to give all three at once. I also got the Xanax sedative, but I doubt it did anything in that situation. I tried to get out of the cell once, begging them to let me go and walking up to them. They threw me back into the cell with enough force for me to hit my head against the wall.

Then things finally started moving somewhat... I put together an official statement with two higher-ranking police personnel from the Rijssen station which was the first relaxing moment since I got detained, as they were friendly and understanding. After that I talked to some people from Dimence, basically the crisis center I talked about before. There were a couple of familiar faces. They apparently had accepted my dissociation explanation and agreed with the need for medical help in my intersex case, as did the police officers I talked to earlier, by the way.

Then those Dimence peopled wanted to talk in private and the agents there wanted to put me back into my cell. I nearly went crazy at the thought and begged them to not put me back. They dragged me along anyway until I froze meters in front of the cell. One agent then suggested to put me in the airing room, where inmates can get some fresh air. I agreed to this. It was my first breath of fresh air in about 12 hours by then.

After a while I talked to someone from a kind of reintegration service, or 'reclassering' as it's called here. The woman I talked to was very kind and understanding and told me to call her as soon as I got out. I said I would. I also said that I hoped that they wouldn't force me to stay in the cell for another night as that would probably kill me. She comforted me while I cried some more. She also told me to drink something as I looked horrible, but I said I wouldn't eat or drink until I got out.

After that they dragged me off to my cell again. I tried to run away, but they grabbed me and threw me back into the cell. There I once again went pretty much into shock again. I did try watching some Discovery Channel to distract me, which helped a bit. After a while they let me air some more. I had a chat with the people from Dimence, who said they'd like to see me on Monday to discuss the psychological help part. They could not tell me when the Justice Department would get back to me on my case. An agent said that it'd definitely be before 6 PM, however.

So I sat there waiting and crying occasionally. Listening to the birds and traffic sounds, while sunlight filtered through the grid fixed between the walls. After a few eons and assorted eternities an agent opened the door and just said 'Good news.'. I was free.

They had me clean up my cell before I was taken to the room where they kept my belongings. We had a bit of fun trying to make one of the zippers on my boots working as a bit of latex glove had become stuck in it. We also joked about men not being able to properly take off a woman's boot as they a belt had been detached which isn't necessary to touch at all. I then told them that I would gladly never see them again. We all had a bit of a laugh there, I guess. Prison humour.

I was then taken home by those two Rijssen police officers. Once home I heard that my mother had immediately gone to the police station here in Rijssen to have her statement taken. She also went to the station in Borne, but was told that she could not see me. She had taken a big bag of things along for me, including a book to read, chocolate, a plushie, a toothbrush and so on. I had never been given any of these items except for the medication.

As I'm only charged with destruction of property the case will be closed as soon as the damages have been paid. The exact amount of damage I'll have to pay will have to be determined by the Justice Department. They have both sides of the story and they will decide on where the balance lies.

Meanwhile I'm noticing that aside from being overjoyed at being home and free again, the whole experience has left an incredibly mark on me, both physically and psychologically. On a scale of 1-10 where 10 is most traumatizing, I'd rate this event a 9.5. Physically I am covered with bruises. My wrists are agony city as I can't even touch them without flinching in pain. I limp while walking because my right knee has been hurt very badly.

See the attached photos for an idea of the visible bruises. Note that I do not bruise easily and that for example the swelling on my head is not visible, nor those on my back and some other places.

The damage from glass to my hand. And the bruises:

Naturally I won't be seeing my current GP any more. They say they are 'afraid' of me. If they had listened to the warnings I had sent them, none of this would have happened. Life is a bloody tragedy.

Maya

The Necessity Of Progress

2011-05-19T09:28:00.000+02:00

I just sent the following email to my GP's office, as I'm beginning to feel negative things stir again inside my head:

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Dear Sir/Madam,

After my previous appointment with Dr Smit last Monday it appeared that the urgency of my situation had been well understood. The promise to call me as soon as an appointment had been made with both a urologist and gynaecologist at the Twenteborg hospital sounded very welcome to me. Considering that this concerns the alternative for interment on the psychiatric ward of the Twenteborg since there was no place for me there I assumed that this would be dealt with very seriously.

My expectations after Monday were as follows:

An appointment would be made with these two physicians.
They would read the summary of my medical case which I sent last Monday and based on it plan examinations.
I'd then visit for maybe a single intake appointment prior to having the examinations performed.
All research questions would be answered satisfactory and any surgeries as specified in the summary performed.
This all would be done within a month, or maybe a bit longer.

Now, a few days later, my expectations are shifting:

After a lot of urging from my side Dr Smit will manage to make an appointment with these physicians.
They will not have read my summary or even received. They'll just want to have a look at me.
A follow-up appointment will be made to discuss the possibility of examinations. Over a month has already passed by now.
During this appointment they will inform me that they can not/don't want to/don't dare to take on my case, and that I'll have to go back to the VUMC/UMCG hospitals because they have more experience there, even though there they have refused to look at my case, refused to even consider me intersexual, and did my DID and other serious forms of dissociation as well as PTSD form and worsen there.

Which of these expectation is it going to be? I don't know. My experiences of the past 6.5 years tell me that it's going to be the latter as it's always gone like that, and my life is worthless anyway in the eyes of physicians and psychologists. The little bit of hope I still have says that it can still be the former.

I have an enormous need for information, for transparency and honesty. People have treated me these past years as a number, as a piece of dirt. By now I know at least as much about the medical aspects of my case as the average physician, however. Do not treat me like an ignorant patient who doesn't know what she is talking about anyway. Help me. Treat me like a person.

Please,

Maya Posch