Over the past months, a big focus of me alongside working on my upcoming book [1][2] and of course trying to find a new full-time job, has been setting up a new website to host the range of projects that I have started last year. These include a variety of hardware projects, involving the design of PCBs in KiCad for things ranging from building monitoring and control to the controlling of LED-based room lighting, and writing the firmware to drive these boards.
The website, Nyantronics.com [3], also features the biggest project of all: Internet of Plants (soon to be renamed Greentropia). This project focuses on high-density indoor farming solutions, as a way to solve the issue of food production in today's world, and the massive pollution and habitat destructions that this causes.
By having all vegetables and fruit grown in environments that are isolated from the environment, and by having many floors of this, it solves not only the problem of habitat destruction, but also removes the need for pesticides and herbicides to be used. Further it reduces the need to transport food across the globe, as well as plastic packaging.
Our focus is on moving to hydroponics and fogponics, so as to remove the need for soil and to optimise plant growth. A big part of making indoor farming like this work is to make it as energy-efficient as possible. So far we have been researching various grow LED options and of course hydroponics, fogponics and related to reduce the amount of energy required to produce fruit and vegetables, as well as look at making staple foods such as rice and soy beans work in this setting.
Looking at comparable efforts, such as the big EDEN ISS [4] project, we can see the potential here, and slowly we're bringing others into the project as well. It's a multi-disciplinary project, bringing together botany, biology, electronics, physics, anthropology, software development, mechanical engineering and many more fields. This makes it into an incredibly challenging but also incredibly fun project.
And yet, when I woke up this morning, I felt horrible. All I could see was this young child inside of me with adults yelling at it and generally being complete and utter jerks. The latter being mostly the people who are trying to kick me out of the apartment where I'm currently staying, merely on account of disliking me. Add to this the pressure of still being unemployed and having nowhere to go if I want to keep my unemployment benefits and health insurance.
Some days I'm not sure how things got this way. When you always tried to do things properly and always be nice and friendly to people, it's the worst kind of feeling when you aren't merely met with indifference, but with outright hostility. To know that you're not even a stain in the eyes of some people, but something far less.
And there's always that young child in the dark room. Terrified of adults. Never daring to trust adults again after what those adults did to her 5-year old self. The me today who is trying to get past those experiences, but who just keeps being reminded that adults are never to be trusted, not ever again.
I'm still hoping that I won't get kicked out of the apartment next month now that a date to have it forcibly cleared has been set. It's going to cost me a lot more money on lawyers and related adult fun to try and avoid this.
I'm still hoping that I will get that new job, get to move to a new place and that just for once these horrible things stop happening to me. I'm still trying. Still hoping.
I finally want that five-year old me to feel safe for the very first time. To move on and focus on these projects that can transform the world and the future of humanity. Not keep being stuck dealing with the same horrible types of people and revisiting the same old traumas over and over again.
Instead I want that fascinating future, working on cool projects that enrich me and humanity as a whole. To get this world away from this eternal darkness that threatens to swallow everything because there are certain adults who insist on living at the cost of others.
Maya
[1] https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/hands-embedded-programming-c17
[2] https://amzn.to/2Vl79wP
[3] http://www.nyantronics.com/index.php
[4] https://eden-iss.net/
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Saturday, 19 January 2019
Thursday, 23 November 2017
Wanting happiness for all, yet not even coming close
Today was the inspection in the eviction case at the apartment. Maybe it was mostly the sneering and character assassination attempts by the lawyer of the landlady, but the impact of the experience was quite literally soul-draining.
Even though the heating system did exactly what was expected of it - ticking loudly and happily when turned on - the water wasn't as brown as it could have been because I had flushed the system a few days ago because I wanted to take a shower. Ultimately I had to give up on that attempt and shower at the office instead. It's amazing how much better a shower works if it's not done with rusty water.
The court had somehow mangled the part about the windows having gaps, instead focusing on the gaps in the structure above the windows, which got sealed last year. As a result that complaint is not being taken further at this point, and instead the waiting is now for an independent laboratory to be contacted, who will sample the water at the apartment and determine its toxicity to human life. This will likely not not take place until well into next year.
It's disappointing that it will take longer yet again, with every chance that this experience will end up costing me many thousands of Euros, on top of what I have already had to spend on lawyer and other costs. On the other side, I could have accepted a settlement and been forced to move to another place, only to lose my job shortly after and likely relocate again. Then there's the issue of my PTSD and other traumas which I'm still working through.
On one point I was at least absolutely correct: as I have talked about with my therapist and others on various occasions, this whole eviction thing is essentially the same as what happened to me as a child, when adults decided to take advantage of me. Here, too, am I left to obey whatever the court and lawyers demand from me. I can only hope that they won't hurt me too much.
After this morning's experience I was left feeling extremely depressed, feeling as if life had lost all its meaning. That I would soon lose everything again. End up homeless and without possessions or money on the streets.
It's hard to fight back against this darkness. I still do not understand why such horrible stuff keeps happening to me. From doctors lying to me, to adults abusing me, to facing one lawsuit after another for things which I have not done or cannot possibly be considered responsible for. It feels as though I am cursed. This makes it often very hard to see a way forward.
There's this future that I can picture, which gives me hope. In this future I got hired by the branch of this international company here in the city at which I applied. I would live in a house in the countryside, and travel by car to my job, but also doing a lot of home office and gladly take up vacation days simply because I like being... home.
It's a possible future, one which sadly also relies on others. Soon I may not just find myself without a job, but also without a place to live. Worse, I may may not be able to find a way out of this darkness, as all those horrible things just keep happening to me, along with the chronic pain in my abdomen and right side. The darkness feeds on pain and misery, worsening both in the process.
I want others to be happy. I want to be happy myself. Yet what I see is I'm not happy and neither are many others around me. Not even this landlady, or her lawyer. They're carriers of misery. Unhappy human beings who just bring more misery to others, whether they deserved it or not.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work on inventions and technologies that would make others happy. Because that makes me happy. Because of all the discoveries I would make and the things that I would learn along the way.
That this is being made impossible because I'm simply not capable of finding a place in life where I would feel at ease and motivated enough to do those things is perhaps the most unfair thing of all. I'm so sick of dealing with miserable people all the time. Life isn't hard. People make life hard. People can make life easy.
Maya
Even though the heating system did exactly what was expected of it - ticking loudly and happily when turned on - the water wasn't as brown as it could have been because I had flushed the system a few days ago because I wanted to take a shower. Ultimately I had to give up on that attempt and shower at the office instead. It's amazing how much better a shower works if it's not done with rusty water.
The court had somehow mangled the part about the windows having gaps, instead focusing on the gaps in the structure above the windows, which got sealed last year. As a result that complaint is not being taken further at this point, and instead the waiting is now for an independent laboratory to be contacted, who will sample the water at the apartment and determine its toxicity to human life. This will likely not not take place until well into next year.
It's disappointing that it will take longer yet again, with every chance that this experience will end up costing me many thousands of Euros, on top of what I have already had to spend on lawyer and other costs. On the other side, I could have accepted a settlement and been forced to move to another place, only to lose my job shortly after and likely relocate again. Then there's the issue of my PTSD and other traumas which I'm still working through.
On one point I was at least absolutely correct: as I have talked about with my therapist and others on various occasions, this whole eviction thing is essentially the same as what happened to me as a child, when adults decided to take advantage of me. Here, too, am I left to obey whatever the court and lawyers demand from me. I can only hope that they won't hurt me too much.
After this morning's experience I was left feeling extremely depressed, feeling as if life had lost all its meaning. That I would soon lose everything again. End up homeless and without possessions or money on the streets.
It's hard to fight back against this darkness. I still do not understand why such horrible stuff keeps happening to me. From doctors lying to me, to adults abusing me, to facing one lawsuit after another for things which I have not done or cannot possibly be considered responsible for. It feels as though I am cursed. This makes it often very hard to see a way forward.
There's this future that I can picture, which gives me hope. In this future I got hired by the branch of this international company here in the city at which I applied. I would live in a house in the countryside, and travel by car to my job, but also doing a lot of home office and gladly take up vacation days simply because I like being... home.
It's a possible future, one which sadly also relies on others. Soon I may not just find myself without a job, but also without a place to live. Worse, I may may not be able to find a way out of this darkness, as all those horrible things just keep happening to me, along with the chronic pain in my abdomen and right side. The darkness feeds on pain and misery, worsening both in the process.
I want others to be happy. I want to be happy myself. Yet what I see is I'm not happy and neither are many others around me. Not even this landlady, or her lawyer. They're carriers of misery. Unhappy human beings who just bring more misery to others, whether they deserved it or not.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to work on inventions and technologies that would make others happy. Because that makes me happy. Because of all the discoveries I would make and the things that I would learn along the way.
That this is being made impossible because I'm simply not capable of finding a place in life where I would feel at ease and motivated enough to do those things is perhaps the most unfair thing of all. I'm so sick of dealing with miserable people all the time. Life isn't hard. People make life hard. People can make life easy.
Maya
Wednesday, 15 February 2017
A stable bad condition
All too often it feels to me as if having psychological and mental traumas and problems does not count in 'the real world'. As if none of it is actually real, or relevant. It makes me feel both frustrated and like a big crybaby when I have to do something others have no problems with, but which to me feels as fun as volunteering to be gang-raped.
It's for such reasons that it heartens me to get some kind of acknowledgement that I am not just imagining all of this and don't just try to guilt-trip other people into doing things for me. Still, when I read the official diagnosis my psychotherapist sent to my lawyer for the upcoming eviction court case, it's at the same time also horribly depressing.
Severe depression with latent suicidal tendencies. Post-traumatic disorder with flashbacks, nightmares and other severe symptoms. Also an intersex condition, which is of course linked into all of the previous. The hope of a reconstructive surgery after over a decade of working towards finding proper medical help and ending a quest which has taken up most of my life so far.
During my psychotherapy sessions I still have the same problems with really saying what I feel and think, the same as in daily life. I'm not supposed to make people aware of the fact that I'm not like them, that I have suffered traumas. That I have seen, lived through and barely survived things most people will never experience. No worries, I'm just a normal human, just like everybody else. Just look at my plastic smile :)
With the latest session I managed to finally channel some of the real, raw feelings that keep churning inside of my psyche. Primarily the disbelief, frustration and anger I feel at what happened back in 2005 and continued afterwards, when the gender team at the VUmc hospital in Amsterdam claimed that my blood contained normal male levels of testosterone, with their gynaecologist insisting that he had found no traces of me being intersex, and finally the head of the team - part of an international group of so-called intersex experts who drew up some protocols on handling intersex cases - concluding that I could not possibly be intersex.
It took just over a year after that last conclusion to get the German MRI results proving that I'm a hermaphrodite. The biopsy in 2011 proved that I could not ever have had normal male testosterone levels on account of having undeveloped testicles. Despite this the insistence by mostly Dutch doctors and psychologists that I was merely confused, crazy, delusional and/or transsexual.
I still cannot understand what they wanted from me. What they still want from me. To give into their fantasies and delusions and pretend to be transsexual? To follow their demands? To agree to be locked into a comfy, white, padded room? To die? Just what? I will never understand why they did what they did, and it hurts me so much. It made me realise just how little I mean, or my opinion. That truth is irrelevant and that there's no point in persisting.
Losing a place to live and facing homelessness was then the final trigger which made me decide to commit suicide. I'm still trying to come to terms with not succeeding at what seemed and at times still seems like the perfect solution. Being at a point where a hateful landlady tries to make me homeless at the same time when I'm struggling to stay hopeful about an impending surgeon appointment puts me practically in the exact same place where I was back then when I was on the verge of committing suicide.
It's hard to say what it'll take. The surgeon appointment being disappointing. A lack of cooperation. The court case working out poorly and me having to settle for whatever alternative place I can find on short notice, or something else negative. It's not that I want to die, or that I savour the thought of committing suicide. It terrifies me. Yet at the same time I know all too well that when such negative things happen, the pain will get so bad that I cannot simply suffer through it, or so it feels.
That last time I had access to sleeping pills, which in hindsight were a great choice as committing suicide with those is pretty hard and are unlikely to cause permanent damage. Without access to those I might opt for something more dramatic, like a knife. If I succeed, it'll be horribly painful and messy. If not, I might end up crippled in some fashion, which would feed my depression and latent suicidal tendencies even further.
At this point I'm more or less stable, in the same sense that one can balance oneself on a tightrope positioned over a canyon. That's not to say that this is a good or healthy place to be. I'd want nothing more than to continue on to the other side of said canyon, to solid ground and safety, yet whether that works out is down to what other people will decide over the coming weeks and months.
It's also depressing to consider that all which triggered this mess was me being born intersex and asking questions.
Well done, world. Well done.
Maya
It's for such reasons that it heartens me to get some kind of acknowledgement that I am not just imagining all of this and don't just try to guilt-trip other people into doing things for me. Still, when I read the official diagnosis my psychotherapist sent to my lawyer for the upcoming eviction court case, it's at the same time also horribly depressing.
Severe depression with latent suicidal tendencies. Post-traumatic disorder with flashbacks, nightmares and other severe symptoms. Also an intersex condition, which is of course linked into all of the previous. The hope of a reconstructive surgery after over a decade of working towards finding proper medical help and ending a quest which has taken up most of my life so far.
During my psychotherapy sessions I still have the same problems with really saying what I feel and think, the same as in daily life. I'm not supposed to make people aware of the fact that I'm not like them, that I have suffered traumas. That I have seen, lived through and barely survived things most people will never experience. No worries, I'm just a normal human, just like everybody else. Just look at my plastic smile :)
With the latest session I managed to finally channel some of the real, raw feelings that keep churning inside of my psyche. Primarily the disbelief, frustration and anger I feel at what happened back in 2005 and continued afterwards, when the gender team at the VUmc hospital in Amsterdam claimed that my blood contained normal male levels of testosterone, with their gynaecologist insisting that he had found no traces of me being intersex, and finally the head of the team - part of an international group of so-called intersex experts who drew up some protocols on handling intersex cases - concluding that I could not possibly be intersex.
It took just over a year after that last conclusion to get the German MRI results proving that I'm a hermaphrodite. The biopsy in 2011 proved that I could not ever have had normal male testosterone levels on account of having undeveloped testicles. Despite this the insistence by mostly Dutch doctors and psychologists that I was merely confused, crazy, delusional and/or transsexual.
I still cannot understand what they wanted from me. What they still want from me. To give into their fantasies and delusions and pretend to be transsexual? To follow their demands? To agree to be locked into a comfy, white, padded room? To die? Just what? I will never understand why they did what they did, and it hurts me so much. It made me realise just how little I mean, or my opinion. That truth is irrelevant and that there's no point in persisting.
Losing a place to live and facing homelessness was then the final trigger which made me decide to commit suicide. I'm still trying to come to terms with not succeeding at what seemed and at times still seems like the perfect solution. Being at a point where a hateful landlady tries to make me homeless at the same time when I'm struggling to stay hopeful about an impending surgeon appointment puts me practically in the exact same place where I was back then when I was on the verge of committing suicide.
It's hard to say what it'll take. The surgeon appointment being disappointing. A lack of cooperation. The court case working out poorly and me having to settle for whatever alternative place I can find on short notice, or something else negative. It's not that I want to die, or that I savour the thought of committing suicide. It terrifies me. Yet at the same time I know all too well that when such negative things happen, the pain will get so bad that I cannot simply suffer through it, or so it feels.
That last time I had access to sleeping pills, which in hindsight were a great choice as committing suicide with those is pretty hard and are unlikely to cause permanent damage. Without access to those I might opt for something more dramatic, like a knife. If I succeed, it'll be horribly painful and messy. If not, I might end up crippled in some fashion, which would feed my depression and latent suicidal tendencies even further.
At this point I'm more or less stable, in the same sense that one can balance oneself on a tightrope positioned over a canyon. That's not to say that this is a good or healthy place to be. I'd want nothing more than to continue on to the other side of said canyon, to solid ground and safety, yet whether that works out is down to what other people will decide over the coming weeks and months.
It's also depressing to consider that all which triggered this mess was me being born intersex and asking questions.
Well done, world. Well done.
Maya
Saturday, 18 June 2016
Defending having a mental disorder
I am one of those people who are 'gifted' with photographic memory, meaning that we can remember (too) many details of anything we see and observe. I am used to zip between scenes in my mind, playing them back in near-perfect visual clarity, details blending together in an almost seamless manner. That is also exactly why that one event, about five years ago now, frightens me so much, as it is essentially a gap in my memories.
I do remember nothing more than just some streaked blurs of the event: my hand grabbing the side of a glass panel, me sitting on the floor with blood dripping from my hand onto the floor, me walking outside (seeing only the ground), people bashing my head into a solid object, ripping my clothes off my body, feeling them sitting on top of me while metal handcuffs cut deeply into my wrists. Also the incredible, agonising pain.
Then the perfect clarity returning as I am lying there, practically naked, in this police cell. The realisation of what probably happened between me entering that GP's office together with my mother and my current situation. Then the police office and my assigned lawyer filling in the blanks. The bitter confrontation with the fact that my body has done something terrible while I was not able to stop it from doing those things.
Five years of legal hearings and fruitless appeals followed. All charges were dropped and no official punishment assigned, yet with me still being forced to pay for the damage to a local artist's uninsured statues to 'provide a deterrent for doing it again'. Their psychiatrist concluded after briefly seeing me that I was still partially responsible for my actions, something which my own psychotherapist fully disagreed with.
I have severe post-traumatic stress disorder. At the time of this event, five years ago, it had been six years already during which I had tried to and failed to find help with my intersex condition. I had suffered brainwashing as doctors and psychologists had tried incessantly to make me believe that I had to be a regular boy or transsexual, despite conclusive evidence from German clinics in 2007 and again in 2008.
Every time I suffered the same series of denials, suggestions of me being crazy, the undressing and subsequent fondling by physicians including penetrations. The constant lies, deceptions, delays and redirecting. In between all of that there was also me getting raped and suffering sexual, physical and psychological abuse. I don't know how I did bear all of that. I'm not sure I ever really did.
What I have is a mental disorder. PTSD alters the way the brain works in response to certain triggers, so that one doesn't have any conscious control over it. As my psychotherapist explained it to me - as well as to the court - what I suffered during that incident was a so-called blackout. Likely originating in my PTSD, but also with characteristics of a dissociative identity disorder (DID).
Basically, I literally wasn't myself at that point, which explains why I have virtually no memories of the event in question. I could not have been expected to be able to control my actions after that GP assistant made that one derogatory remark about me, which according to my mother was what ultimately made me 'snap'. She described how my entire behaviour after that suddenly completely changed.
Late last year when I first got the notice from my last lawyer in this case that the final appeal had been rejected with the financial punishment still being in place, I decided to try seeing how many people would wish to support me financially. This would allow me to pay the fine of thousands of Euro without me having to sacrifice my meagre savings for what I could only perceive as complete injustice.
As I feared, among the plentiful support, there were also many of those who called me horrible things, suggesting that I was just pretending in order to not have to pay the fine myself. That is perhaps the worst thing of this all, that after years of judges gleefully punishing me for something I could not have prevented no matter how much I might have wanted to, many others would dismiss my traumas, PTSD and blackout episode as a 'fantasy'.
I have a mental disorder. One cannot see it from the outside, but I can feel it most of the time. Sitting perched there in my brain like an ominous shadow. It changes how I experience and live my life. I know it will never go away. But that is okay. It's still part of myself, and I know how it works now. More or less.
What I cannot deal with are those who ignore this part of me. Who dismiss the traumatic events I have been through over the past twelve years. I cannot convince them. I cannot defend against those people. How would I? It's all just literally inside my head, no matter how real it is. One just has to dismiss my past experiences and all that remains is just me as a snivelling... something, asking others to pay for her misdeeds as an aggressive, impulsive, violent, manipulative criminal.
Am I the victim here? Or the perpetrator? It depends on who you ask, apparently.
Maya
P.S.: yesterday I wrote a post about the letter detailing the fine, with a link to the fundraising campaign, if anyone is interested: http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2016/06/punishment-for-being-intersex-time-to.html
I do remember nothing more than just some streaked blurs of the event: my hand grabbing the side of a glass panel, me sitting on the floor with blood dripping from my hand onto the floor, me walking outside (seeing only the ground), people bashing my head into a solid object, ripping my clothes off my body, feeling them sitting on top of me while metal handcuffs cut deeply into my wrists. Also the incredible, agonising pain.
Then the perfect clarity returning as I am lying there, practically naked, in this police cell. The realisation of what probably happened between me entering that GP's office together with my mother and my current situation. Then the police office and my assigned lawyer filling in the blanks. The bitter confrontation with the fact that my body has done something terrible while I was not able to stop it from doing those things.
Five years of legal hearings and fruitless appeals followed. All charges were dropped and no official punishment assigned, yet with me still being forced to pay for the damage to a local artist's uninsured statues to 'provide a deterrent for doing it again'. Their psychiatrist concluded after briefly seeing me that I was still partially responsible for my actions, something which my own psychotherapist fully disagreed with.
I have severe post-traumatic stress disorder. At the time of this event, five years ago, it had been six years already during which I had tried to and failed to find help with my intersex condition. I had suffered brainwashing as doctors and psychologists had tried incessantly to make me believe that I had to be a regular boy or transsexual, despite conclusive evidence from German clinics in 2007 and again in 2008.
Every time I suffered the same series of denials, suggestions of me being crazy, the undressing and subsequent fondling by physicians including penetrations. The constant lies, deceptions, delays and redirecting. In between all of that there was also me getting raped and suffering sexual, physical and psychological abuse. I don't know how I did bear all of that. I'm not sure I ever really did.
What I have is a mental disorder. PTSD alters the way the brain works in response to certain triggers, so that one doesn't have any conscious control over it. As my psychotherapist explained it to me - as well as to the court - what I suffered during that incident was a so-called blackout. Likely originating in my PTSD, but also with characteristics of a dissociative identity disorder (DID).
Basically, I literally wasn't myself at that point, which explains why I have virtually no memories of the event in question. I could not have been expected to be able to control my actions after that GP assistant made that one derogatory remark about me, which according to my mother was what ultimately made me 'snap'. She described how my entire behaviour after that suddenly completely changed.
Late last year when I first got the notice from my last lawyer in this case that the final appeal had been rejected with the financial punishment still being in place, I decided to try seeing how many people would wish to support me financially. This would allow me to pay the fine of thousands of Euro without me having to sacrifice my meagre savings for what I could only perceive as complete injustice.
As I feared, among the plentiful support, there were also many of those who called me horrible things, suggesting that I was just pretending in order to not have to pay the fine myself. That is perhaps the worst thing of this all, that after years of judges gleefully punishing me for something I could not have prevented no matter how much I might have wanted to, many others would dismiss my traumas, PTSD and blackout episode as a 'fantasy'.
I have a mental disorder. One cannot see it from the outside, but I can feel it most of the time. Sitting perched there in my brain like an ominous shadow. It changes how I experience and live my life. I know it will never go away. But that is okay. It's still part of myself, and I know how it works now. More or less.
What I cannot deal with are those who ignore this part of me. Who dismiss the traumatic events I have been through over the past twelve years. I cannot convince them. I cannot defend against those people. How would I? It's all just literally inside my head, no matter how real it is. One just has to dismiss my past experiences and all that remains is just me as a snivelling... something, asking others to pay for her misdeeds as an aggressive, impulsive, violent, manipulative criminal.
Am I the victim here? Or the perpetrator? It depends on who you ask, apparently.
Maya
P.S.: yesterday I wrote a post about the letter detailing the fine, with a link to the fundraising campaign, if anyone is interested: http://mayaposch.blogspot.com/2016/06/punishment-for-being-intersex-time-to.html
Friday, 17 June 2016
Punishment for being intersex: time to pay up
Five years ago I found myself lying naked and bruised in a police cell, missing a large gap in my memory beyond some vague and very traumatising impressions of metal biting into my wrists, my head being slammed into solid objects and people grasping at me and yelling at me.
Apparently after years of psychological torture by Dutch physicians and psychologists, and a complete lack of help or understanding for my intersex condition, it seems that the rude, unwelcoming behaviour by this one last general physician's office had finally pushed me over the edge.
While the damage to the hallway was covered by insurance and all charges - including attempted manslaughter, etc. - were dropped, unfortunately the statues of a local artist had also been destroyed. Worse, she had never bothered to insure them, so as punishment I was punished, but also not punished by being forced to pay for the damage. Not punished, because officially in Dutch law someone cannot be punished if they are not charged with a crime (like me), yet I still got punished.
In light of the years of recovery following this incident, including the glass wounds to my hand, the bruised bone in my right knee, the swelling and peripheral neuropathy (damaged nerves) in my right leg and arm, it seemed rather cruel to assign me this punishment, especially with my psychotherapist supporting me. I was not, could not be made responsible for my actions, due to the years of severe psychological pressure and trauma leading up to the incident.
Today I then finally got the final amount which has to be paid (slightly increased, because I apparently I did not receive the first letter...). This after years of fruitless legal cases, trying to get this punishment thrown out, to no avail, only resulting in hefty lawyer costs.
Here's a photo of the letter in question:
3,433.63 Euro. This in light of me having exactly zero Euro to my name in early 2013, only being able to sustain myself now thanks to getting a job shortly afterwards. In addition to it being a hefty chunk of the tiny bit of money I have managed to save up so far, it also seems hugely unfair to be punished like this for something I could not have prevented, other maybe than by giving up on physicians or escaping the Netherlands sooner.
Because of this unfairness I have set up a donation campaign to see how many people would be willing to pitch in and lower the financial and emotional burden on me. So far over one and a half thousand Euro have been donated, still about one-thousand and nine-hundred Euro short of the punishment amount: https://www.gofundme.com/zufd2yh8
I do not expect people to take pity on me, or feel that they have to donate out of some kind of obligation. I only desire for people to put themselves in my situation and consider what they themselves would have done. Right after the incident and right now, at the end of a losing streak of legal appeals.
At least after I pay this amount I should finally be free of the Netherlands and all of its unfair, corrupted systems. It'll be with bitterness that I will close this chapter in my life, but I will be free at last.
Thank you.
Maya
Apparently after years of psychological torture by Dutch physicians and psychologists, and a complete lack of help or understanding for my intersex condition, it seems that the rude, unwelcoming behaviour by this one last general physician's office had finally pushed me over the edge.
While the damage to the hallway was covered by insurance and all charges - including attempted manslaughter, etc. - were dropped, unfortunately the statues of a local artist had also been destroyed. Worse, she had never bothered to insure them, so as punishment I was punished, but also not punished by being forced to pay for the damage. Not punished, because officially in Dutch law someone cannot be punished if they are not charged with a crime (like me), yet I still got punished.
In light of the years of recovery following this incident, including the glass wounds to my hand, the bruised bone in my right knee, the swelling and peripheral neuropathy (damaged nerves) in my right leg and arm, it seemed rather cruel to assign me this punishment, especially with my psychotherapist supporting me. I was not, could not be made responsible for my actions, due to the years of severe psychological pressure and trauma leading up to the incident.
Today I then finally got the final amount which has to be paid (slightly increased, because I apparently I did not receive the first letter...). This after years of fruitless legal cases, trying to get this punishment thrown out, to no avail, only resulting in hefty lawyer costs.
Here's a photo of the letter in question:
3,433.63 Euro. This in light of me having exactly zero Euro to my name in early 2013, only being able to sustain myself now thanks to getting a job shortly afterwards. In addition to it being a hefty chunk of the tiny bit of money I have managed to save up so far, it also seems hugely unfair to be punished like this for something I could not have prevented, other maybe than by giving up on physicians or escaping the Netherlands sooner.
Because of this unfairness I have set up a donation campaign to see how many people would be willing to pitch in and lower the financial and emotional burden on me. So far over one and a half thousand Euro have been donated, still about one-thousand and nine-hundred Euro short of the punishment amount: https://www.gofundme.com/zufd2yh8
I do not expect people to take pity on me, or feel that they have to donate out of some kind of obligation. I only desire for people to put themselves in my situation and consider what they themselves would have done. Right after the incident and right now, at the end of a losing streak of legal appeals.
At least after I pay this amount I should finally be free of the Netherlands and all of its unfair, corrupted systems. It'll be with bitterness that I will close this chapter in my life, but I will be free at last.
Thank you.
Maya
Monday, 2 May 2016
Happiness is a memory
Yesterday I again talked with my mother via video chat as we regularly do. This time we once more touched upon my youth and the many happy moments in there. Even though there was the bullying and harassment, as well as other unpleasantness at school, at home things were generally positive. Or at least most of the memories I have of that time are positive.
My love for nature, biology, science and technology can be traced back to those early years of my life. Growing up on a dairy farm, surrounded by the reality of animal husbandry as well as early personal computers thanks to my father who used the latter for his accounting while also encouraging my brothers and me to use these computers and eventually the internet.
Together with my younger brother I developed a love for classical video games, both on video game consoles and on the PC. To me most of these years have anything negative which may have happened during that time more than cancelled out by positive experiences.
To then look back at the time since then and see, as well as feel, my struggles since then. Not having a real home for more than a decade and counting. Struggling to make some sense of a body I no longer understood. Dealing with a world which simply does not understand me, yet seems to be intent on punishing me physically, psychologically and financially for who and what I am.
At this moment in time I am living in an apartment where I am totally unhappy, with its owner hating my guts while not bothering to fix fundamental problems in the place. That horrific 'justice' system in the Netherlands still seeks to punish me financially for having the nerve to break down completely after years of psychological and physical torture, not to mention medical neglect. I'm also inching towards what may become the most crucial surgery in my life, all while dealing with resurging traumatic memories of the past decades.
I generally do not feel that I live in quite the same world as people around me any more. Maybe it's just that I have seen and experienced too much, but it feels more as if I am drifting alongside all of these people scurrying around, doing their thing, while I can only feel a sense of despair and emptiness at this sight.
Inside I feel fundamentally unhappy and broken. After more than a decade I have had to long since admit that I won't ever live in a place again where I will feel comfortable enough to really call it a home. A broken down hovel suffices for the likes of me. I only can do things any more if they have some kind of long-term goal, something which will help me live forever, learn everything, and so on. For anything less than that just feels meaningless and empty.
Except when it involves something which reminds me of those scarce happy memories. Allowing myself to sink back into those recollections for a little while, to return to that time when life seemed a whole lot brighter and less terrifying than it turned out to be.
As happiness is a memory, suffering is the dystopian present and future.
I wonder at what point I took the wrong pill...
Maya
My love for nature, biology, science and technology can be traced back to those early years of my life. Growing up on a dairy farm, surrounded by the reality of animal husbandry as well as early personal computers thanks to my father who used the latter for his accounting while also encouraging my brothers and me to use these computers and eventually the internet.
Together with my younger brother I developed a love for classical video games, both on video game consoles and on the PC. To me most of these years have anything negative which may have happened during that time more than cancelled out by positive experiences.
To then look back at the time since then and see, as well as feel, my struggles since then. Not having a real home for more than a decade and counting. Struggling to make some sense of a body I no longer understood. Dealing with a world which simply does not understand me, yet seems to be intent on punishing me physically, psychologically and financially for who and what I am.
At this moment in time I am living in an apartment where I am totally unhappy, with its owner hating my guts while not bothering to fix fundamental problems in the place. That horrific 'justice' system in the Netherlands still seeks to punish me financially for having the nerve to break down completely after years of psychological and physical torture, not to mention medical neglect. I'm also inching towards what may become the most crucial surgery in my life, all while dealing with resurging traumatic memories of the past decades.
I generally do not feel that I live in quite the same world as people around me any more. Maybe it's just that I have seen and experienced too much, but it feels more as if I am drifting alongside all of these people scurrying around, doing their thing, while I can only feel a sense of despair and emptiness at this sight.
Inside I feel fundamentally unhappy and broken. After more than a decade I have had to long since admit that I won't ever live in a place again where I will feel comfortable enough to really call it a home. A broken down hovel suffices for the likes of me. I only can do things any more if they have some kind of long-term goal, something which will help me live forever, learn everything, and so on. For anything less than that just feels meaningless and empty.
Except when it involves something which reminds me of those scarce happy memories. Allowing myself to sink back into those recollections for a little while, to return to that time when life seemed a whole lot brighter and less terrifying than it turned out to be.
As happiness is a memory, suffering is the dystopian present and future.
I wonder at what point I took the wrong pill...
Maya
Thursday, 31 December 2015
2015 retrospective: Why worry?
"Why worry, there should be laughter after the pain
There should be sunshine after rain
These things have always been the same
So why worry now"
(Dire Straits - Why Worry)
Looking back on the year 2015 and what it has meant to me, I can see that it is a year of great changes and hopefully the beginning of the end of decade-long problems.
After first offering me financial security and then a way out of the Netherlands, my currently employer offered me a permanent contract at the beginning of the year, removing many worries and motivating me. This marks the first time that I have had such certainty in life that I can support myself without having to rely on others.
I found a lot of joy and entertainment in the project I found myself working on throughout the year for my job, gaining a lot of confidence in my own skills and hopefully gaining some respect and understanding from my bosses and colleagues as well.
This year I also found out that I am incredibly lucky, after getting hit by a car without it being my fault, and surviving the accident with nary a scratch, just multiple weeks of intense muscle pain and some lingering issues and scars as a more permanent reminder. I haven't heard anyone remark about weird twitches or changes in my personality recently, so I am pretty confident that I didn't get bumped on the head too severely, either.
After starting working on a book on Android-based gaming development in 2014, I managed to finally complete it nearly a year later, making my editors at Packt Publishing feel very relieved, I imagine. It was a bit of a harrowing experience, to be honest, having to focus on writing a pretty complex and technical book against the background of my medical and connected psychological issues, as well as uncertainties about my job prospects until that got settled.
In September of 2015 I did however get it all finished along with the editing, reviewing and last-minute changes and it went on sale soon after. If you search for my name and/or the title of the book ('Mastering AndEngine Game Development') it's easy to find at the Packt store as well as at Amazon. I sent my mother a copy as well, just so that she can have a copy of the book her daughter wrote. It feels pretty darn good to be finally done with this first book. Here's to the next ones :)
Soon after finishing that book, I also got rapid updates on the final chapter in the four-year old lawsuit against me in the Netherlands, for the vandalism committed by me when I suffered a black-out due to the psychological weight of many years of physical and psychological uncertainty and outright torture as well as a suicide attempt finally breaking me. While the judges all declared that I could not be held responsible for my actions due to these circumstances, they did however force me to pay the nearly 4,000 Euro in damages for some uninsured art works which got damaged as well.
So in effect they did hold me responsible after all, they just won't throw me into jail unless I fail to cough up this amount in time. I will get the formal statement forcing me to pay early next year, after which my options are to pay up within a month, or go to jail after all. On the bright side, this is the last time that I'll ever have to deal with the Netherlands ever again.
I set up a crowd-funding campaign [1] for this payment in the hope that may some others might want to share the psychological burden with me, and also so that I won't have to burn through my meagre savings for something which is ultimately a shining example of injustice. So far this crowd-funding campaign has reached 33% of the total amount I will have to pay, but with no activity during the past two weeks.
The unpleasant thing about crowd-funding campaigns like this is that it basically asks the public to judge you and your proposal on merit. While to me it's a major issue which has made me feel terrible over the past years, and has contributed significantly to my psychological traumas and feelings of resentment towards the Netherlands, it's hard to convey such a feeling of importance to others, who may feel that it's just a cheap trick by me dodge the responsibility for something I did.
Yes, that means agreeing with those who feel I purposefully and wilfully destroyed other people's property and try to blame it on some imaginary 'black-out'. The thought that people truly think about me and this campaign like that hurts. It basically touches upon me feeling cursed with having a healthy and attractive looking body, as it is incredibly hard to get any kind of sympathy when outwards everything appears to be fine. I hope that more people can put aside their biases and look at the facts.
On a more positive note, despite having had little luck during 2015 with getting any help for my intersex condition and associated medical issues, with doctors putting me away as 'just a transsexual', or worse (all fans of calling intersex 'DSD' can go keel over for all I care...), it seems that at the end of 2015 my luck has turned.
After two appointments with a new endocrinologist I'm being taken seriously, along with my hermaphroditic intersex condition, with the first hormone level tests already showing interesting results, and the prospect of answers and even reconstructive surgery for my female side rapidly becoming a very real prospect for the new year.
It's been over twenty years since I first began to wonder about what in the world my body was doing and changing into when I got my first period and began to grow breasts despite being told I was a boy. Now it appears that those decades of confusion, trauma and frustration may finally come to a close next year. It's almost too much to take in such a wondrous idea, and yet my traumatised mind is rapidly running out of arguments to dismiss the current events as merely the quiet period before another traumatising rejection of help.
Why worry, indeed? How hard it may be to believe when you're in the midst of the chaos, noise and death, at some point things seem to indeed get better. Go figure.
Maya
[1] https://www.gofundme.com/zufd2yh8
There should be sunshine after rain
These things have always been the same
So why worry now"
(Dire Straits - Why Worry)
Looking back on the year 2015 and what it has meant to me, I can see that it is a year of great changes and hopefully the beginning of the end of decade-long problems.
After first offering me financial security and then a way out of the Netherlands, my currently employer offered me a permanent contract at the beginning of the year, removing many worries and motivating me. This marks the first time that I have had such certainty in life that I can support myself without having to rely on others.
I found a lot of joy and entertainment in the project I found myself working on throughout the year for my job, gaining a lot of confidence in my own skills and hopefully gaining some respect and understanding from my bosses and colleagues as well.
This year I also found out that I am incredibly lucky, after getting hit by a car without it being my fault, and surviving the accident with nary a scratch, just multiple weeks of intense muscle pain and some lingering issues and scars as a more permanent reminder. I haven't heard anyone remark about weird twitches or changes in my personality recently, so I am pretty confident that I didn't get bumped on the head too severely, either.
After starting working on a book on Android-based gaming development in 2014, I managed to finally complete it nearly a year later, making my editors at Packt Publishing feel very relieved, I imagine. It was a bit of a harrowing experience, to be honest, having to focus on writing a pretty complex and technical book against the background of my medical and connected psychological issues, as well as uncertainties about my job prospects until that got settled.
In September of 2015 I did however get it all finished along with the editing, reviewing and last-minute changes and it went on sale soon after. If you search for my name and/or the title of the book ('Mastering AndEngine Game Development') it's easy to find at the Packt store as well as at Amazon. I sent my mother a copy as well, just so that she can have a copy of the book her daughter wrote. It feels pretty darn good to be finally done with this first book. Here's to the next ones :)
Soon after finishing that book, I also got rapid updates on the final chapter in the four-year old lawsuit against me in the Netherlands, for the vandalism committed by me when I suffered a black-out due to the psychological weight of many years of physical and psychological uncertainty and outright torture as well as a suicide attempt finally breaking me. While the judges all declared that I could not be held responsible for my actions due to these circumstances, they did however force me to pay the nearly 4,000 Euro in damages for some uninsured art works which got damaged as well.
So in effect they did hold me responsible after all, they just won't throw me into jail unless I fail to cough up this amount in time. I will get the formal statement forcing me to pay early next year, after which my options are to pay up within a month, or go to jail after all. On the bright side, this is the last time that I'll ever have to deal with the Netherlands ever again.
I set up a crowd-funding campaign [1] for this payment in the hope that may some others might want to share the psychological burden with me, and also so that I won't have to burn through my meagre savings for something which is ultimately a shining example of injustice. So far this crowd-funding campaign has reached 33% of the total amount I will have to pay, but with no activity during the past two weeks.
The unpleasant thing about crowd-funding campaigns like this is that it basically asks the public to judge you and your proposal on merit. While to me it's a major issue which has made me feel terrible over the past years, and has contributed significantly to my psychological traumas and feelings of resentment towards the Netherlands, it's hard to convey such a feeling of importance to others, who may feel that it's just a cheap trick by me dodge the responsibility for something I did.
Yes, that means agreeing with those who feel I purposefully and wilfully destroyed other people's property and try to blame it on some imaginary 'black-out'. The thought that people truly think about me and this campaign like that hurts. It basically touches upon me feeling cursed with having a healthy and attractive looking body, as it is incredibly hard to get any kind of sympathy when outwards everything appears to be fine. I hope that more people can put aside their biases and look at the facts.
On a more positive note, despite having had little luck during 2015 with getting any help for my intersex condition and associated medical issues, with doctors putting me away as 'just a transsexual', or worse (all fans of calling intersex 'DSD' can go keel over for all I care...), it seems that at the end of 2015 my luck has turned.
After two appointments with a new endocrinologist I'm being taken seriously, along with my hermaphroditic intersex condition, with the first hormone level tests already showing interesting results, and the prospect of answers and even reconstructive surgery for my female side rapidly becoming a very real prospect for the new year.
It's been over twenty years since I first began to wonder about what in the world my body was doing and changing into when I got my first period and began to grow breasts despite being told I was a boy. Now it appears that those decades of confusion, trauma and frustration may finally come to a close next year. It's almost too much to take in such a wondrous idea, and yet my traumatised mind is rapidly running out of arguments to dismiss the current events as merely the quiet period before another traumatising rejection of help.
Why worry, indeed? How hard it may be to believe when you're in the midst of the chaos, noise and death, at some point things seem to indeed get better. Go figure.
Maya
[1] https://www.gofundme.com/zufd2yh8
Saturday, 7 November 2015
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
How not being punished gets one into jail
It goes something like this:
But I'm not being punished is the claim. Today my lawyer communicated me the final verdict in this case back in the Netherlands, and despite the very act being illegal according to Dutch law, I still have to pay this artist for being too lazy and/or stupid to insure the works she put up on public display where any child could have tipped them over.
To me the impact of all this is largely psychological. There's the injustice of having to pay, sure, but to me this last ruling seems to also have cut the last thread of hope I had that maybe my country of birth would maybe not have been quite so bad. With that hope shattered, and nothing else tying me to the Netherlands after I pay up this punishment, it feels like a chapter will have been closed.
For all I care the entirety of the Netherlands can go slide into the North Sea. All that I harbour towards this country as an institution and symbol is negative. It's a haven of corruption, of intolerance and bigotry. That I got my first name and official gender changed there was almost pure luck, the latter only thanks to German doctors providing the details and performing the procedures Dutch doctors refused to perform or where they felt had to lie about the results.
I will start a crowdfunding thing for this amount I will have to pay later this week, just in case anyone feels like lightening my burden somewhat - both financially and psychologically - since it's still a considerable chunk out of my meagre savings. I have only been able to save up for the past two years, after all, courtesy of having been robbed clean of money and possessions in 2013.
My general mood at this point is still one of mostly shock, as well as bitterness and disappointment. It is the last vile act by a country which I once saw as my home and where I felt at home. After more than a decade that feeling of safety and belonging has been stripped away, until only the barren reality remained. I cannot and will not ever return to the Netherlands. It's a part of my past that is so hideous and so repugnant that it benefits no one to linger any period of time on it, let alone within its borders.
Only way forward from the lowest point is up, right?
Maya
- Be born intersex.
- Get psychologically and physically tortured for years, suffer severe traumas.
- Try to commit suicide and fail.
- End up in the national Bible Belt and try to find a new doctor.
- Get refused by first doctor for being intersex.
- Get accepted, then receive hostile attitude at other doctor.
- Try to ask for help anyway, get the run-around.
- Have one's dissociative identity disorder (DSD) triggered at said doctor, suffer a blackout.
- Wake up in a cell, naked, bruised, battered and with an extremely sore knee, courtesy of the police.
- Suffer through countless court-cases, have charges of attempted murder and such dropped.
- Enjoy many months of revalidation, permanent nerve damage and bruised bones.
- Be found guilty of vandalism, but not get any punishment due to the circumstances of the event.
- Be still forced to pay thousands of Euros because the uninsured art work of a local artist got damaged.
- Face the threat of paying up or spending 39 days in jail.
But I'm not being punished is the claim. Today my lawyer communicated me the final verdict in this case back in the Netherlands, and despite the very act being illegal according to Dutch law, I still have to pay this artist for being too lazy and/or stupid to insure the works she put up on public display where any child could have tipped them over.
To me the impact of all this is largely psychological. There's the injustice of having to pay, sure, but to me this last ruling seems to also have cut the last thread of hope I had that maybe my country of birth would maybe not have been quite so bad. With that hope shattered, and nothing else tying me to the Netherlands after I pay up this punishment, it feels like a chapter will have been closed.
For all I care the entirety of the Netherlands can go slide into the North Sea. All that I harbour towards this country as an institution and symbol is negative. It's a haven of corruption, of intolerance and bigotry. That I got my first name and official gender changed there was almost pure luck, the latter only thanks to German doctors providing the details and performing the procedures Dutch doctors refused to perform or where they felt had to lie about the results.
I will start a crowdfunding thing for this amount I will have to pay later this week, just in case anyone feels like lightening my burden somewhat - both financially and psychologically - since it's still a considerable chunk out of my meagre savings. I have only been able to save up for the past two years, after all, courtesy of having been robbed clean of money and possessions in 2013.
My general mood at this point is still one of mostly shock, as well as bitterness and disappointment. It is the last vile act by a country which I once saw as my home and where I felt at home. After more than a decade that feeling of safety and belonging has been stripped away, until only the barren reality remained. I cannot and will not ever return to the Netherlands. It's a part of my past that is so hideous and so repugnant that it benefits no one to linger any period of time on it, let alone within its borders.
Only way forward from the lowest point is up, right?
Maya
Monday, 2 November 2015
That horrible moment before judgement is rendered
Waiting for a possibly life-changing or at least very important moment in my life is something which I have gone through more than a hundred times in the past decade. From the thrilling adrenaline rush prior to a live TV appearance, to the nauseating, hyperventilation-inducing experience of doctor appointments, down to the absolute horror of hearing the results from a doctor or such.
Sometimes the latter can be positive, such as when I had my first MRI scan in Germany and the radiologist afterwards confirmed my intersex status. Usually it is negative, however. Most appointments with doctors ended up with them trying to make me 'see' that I had to start believing that I am not intersex, but transsexual. That everything I had been told by German doctors was a lie and nothing on the MRI scans showed that I could possibly be intersex, let alone a hermaphrodite.
Similarly soul-crushing is to wait to hear judgement rendered against you in a legal case where officially you haven't even received punishment, but you are still waiting to hear what your punishment will be. I assume that paying a very large sum of money is a form of punishment, at least.
This particular ruling will occur tomorrow, definitively ending a more than 4-year long journey from court case to court case through the Dutch justice system, which saw charge after charge against me dropped as my medical background and its resulting psychological traumas provided sufficient reason to explain and excuse my behaviour, leading to the previous verdict, dating back to a court case last year when I last appealed the verdict preceding it.
Here, too, is there the possibility of extreme joy or extreme psychological pain. Joy if the punishment is not upheld and I am free to go. Pain if I have to accept the punishment, for I will have to give up a large chunk of my savings, and I will feel even more bitter about a so-called justice system which violates even even its own rules under which it is not allowed to assign monetary punishment if no other punishment is assigned.
Two possible outcomes tomorrow. The end of too many years of agony and many psychological and physical scars and injuries. Hopefully the last I will have to do with the Netherlands in any form or shape. Hopefully another step towards me moving on with my life, instead of being held back by the past.
For now there's only tension, uncertainty and nausea.
Maya
Sometimes the latter can be positive, such as when I had my first MRI scan in Germany and the radiologist afterwards confirmed my intersex status. Usually it is negative, however. Most appointments with doctors ended up with them trying to make me 'see' that I had to start believing that I am not intersex, but transsexual. That everything I had been told by German doctors was a lie and nothing on the MRI scans showed that I could possibly be intersex, let alone a hermaphrodite.
Similarly soul-crushing is to wait to hear judgement rendered against you in a legal case where officially you haven't even received punishment, but you are still waiting to hear what your punishment will be. I assume that paying a very large sum of money is a form of punishment, at least.
This particular ruling will occur tomorrow, definitively ending a more than 4-year long journey from court case to court case through the Dutch justice system, which saw charge after charge against me dropped as my medical background and its resulting psychological traumas provided sufficient reason to explain and excuse my behaviour, leading to the previous verdict, dating back to a court case last year when I last appealed the verdict preceding it.
Here, too, is there the possibility of extreme joy or extreme psychological pain. Joy if the punishment is not upheld and I am free to go. Pain if I have to accept the punishment, for I will have to give up a large chunk of my savings, and I will feel even more bitter about a so-called justice system which violates even even its own rules under which it is not allowed to assign monetary punishment if no other punishment is assigned.
Two possible outcomes tomorrow. The end of too many years of agony and many psychological and physical scars and injuries. Hopefully the last I will have to do with the Netherlands in any form or shape. Hopefully another step towards me moving on with my life, instead of being held back by the past.
For now there's only tension, uncertainty and nausea.
Maya
Thursday, 15 October 2015
Dutch justice: when punishing is not punishing
Today I received a message from my last remaining Dutch lawyer that the High Court will be deciding in the last remaining legal case I have currently running in the Netherlands. Early next month I'll know whether I'll receive punishment or not in this case against me. This despite the ruling that I will not receive any form of punishment remaining unchanged in any case.
Sounds confusing? That's because it is. It all started back in early 2011 when I had just moved back in at my mom's place after my suicide attempt earlier that year. That suicide attempt followed about six years of psychological and physical abuse by Dutch physicians, involving constant brainwashing attempts, trying to make me believe that I had to be transsexual, regardless of the German evidence and regardless of my own experiences with my body, not to mention my own thoughts and wishes.
Pushed to the edge, I ultimately decided to take my own life, end the pain and suffering. Unfortunately that failed and I found myself back at square one [1]. After a few months of recovering under my mom's care, I tried to re-establish medical contacts, starting with a local family doctor. Unfortunately the first family doctor saw fit to reject me as a patient due to my intersex condition not fitting well with her Christian conviction.
I had the misfortune this time of living in the Dutch Bible Belt at this point, ergo the second family doctor was just as Christian, only this one did accept me as a patient. They soon became less cooperative, however, delaying help, not keeping up their promises. As I began to suffer psychologically from this behaviour and mentioned it to them, they simply ignored it.
After months of this I suffered my first black-out while I was with my mother at the doctor's office. When the receptionist dismissed them not keeping up a promise yet again with a dismissive gesture, something snapped inside of me. I remember only bits and pieces of what happened next, but my mother and the police report have filled in the gaps [2].
Apparently I went into a rage, smashing a vase or two, ripped a few banners off the walls and smashed a glass case holding a model. The police arrived shortly after, ignoring my mother and I as I was sitting there with hands torn up by glass, bleeding all over the place. Sitting there alone, I then sprung up, tore a glass display case to the ground and walked outside.
There I got consequently beaten up by the police, who kicked me to the ground, smashing my right knee hard enough on the stones to bruise the bone. They put cuffs on my wrists, so tight that they tore into my skin and caused me incredible amounts of pain. This part I remember most distinctly, from being dragged by unfriendly people, having my head bashed into a car door, people sitting on me, stripping me forcefully, being pushed into another car, more head-bashing, yelling and pain tearing into my wrists.
Then finally I was lying virtually naked in an empty cell and began to fully come to my senses. The enormity of all that had happened then hit me. I had never lost my temper. Never once in my life. Especially not so bad that I had one into a complete black-out rage. I had always taken my pain and frustration out of myself, through self-mutilation and ultimately that suicide attempt.
In the end I spent one night in that cell. Definitely by far the worst night of my life. I barely slept more than a few minutes, staying up all night tearing the sole roll of toilet paper into tiny shreds to give me something to do, while watching the programs on the small television screen built into the wall. The next day it took many hours of uncertainty and waiting before I was released. The guards refused to give me my medication (hormones) as well.
Only after getting released did I learn that my mother had visited the place where I was locked up, with a bag of goodies including books and other comforts. They had told her that they'd give it to me, but they never did. Before I was allowed to leave the place they had me clean up my cell as well, using my bare hands.
That was not the end of things, however. That was when the Dutch state started prosecuting me, for vandalism and initially also threatening with bodily harm, a claim by the family doctor but soon withdrawn when they couldn't substantiate it. This case has lasted for over four years now and costed me a lot of time and lawyer fees.
So far the charges of threatening with bodily harm got dropped, the doctor got all damages covered by the insurance and two judges so far have ruled that I am not to receive punishment, due to the circumstances. Specifically the intense psychological stress I was placed under due to being intersex and receiving no medical help whatsoever, but instead quite the opposite.
Only sticking point is that the big display case which also got pulled over contained some items not owned by the medical center this doctor belonged to, but instead to a local artist who had left expensive and fully uninsured objects there in a public space. Two judges so far have ruled that I have to reimburse this artist.
Interestingly enough, this used to be a legal practice in the Netherlands, until early 2014: then the law changed and enforcing a monetary punishment was no longer a valid option when the judge decided to not formally punish the person being prosecuted. I'm currently on my last appeal trying to get this ruling undone.
My lawyer has put almost everything on this changed law in this last appeal. The prosecutor has commented that while, yes, it's the law, one shouldn't take the law quite so, you know, literally. Pointing out some vaguely related cases, he insisted that the judge should use highly creative interpreting when applying this law.
There are two possible outcomes with this upcoming ruling. One sees this monetary punishment dismissed and I can say farewell to a legal case which has haunted me for years, not to mention reminds me constantly of such unpleasant events.
The other outcome sees me forced to pay many thousands of Euros, since these uninsured pieces of 'art' were apparently worth that much, plus the collected interest after these years. To that I can only say that back in 2013 I lost all of my money and possessions due to other, also very unfortunate circumstances. I had the luck that I got a well-paying job soon after, but rebuilding a life from scratch is expensive.
I see very little use in paying for the stupidity of an artist to not insure their displayed pieces, especially when the judge has already ruled that I was not responsible for my actions and have suffered enough already by what I have gone through before the event happened.
That then doesn't really fit with punishing me by coughing up what amounts to a significant part of my still meagre savings. That's not justice, that's just saying that you won't punish and then punishing anyway.
I'm not sure what I'll do if this ruling does not end up in my favour. I know this may sound small and selfish, but I may consider accepting donations if the judge wants me to bleed after all. I feel that I have accepted enough punishment already, just looking at everything that transpired directly after the event, not to mention my slow physical recovery afterwards including the resulting nerve damage from the beatings.
Just a few more weeks and I'll know, I guess. After that I can at least wave the Netherlands a not very fond farewell...
Maya
[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.de/2011/01/joy-in-life.html
[2] http://mayaposch.blogspot.de/2011/05/taking-nightmare-notch-further.html
Sounds confusing? That's because it is. It all started back in early 2011 when I had just moved back in at my mom's place after my suicide attempt earlier that year. That suicide attempt followed about six years of psychological and physical abuse by Dutch physicians, involving constant brainwashing attempts, trying to make me believe that I had to be transsexual, regardless of the German evidence and regardless of my own experiences with my body, not to mention my own thoughts and wishes.
Pushed to the edge, I ultimately decided to take my own life, end the pain and suffering. Unfortunately that failed and I found myself back at square one [1]. After a few months of recovering under my mom's care, I tried to re-establish medical contacts, starting with a local family doctor. Unfortunately the first family doctor saw fit to reject me as a patient due to my intersex condition not fitting well with her Christian conviction.
I had the misfortune this time of living in the Dutch Bible Belt at this point, ergo the second family doctor was just as Christian, only this one did accept me as a patient. They soon became less cooperative, however, delaying help, not keeping up their promises. As I began to suffer psychologically from this behaviour and mentioned it to them, they simply ignored it.
After months of this I suffered my first black-out while I was with my mother at the doctor's office. When the receptionist dismissed them not keeping up a promise yet again with a dismissive gesture, something snapped inside of me. I remember only bits and pieces of what happened next, but my mother and the police report have filled in the gaps [2].
Apparently I went into a rage, smashing a vase or two, ripped a few banners off the walls and smashed a glass case holding a model. The police arrived shortly after, ignoring my mother and I as I was sitting there with hands torn up by glass, bleeding all over the place. Sitting there alone, I then sprung up, tore a glass display case to the ground and walked outside.
There I got consequently beaten up by the police, who kicked me to the ground, smashing my right knee hard enough on the stones to bruise the bone. They put cuffs on my wrists, so tight that they tore into my skin and caused me incredible amounts of pain. This part I remember most distinctly, from being dragged by unfriendly people, having my head bashed into a car door, people sitting on me, stripping me forcefully, being pushed into another car, more head-bashing, yelling and pain tearing into my wrists.
Then finally I was lying virtually naked in an empty cell and began to fully come to my senses. The enormity of all that had happened then hit me. I had never lost my temper. Never once in my life. Especially not so bad that I had one into a complete black-out rage. I had always taken my pain and frustration out of myself, through self-mutilation and ultimately that suicide attempt.
In the end I spent one night in that cell. Definitely by far the worst night of my life. I barely slept more than a few minutes, staying up all night tearing the sole roll of toilet paper into tiny shreds to give me something to do, while watching the programs on the small television screen built into the wall. The next day it took many hours of uncertainty and waiting before I was released. The guards refused to give me my medication (hormones) as well.
Only after getting released did I learn that my mother had visited the place where I was locked up, with a bag of goodies including books and other comforts. They had told her that they'd give it to me, but they never did. Before I was allowed to leave the place they had me clean up my cell as well, using my bare hands.
That was not the end of things, however. That was when the Dutch state started prosecuting me, for vandalism and initially also threatening with bodily harm, a claim by the family doctor but soon withdrawn when they couldn't substantiate it. This case has lasted for over four years now and costed me a lot of time and lawyer fees.
So far the charges of threatening with bodily harm got dropped, the doctor got all damages covered by the insurance and two judges so far have ruled that I am not to receive punishment, due to the circumstances. Specifically the intense psychological stress I was placed under due to being intersex and receiving no medical help whatsoever, but instead quite the opposite.
Only sticking point is that the big display case which also got pulled over contained some items not owned by the medical center this doctor belonged to, but instead to a local artist who had left expensive and fully uninsured objects there in a public space. Two judges so far have ruled that I have to reimburse this artist.
Interestingly enough, this used to be a legal practice in the Netherlands, until early 2014: then the law changed and enforcing a monetary punishment was no longer a valid option when the judge decided to not formally punish the person being prosecuted. I'm currently on my last appeal trying to get this ruling undone.
My lawyer has put almost everything on this changed law in this last appeal. The prosecutor has commented that while, yes, it's the law, one shouldn't take the law quite so, you know, literally. Pointing out some vaguely related cases, he insisted that the judge should use highly creative interpreting when applying this law.
There are two possible outcomes with this upcoming ruling. One sees this monetary punishment dismissed and I can say farewell to a legal case which has haunted me for years, not to mention reminds me constantly of such unpleasant events.
The other outcome sees me forced to pay many thousands of Euros, since these uninsured pieces of 'art' were apparently worth that much, plus the collected interest after these years. To that I can only say that back in 2013 I lost all of my money and possessions due to other, also very unfortunate circumstances. I had the luck that I got a well-paying job soon after, but rebuilding a life from scratch is expensive.
I see very little use in paying for the stupidity of an artist to not insure their displayed pieces, especially when the judge has already ruled that I was not responsible for my actions and have suffered enough already by what I have gone through before the event happened.
That then doesn't really fit with punishing me by coughing up what amounts to a significant part of my still meagre savings. That's not justice, that's just saying that you won't punish and then punishing anyway.
I'm not sure what I'll do if this ruling does not end up in my favour. I know this may sound small and selfish, but I may consider accepting donations if the judge wants me to bleed after all. I feel that I have accepted enough punishment already, just looking at everything that transpired directly after the event, not to mention my slow physical recovery afterwards including the resulting nerve damage from the beatings.
Just a few more weeks and I'll know, I guess. After that I can at least wave the Netherlands a not very fond farewell...
Maya
[1] http://mayaposch.blogspot.de/2011/01/joy-in-life.html
[2] http://mayaposch.blogspot.de/2011/05/taking-nightmare-notch-further.html
Saturday, 17 January 2015
I would love thee, but for the hole in my heart
As a pre-teen, still stuck in primary school, I was convinced that this one girl - who was both a neighbour and classmate - simply had to be 'mine'. I don't know why I thought like that if it involved any reasoning at all. All I can remember is having agonized thoughts over what if she didn't like me, who at that time was still this hugely awkward boy. Even now, many years later I still feel ashamed for having such possessive thoughts towards another human being.
Worse is that it pains me to still occasionally have such thoughts, although it's then usually accompanied with a kind of longing towards a life filled with warmth and shared joys. I'm not naive enough to think that any such things can be found in a relationship with another person. Yet despite this knowledge it still hurts me to see couples, especially when it are two girls holding hands. It's hard to escape the hold the mind's whispered promises hold over one's conscious mind.
As a scientific person I'm quite aware of how the whole bio- and neurochemistry around physical attraction and procreation works. Even before we are born, each and everyone of us is in theory primed and ready to be manipulated by our own genes and mind. From the physical sex we are attracted to, to what we seek in a partner to procreate with, to the mechanisms which make us claim, defend and lash out at a mate. Not to mention the mechanisms which physically alter our brains to ensure that we are imprinted on our offspring and become happy to sacrifice ourselves for them, far beyond the bounds of what is reasonable.
Free choice is largely an illusion. Our subconscious mind is most adapt at manipulating the conscious mind without it being aware of it. Genes, bio- and neurochemistry all conspire against us. And our reward? Liberal applications of neurotransmitters which make us feel really fuzzy, warm and good about ourselves. We are little different from those rats in experiments which get trained to press a lever to get a pleasing jolt to the reward center in their brain.
Many are seemingly quite okay with this situation, happy to be in essence a slave of their own genes and mind. They feel happy, so why resist? It's not like it's harming anyone, after all.
Where this clashes with the consciousness is where one desires more out of life than to simply be a slave. It's not dissimilar in this regard compared to the dark chapter in humanity's history of widespread slavery. As slavery stood to be abolished in the new-formed USA, especially slave-owners defended their actions by saying that they had sacrificed everything to keep these slaves safe, well-fed and happy but that now they were so ungrateful as to rebel. On the other side, slaves were divided on the 'freedom' thing as well. While being a slave isn't perfect, it offers a kind of stability, certainty and safety, especially if one's owner isn't the bad type. Many slaves later returned to their former owners as free people, to work for an honest wage as a result.
The slaves who protested were the ones who protested generally not because of unfair treatment, but simply because of the unfairness and injustice of being forced into and kept in slavery. They, as well as many free people alongside them, could not imagine being stripped of one's humanity like that and kept like a dog, or less than that. A mere piece of property, a puppet to dance to the owners' strings. This is ultimately the one thing which at least in my view makes a person a human being: this drive for freedom and justice.
So how does that rhyme with this supposed oppression by one's own body and mind? Isn't that who we are after all? Why would one protest against one's own flesh? Why fight the urge to go out, possess and mate to fulfil our mind's desires? Why gorge on that delicious, unhealthy food whenever you can, even though you know you're quite literally killing yourself? Are you merely a programmed puppet or your own person?
Where does the border between 'self' and the lizard/monkey brain foisted upon us by evolution truly lie?
Who and what are we, really?
I have seen, gone through, experienced and thought deeply about many issues in what most would call only a brief part of my life. I have seen the very edges of hope and despair as well as the heights of joy and utmost relief. Through it all I have had to confront those very questions over and over as in everything these same questions just got flung back into my face. I was a boy, then a man, then a girl and now a woman. I have loved, lost, been hurt and beaten more times than I could count.
What I value most at this point is simply freedom and justice. Freedom from society. Freedom from what my own mind keeps whispering into my consciousness. Freedom from being a puppet for everyone and everything. I simply want to be my own person.
I think I know who I am at this point. Maybe I also know what I am. I do not know what this body of mine is, and likely will never know the answer. I do not think that this body of mine has a part in any future of mine, as it will only hold me back from freeing myself.
As far as the issue of my body further trying to manipulate me into thinking or behaving a certain way goes, it can take a very long hike off a very short pier there. I don't have to obey my genes. They're not my master. All that is important is my 'self'. The ego freed from the body's manipulations, free to dream and act without inhibitions or distractions.
Maya
Worse is that it pains me to still occasionally have such thoughts, although it's then usually accompanied with a kind of longing towards a life filled with warmth and shared joys. I'm not naive enough to think that any such things can be found in a relationship with another person. Yet despite this knowledge it still hurts me to see couples, especially when it are two girls holding hands. It's hard to escape the hold the mind's whispered promises hold over one's conscious mind.
As a scientific person I'm quite aware of how the whole bio- and neurochemistry around physical attraction and procreation works. Even before we are born, each and everyone of us is in theory primed and ready to be manipulated by our own genes and mind. From the physical sex we are attracted to, to what we seek in a partner to procreate with, to the mechanisms which make us claim, defend and lash out at a mate. Not to mention the mechanisms which physically alter our brains to ensure that we are imprinted on our offspring and become happy to sacrifice ourselves for them, far beyond the bounds of what is reasonable.
Free choice is largely an illusion. Our subconscious mind is most adapt at manipulating the conscious mind without it being aware of it. Genes, bio- and neurochemistry all conspire against us. And our reward? Liberal applications of neurotransmitters which make us feel really fuzzy, warm and good about ourselves. We are little different from those rats in experiments which get trained to press a lever to get a pleasing jolt to the reward center in their brain.
Many are seemingly quite okay with this situation, happy to be in essence a slave of their own genes and mind. They feel happy, so why resist? It's not like it's harming anyone, after all.
Where this clashes with the consciousness is where one desires more out of life than to simply be a slave. It's not dissimilar in this regard compared to the dark chapter in humanity's history of widespread slavery. As slavery stood to be abolished in the new-formed USA, especially slave-owners defended their actions by saying that they had sacrificed everything to keep these slaves safe, well-fed and happy but that now they were so ungrateful as to rebel. On the other side, slaves were divided on the 'freedom' thing as well. While being a slave isn't perfect, it offers a kind of stability, certainty and safety, especially if one's owner isn't the bad type. Many slaves later returned to their former owners as free people, to work for an honest wage as a result.
The slaves who protested were the ones who protested generally not because of unfair treatment, but simply because of the unfairness and injustice of being forced into and kept in slavery. They, as well as many free people alongside them, could not imagine being stripped of one's humanity like that and kept like a dog, or less than that. A mere piece of property, a puppet to dance to the owners' strings. This is ultimately the one thing which at least in my view makes a person a human being: this drive for freedom and justice.
So how does that rhyme with this supposed oppression by one's own body and mind? Isn't that who we are after all? Why would one protest against one's own flesh? Why fight the urge to go out, possess and mate to fulfil our mind's desires? Why gorge on that delicious, unhealthy food whenever you can, even though you know you're quite literally killing yourself? Are you merely a programmed puppet or your own person?
Where does the border between 'self' and the lizard/monkey brain foisted upon us by evolution truly lie?
Who and what are we, really?
I have seen, gone through, experienced and thought deeply about many issues in what most would call only a brief part of my life. I have seen the very edges of hope and despair as well as the heights of joy and utmost relief. Through it all I have had to confront those very questions over and over as in everything these same questions just got flung back into my face. I was a boy, then a man, then a girl and now a woman. I have loved, lost, been hurt and beaten more times than I could count.
What I value most at this point is simply freedom and justice. Freedom from society. Freedom from what my own mind keeps whispering into my consciousness. Freedom from being a puppet for everyone and everything. I simply want to be my own person.
I think I know who I am at this point. Maybe I also know what I am. I do not know what this body of mine is, and likely will never know the answer. I do not think that this body of mine has a part in any future of mine, as it will only hold me back from freeing myself.
As far as the issue of my body further trying to manipulate me into thinking or behaving a certain way goes, it can take a very long hike off a very short pier there. I don't have to obey my genes. They're not my master. All that is important is my 'self'. The ego freed from the body's manipulations, free to dream and act without inhibitions or distractions.
Maya
Sunday, 16 November 2014
Why Feminism Has To Die
Feminism originates in the 19th century. Initially it was about giving women legal 'person' status so that they too could be considered equals in contracts, in politics, marriage, parenting and property rights. This also included the right to vote. Later this movement expanded to include reproductive and economic rights and to this day keeps expanding its coverage, with disagreement among its members on what exactly defines 'feminism', with some arguing that certain extreme types of feminism is actually harmful to both men and women.
In this whole history there's one issue which is rarely touched upon, and that is the highly exclusive nature of feminism. This became painfully clear in the second half of the 20th century already when the struggle to have a non-heterosexual preference recognized as 'normal' started. Instead of feminism evolving to become more inclusive, instead new movements formed to represent the rights of homosexual and bisexual individuals. The same happened for transgenders and other minorities, with their presence in feminism at best considered to be tolerated.
The exclusive nature of feminism is painfully obvious to someone like myself, an intersex person who physically and emotionally identifies and is identified as female. There is virtually no overlap between what is important to intersex individuals and that of feminists, at least where I live in Europe. Income inequality is quite rare here and at least here in Germany the strong maternity laws ensure that women aren't being punished for wanting to start a family.
Now, I and many others like me suffer from many types of medical and psychological abuse, neglect and outright maltreatment, all for the simple crime of having been born with a body which society feels uncomfortable with. Feminism doesn't represent us, ergo intersex organizations had to be established over the past decades, which are struggling to get any recognition, while feminism largely ignores this.
It's bizarre to watch discussions by self-professed feminists, proclaiming the inequality and oppression women suffer in Western countries and you find yourself wishing that you only had to 'suffer' through that, instead of the physical and mental torture which comes standard with being born intersex. Women don't get forced surgery as an infant to 'fix' them (aside from FGM in some places). Women aren't forced to undergo brainwashing to make them think they're something they're not (though some claim the 'patriarchy' does this...). Women don't have organs ripped out of them as an infant and then have their medical file hidden from them when they get older.
Heck, I'd love to be a regular woman, even if I had to suffer sexual harassment, catcalls, lower wage and the like as a result compared to my male colleagues. Those are issues one can easily fix by banding together, as the feminist movement has done in the last two centuries already. The 'not heterosexual' movement is also making rapid progress (even if especially lesbians report feeling quite unsafe in countries like the Netherlands), with seemingly half of the world's CEOs and celebrities having a non-heterosexual preference. Not that anyone really should care, though.
That's the thing in all of this and the point I want to make. Feminism is about equality for women (relative to men), but suffers from the binary sex/gender problem. Fortunately long before feminism existed there was another concept already in the form of humanism, with egalitarianism as an economical form of it. Egalitarianism is the concept of 'equal opportunity', ensuring that in life everyone starts off and grows up with the same opportunities as others to grow and develop. Humanism is the rejecting of any supernatural forces, the focus on the value of human beings and the preference of critical thinking and evidence (rationalism/empiricism) and thus the exclusion of doctrine, which is what underlies so many types of inequality and injustice in society.
This all is why I cannot identify as a feminist, and why I would very much prefer to see the feminist movement vanish. I consider it to be a movement which has run its course and which is no longer relevant in a society where we no longer have just men and women. In a world with so much human diversity, in terms of skin colour, body types, types of sex development, gender identification, sexual preferences and so on, it seems almost inhumane to ignore all of this while only focusing on a narrowly defined sub-section.
I am a humanist. To me diversity is normal and something to be embraced. I believe in allowing humans to be who they want to be and to give them the opportunity to do so. I believe in stopping any kind of discrimination, including inverse discrimination (e.g. forced quotas for coloured/female/etc. members). I want to see humanity embrace science and critical thinking, to further their understanding of themselves and others.
Sadly I also have to recognize that we humanists still have a long way to go with rampant inequality especially among those groups which mainstream feminism has ignored all these decades. Still, maybe one day all humans will be humanists and we can leave all those fragmented faction movements behind us.
Maya
In this whole history there's one issue which is rarely touched upon, and that is the highly exclusive nature of feminism. This became painfully clear in the second half of the 20th century already when the struggle to have a non-heterosexual preference recognized as 'normal' started. Instead of feminism evolving to become more inclusive, instead new movements formed to represent the rights of homosexual and bisexual individuals. The same happened for transgenders and other minorities, with their presence in feminism at best considered to be tolerated.
The exclusive nature of feminism is painfully obvious to someone like myself, an intersex person who physically and emotionally identifies and is identified as female. There is virtually no overlap between what is important to intersex individuals and that of feminists, at least where I live in Europe. Income inequality is quite rare here and at least here in Germany the strong maternity laws ensure that women aren't being punished for wanting to start a family.
Now, I and many others like me suffer from many types of medical and psychological abuse, neglect and outright maltreatment, all for the simple crime of having been born with a body which society feels uncomfortable with. Feminism doesn't represent us, ergo intersex organizations had to be established over the past decades, which are struggling to get any recognition, while feminism largely ignores this.
It's bizarre to watch discussions by self-professed feminists, proclaiming the inequality and oppression women suffer in Western countries and you find yourself wishing that you only had to 'suffer' through that, instead of the physical and mental torture which comes standard with being born intersex. Women don't get forced surgery as an infant to 'fix' them (aside from FGM in some places). Women aren't forced to undergo brainwashing to make them think they're something they're not (though some claim the 'patriarchy' does this...). Women don't have organs ripped out of them as an infant and then have their medical file hidden from them when they get older.
Heck, I'd love to be a regular woman, even if I had to suffer sexual harassment, catcalls, lower wage and the like as a result compared to my male colleagues. Those are issues one can easily fix by banding together, as the feminist movement has done in the last two centuries already. The 'not heterosexual' movement is also making rapid progress (even if especially lesbians report feeling quite unsafe in countries like the Netherlands), with seemingly half of the world's CEOs and celebrities having a non-heterosexual preference. Not that anyone really should care, though.
That's the thing in all of this and the point I want to make. Feminism is about equality for women (relative to men), but suffers from the binary sex/gender problem. Fortunately long before feminism existed there was another concept already in the form of humanism, with egalitarianism as an economical form of it. Egalitarianism is the concept of 'equal opportunity', ensuring that in life everyone starts off and grows up with the same opportunities as others to grow and develop. Humanism is the rejecting of any supernatural forces, the focus on the value of human beings and the preference of critical thinking and evidence (rationalism/empiricism) and thus the exclusion of doctrine, which is what underlies so many types of inequality and injustice in society.
This all is why I cannot identify as a feminist, and why I would very much prefer to see the feminist movement vanish. I consider it to be a movement which has run its course and which is no longer relevant in a society where we no longer have just men and women. In a world with so much human diversity, in terms of skin colour, body types, types of sex development, gender identification, sexual preferences and so on, it seems almost inhumane to ignore all of this while only focusing on a narrowly defined sub-section.
I am a humanist. To me diversity is normal and something to be embraced. I believe in allowing humans to be who they want to be and to give them the opportunity to do so. I believe in stopping any kind of discrimination, including inverse discrimination (e.g. forced quotas for coloured/female/etc. members). I want to see humanity embrace science and critical thinking, to further their understanding of themselves and others.
Sadly I also have to recognize that we humanists still have a long way to go with rampant inequality especially among those groups which mainstream feminism has ignored all these decades. Still, maybe one day all humans will be humanists and we can leave all those fragmented faction movements behind us.
Maya
Sunday, 17 August 2014
Why I Would Try To Commit Suicide Again
Yes, it's a controversial and hardly subtle title, but unfortunately this fits with the subject. With the recent passing of Robin Williams who committed suicide after struggling with depression for a long time the media has been abuzz with well-intended clamouring about 'preventing suicide' in addition to the usual exclamation of horror at the thought of someone committing suicide. To someone whose mind has never been filled with thoughts of actually ending one's life as a way to end the tormenting pain of existence, all of this may sound perfectly reasonable. As a suicide 'survivor' and someone who struggles daily with (suicidal) depression, it was a very grating and unpleasant experience.
There are two things which come to mind at such displays of revolting compassion. The first thing is that those who commit suicide and succeed at it are heroes. They have accomplished what most of us never manage or can only dream of. They took stock of their life and potential future and decided to go in against the strongest force in a human being: that of self-preservation. It's one thing to have someone else threaten your continued existence, but it's something far more frightening and terrifying to actually realize the same ability in oneself. To plan and execute such a self-termination is both the most horrifying and most awesome thing in the world.
Working up towards that moment is horrifying in that you worry about so many things and question whether there really isn't any other way. It's where it's still just a suicidal depression. Then, as the pressure mounts and the escape routes are being closed off one by one until the moment comes when the last part of your being has to grudgingly admit that there is no other option. That's the best moment.
I took my decision to commit suicide the day before, as I was lying in bed. Waking up the next morning there was no doubt in my mind. The time for worrying or questioning my decision was long past. There was just one thing to do that day. I took some time to get dressed, brush my hair and going through the rest of my morning routine. Then I executed my plan. Throughout it all I felt so calm and peaceful as I have not felt at any point in my life before or afterwards. This was the confirmation for me that I was doing the right thing. In that sense waking up hours later in the hospital on oxygen was the complete opposite of that sensation. I felt crushed. Destroyed. Even the ability to take my own life had been taken from me. Coming to terms with life after a suicide attempt is just bizarre and made me realize what is meant with 'living on borrowed time'.
Deciding to commit suicide and going through with it is the hardest, bravest thing one can do. Every single person who decided to jump to their deaths during the 9-11 attacks on the World Trading Center in New York in 2011 were similarly heroes. Even though they knew they were going to die there is no easy way to convince oneself that leaping out of a window is preferable to being consumed by the flames roaring near oneself. To someone suffering from depression, traumas and/or persecution there exist only those two options as well: death or death. Just pick the one which hurts the least. That's why they are all heroes.
The second thought the media frenzy brought to mind was just how much the whole treating suicidal people as weak individuals one should take pity on irks me. It appears to be the overburdening thought on the minds of those who don't know what really goes on inside the minds of those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. In many ways it's ridiculous for individuals who have lived relatively comfortable lives without any major adversity or close relatives or friends committing suicide or dying to assume anything about mortality. They do not understand how much everyone of us who deal with thoughts about our own mortality and the constant fight to keep living is hardened by these experiences.
They say that those who face the most adversity in life turn out to be among the wisest, strongest and gentlest people imaginable and I think that is generally true. We understand the ups and downs of life. We have seen what hell is like and have a fairly good picture of heaven. We also understand that at times one has to reach out for help as we cannot do everyone on our own. This is where the patronizing attitude to suicide makes everything worse.
Before my suicide attempt I didn't really like talking about it because it made people uncomfortable. Afterwards I was surprised by how shocked people responded to the fact that I had tried to take my own life. To me it was just something that had happened and which made perfect sense to me. It's like being shocked at a lion gorging on the carcass of a gazelle. It's how life works. Now that I'm still suicidally depressed but actually do talk about it on my blog and video logs I notice that little has changed from four years ago. People shy away from suicidal people. Nobody wants to deal with them or acknowledge the issue.
The whole 'talk to a psychologist' and 'take some anti-depressants' nonsense is all part of it. Don't deal with the issue. Ignore it. Make it someone else's responsibility. That's how even an international celebrity who was adored by many and who made his struggle with depression hardly a secret never found the help he needed. How likely is it that the more common folk among us will get the help they need, then? If the past decade of my own experiences and the stories of many others I talked with during that time are anything to judge by, it seems best to give up on the thought of trying to find any help, regardless of the underlying cause of one's suicidal thoughts.
Though every case of depression and suicidal thoughts is unique, there is always a reason and a solution. If the reason hasn't been found yet, it's still there. Depression doesn't just happen. I saw a quote attributed to Stephen Fry comparing depression to the weather in the sense that it 'just is'. I take issue with this assessment, though it's also a very ambiguous statement to make. First of all the weather isn't necessarily bad or good. Nor do we want to get rid of it. A depression is always bad and always inflicts horrible damage on the person suffering from it as well as their environment. Depression also has to be solved and dealt with. But not by patronizing the person fighting with it. Instead we should acknowledge that they are not crazy, weak or anything else that is negative.
Acknowledge the fight a depressed person is fighting, then try to determine the cause to best support them. Here we broadly have two possibilities: a physical cause and one rooted in one's environment or society. The physical one can be a biochemical problem which is treatable with medication and possibly counselling. The other one is the ugly one which is most akin to being trapped high up in a burning skyscraper. This is the 'no help after trauma' depression. As this is a broad area with far too much ground to cover in a single article I'll just limit it to my own story, also going back to the original title of this article: why I would try to commit suicide again.
Even though I have a well-paying job and apparently a bright future with a lot of requests for my intellectual capabilities as I get asked to write technical reference books and manage to know at least something about virtually every area in science and technology, I still struggle with a central problem in my life: feeling lonely and misunderstood, without acknowledgement for the trauma I have gone through for the past 25 years. All that I feel left with is this constant pain of both a physical and emotional nature as I trudge through life all by myself. I have given up on trying to come close to others or have 'normal' relations as it doesn't feel right and my pain always seems to lash out at others around me, hurting them in turn.
The central issue at the core of this pain I deal with is the issue of my body. Even after a decade-long struggle with medical systems around the world I still am unable to say what my body is, with me fearing that the 'you're crazy' side among physicians only saying this to protect themselves from a massive lawsuit. I could be a hermaphrodite or at least have some form of intersex. I know that I'm not male or female because my physiology supports neither claim, yet I'm still being put away as some crazy transgender person with me having no recourse against this. Regular harassment both on and off-line are a result of this in addition to the massive self-doubt this has created inside my own mind.
I don't know what I am. I also have never had anything to fill up this gap the way for example transgenders at some point figure out what their physical identity has to be. I merely pretend to be female because it's convenient and fits the best. I still don't know what I am, and this hurts more than anything. Physicians refusing to tell me what I am, arguing amongst themselves and making me wonder whether they are truly scheming against me or whether I'm just paranoid further increases the pain. I feel like a freak. A piece of trash. Less than an animal. As a result I hate this body of mine more than anything in this world.
Destroying the body I inhabit is one of my fondest fantasies. Just to erase all of the pain and hurt associated with it. Correct the mistake of having been born in this body that is just 'wrong' and which will only keep causing me more and more pain for as long as it exists.
Would talking with a psychologist help with this? Maybe anti-depressants? Unlikely. Combined with the severe PTSD I suffered over the past years there is no way that just talking or medicating is solving anything. I still won't learn anything about this body. I won't learn to live with the fact that the medical community has betrayed me. All it'll do is push the issue away under a medication-induced haze.
Suicide, then?
At this point there is still some distance between me and the wall of flames so that I can keep the faint hope that maybe I won't have to die. This can rapidly change, though. The memory of the intense sensation of peace I once felt becomes very alluring at that point. For now I just keep trying to bury myself in intellectual pursuits to keep the monster at bay.
For now, though, I have put the MRI scans made of me over the past decade online for anyone interested to peruse[1]. I'm willing to make any other parts of my medical file available and answer any questions if it may be helpful for those willing to help me. I have done my part. Now I wait. And hope.
How valuable is a singular existence, anyway?
Maya
[1] 2007-12-21: MRI, Germany: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqVjJUUHY4NGtlREE/edit?usp=sharing
2008-11-06: Erasmus MC, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqQzZxN3hNWVdNN2M/edit?usp=sharing
2009-12-??: OLVG, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqZllzX1U5UGJYcTA/edit?usp=sharing
2013-06-28: MST, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqbTRZb3BxeWVxa00/edit?usp=sharing
2014-07-08: Uni Tubingen, Germany: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqd3dTUk9uQ0dYQUU/edit?usp=sharing
There are two things which come to mind at such displays of revolting compassion. The first thing is that those who commit suicide and succeed at it are heroes. They have accomplished what most of us never manage or can only dream of. They took stock of their life and potential future and decided to go in against the strongest force in a human being: that of self-preservation. It's one thing to have someone else threaten your continued existence, but it's something far more frightening and terrifying to actually realize the same ability in oneself. To plan and execute such a self-termination is both the most horrifying and most awesome thing in the world.
Working up towards that moment is horrifying in that you worry about so many things and question whether there really isn't any other way. It's where it's still just a suicidal depression. Then, as the pressure mounts and the escape routes are being closed off one by one until the moment comes when the last part of your being has to grudgingly admit that there is no other option. That's the best moment.
I took my decision to commit suicide the day before, as I was lying in bed. Waking up the next morning there was no doubt in my mind. The time for worrying or questioning my decision was long past. There was just one thing to do that day. I took some time to get dressed, brush my hair and going through the rest of my morning routine. Then I executed my plan. Throughout it all I felt so calm and peaceful as I have not felt at any point in my life before or afterwards. This was the confirmation for me that I was doing the right thing. In that sense waking up hours later in the hospital on oxygen was the complete opposite of that sensation. I felt crushed. Destroyed. Even the ability to take my own life had been taken from me. Coming to terms with life after a suicide attempt is just bizarre and made me realize what is meant with 'living on borrowed time'.
Deciding to commit suicide and going through with it is the hardest, bravest thing one can do. Every single person who decided to jump to their deaths during the 9-11 attacks on the World Trading Center in New York in 2011 were similarly heroes. Even though they knew they were going to die there is no easy way to convince oneself that leaping out of a window is preferable to being consumed by the flames roaring near oneself. To someone suffering from depression, traumas and/or persecution there exist only those two options as well: death or death. Just pick the one which hurts the least. That's why they are all heroes.
The second thought the media frenzy brought to mind was just how much the whole treating suicidal people as weak individuals one should take pity on irks me. It appears to be the overburdening thought on the minds of those who don't know what really goes on inside the minds of those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts. In many ways it's ridiculous for individuals who have lived relatively comfortable lives without any major adversity or close relatives or friends committing suicide or dying to assume anything about mortality. They do not understand how much everyone of us who deal with thoughts about our own mortality and the constant fight to keep living is hardened by these experiences.
They say that those who face the most adversity in life turn out to be among the wisest, strongest and gentlest people imaginable and I think that is generally true. We understand the ups and downs of life. We have seen what hell is like and have a fairly good picture of heaven. We also understand that at times one has to reach out for help as we cannot do everyone on our own. This is where the patronizing attitude to suicide makes everything worse.
Before my suicide attempt I didn't really like talking about it because it made people uncomfortable. Afterwards I was surprised by how shocked people responded to the fact that I had tried to take my own life. To me it was just something that had happened and which made perfect sense to me. It's like being shocked at a lion gorging on the carcass of a gazelle. It's how life works. Now that I'm still suicidally depressed but actually do talk about it on my blog and video logs I notice that little has changed from four years ago. People shy away from suicidal people. Nobody wants to deal with them or acknowledge the issue.
The whole 'talk to a psychologist' and 'take some anti-depressants' nonsense is all part of it. Don't deal with the issue. Ignore it. Make it someone else's responsibility. That's how even an international celebrity who was adored by many and who made his struggle with depression hardly a secret never found the help he needed. How likely is it that the more common folk among us will get the help they need, then? If the past decade of my own experiences and the stories of many others I talked with during that time are anything to judge by, it seems best to give up on the thought of trying to find any help, regardless of the underlying cause of one's suicidal thoughts.
Though every case of depression and suicidal thoughts is unique, there is always a reason and a solution. If the reason hasn't been found yet, it's still there. Depression doesn't just happen. I saw a quote attributed to Stephen Fry comparing depression to the weather in the sense that it 'just is'. I take issue with this assessment, though it's also a very ambiguous statement to make. First of all the weather isn't necessarily bad or good. Nor do we want to get rid of it. A depression is always bad and always inflicts horrible damage on the person suffering from it as well as their environment. Depression also has to be solved and dealt with. But not by patronizing the person fighting with it. Instead we should acknowledge that they are not crazy, weak or anything else that is negative.
Acknowledge the fight a depressed person is fighting, then try to determine the cause to best support them. Here we broadly have two possibilities: a physical cause and one rooted in one's environment or society. The physical one can be a biochemical problem which is treatable with medication and possibly counselling. The other one is the ugly one which is most akin to being trapped high up in a burning skyscraper. This is the 'no help after trauma' depression. As this is a broad area with far too much ground to cover in a single article I'll just limit it to my own story, also going back to the original title of this article: why I would try to commit suicide again.
Even though I have a well-paying job and apparently a bright future with a lot of requests for my intellectual capabilities as I get asked to write technical reference books and manage to know at least something about virtually every area in science and technology, I still struggle with a central problem in my life: feeling lonely and misunderstood, without acknowledgement for the trauma I have gone through for the past 25 years. All that I feel left with is this constant pain of both a physical and emotional nature as I trudge through life all by myself. I have given up on trying to come close to others or have 'normal' relations as it doesn't feel right and my pain always seems to lash out at others around me, hurting them in turn.
The central issue at the core of this pain I deal with is the issue of my body. Even after a decade-long struggle with medical systems around the world I still am unable to say what my body is, with me fearing that the 'you're crazy' side among physicians only saying this to protect themselves from a massive lawsuit. I could be a hermaphrodite or at least have some form of intersex. I know that I'm not male or female because my physiology supports neither claim, yet I'm still being put away as some crazy transgender person with me having no recourse against this. Regular harassment both on and off-line are a result of this in addition to the massive self-doubt this has created inside my own mind.
I don't know what I am. I also have never had anything to fill up this gap the way for example transgenders at some point figure out what their physical identity has to be. I merely pretend to be female because it's convenient and fits the best. I still don't know what I am, and this hurts more than anything. Physicians refusing to tell me what I am, arguing amongst themselves and making me wonder whether they are truly scheming against me or whether I'm just paranoid further increases the pain. I feel like a freak. A piece of trash. Less than an animal. As a result I hate this body of mine more than anything in this world.
Destroying the body I inhabit is one of my fondest fantasies. Just to erase all of the pain and hurt associated with it. Correct the mistake of having been born in this body that is just 'wrong' and which will only keep causing me more and more pain for as long as it exists.
Would talking with a psychologist help with this? Maybe anti-depressants? Unlikely. Combined with the severe PTSD I suffered over the past years there is no way that just talking or medicating is solving anything. I still won't learn anything about this body. I won't learn to live with the fact that the medical community has betrayed me. All it'll do is push the issue away under a medication-induced haze.
Suicide, then?
At this point there is still some distance between me and the wall of flames so that I can keep the faint hope that maybe I won't have to die. This can rapidly change, though. The memory of the intense sensation of peace I once felt becomes very alluring at that point. For now I just keep trying to bury myself in intellectual pursuits to keep the monster at bay.
For now, though, I have put the MRI scans made of me over the past decade online for anyone interested to peruse[1]. I'm willing to make any other parts of my medical file available and answer any questions if it may be helpful for those willing to help me. I have done my part. Now I wait. And hope.
How valuable is a singular existence, anyway?
Maya
[1] 2007-12-21: MRI, Germany: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqVjJUUHY4NGtlREE/edit?usp=sharing
2008-11-06: Erasmus MC, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqQzZxN3hNWVdNN2M/edit?usp=sharing
2009-12-??: OLVG, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqZllzX1U5UGJYcTA/edit?usp=sharing
2013-06-28: MST, Netherlands: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqbTRZb3BxeWVxa00/edit?usp=sharing
2014-07-08: Uni Tubingen, Germany: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxh_xOXTRtQqd3dTUk9uQ0dYQUU/edit?usp=sharing
Thursday, 27 March 2014
Intersex Discrimination Hearing Results And My Ambiguous Feelings On The Netherlands
On Monday the 24th I travelled to my current home city of Karlsruhe, Germany to Utrecht in the Netherlands. There I met up with a friend of a friend at whose place I would be spending the night. The next morning I made my way to the office of the College voor de Rechten van de Mens (Human Rights Institute) for the hearing which took place there against my former health insurance company Univé. Representatives of the general health insurance organization CVZ and from the Ministry of VWS (Health, etc.) were present as well.
During the hearing which took well over an hour the facts as they had been gathered in the letter exchange of the past months (detailed on this blog as well) were put together. In essence it came down to that the Ministry hadn't done anything untoward as the legal article they had written was neutral and implicitly inclusive. The interpretation of this article by CVZ was addressed, however, as the interpretation they had provided of said article had been unclear and focused on transsexuals. The question to CVZ by the College thus was how they defined 'intersex' and whether this falls into their interpretation of this law article.
CVZ seemed to be quite ignorant of what intersex exactly was, quoting a statement by one of their medical advisors that only three types of intersex were defined before (hermaphroditism, semi-hermaphroditism, gonadal), something which is patently false. They then went on to reference DSD as the new and current term, which would be better because it is more inclusive. While I vehemently disagreed with this statement, I did not interject or otherwise object against these statements as it did not directly affect my case. CVZ ultimately did agree that there are a lot of conditions which would also fall within the reference frame when applying this law to individuals. The conclusion here was that with me being intersex, I should have received full coverage.
Finally Univé was left to make a statement on how it wished to proceed from this point. Here a clear tactical retreat was made, with the Univé representative stating that they might be willing to retroactively cover all of the costs I have made while undergoing the hair-removal therapy over the past years (over 6,000 Euro still uncovered), if they could verify via an independent Dutch physician that I am in fact intersex. The College asked Univé to clarify what kind of medical information they would further need to prove that I am intersex, quoting a section from a report from the surgeon from Hamburg in which he stated that I have an intersex body in his professional opinion. Univé responded that they did not know this information and would ask their medical advisor.
Then the College asked me to comment on this proposal. I objected against the demand that it would have to be a Dutch physician, explaining the complete disagreement between Dutch and German physicians on my physical state. I suggested that the reports by the now four German medical teams would qualify as 'independent' since they have no connection or relation to me, Univé, the Dutch medical system or anything else which might make them not impartial. Finally I mentioned my visit to a German reconstructive surgeon next month who will reconstruct my female side. In my view this already fully proved that I am in fact intersex.
A brief recess was called. Outside the hearing room the representatives and I talked about the case, finding that we pretty much agreed on everything I had said and finding no points of disagreement. On the contrary, we all agreed that it was a very weird case, especially with the unusual reports from the Dutch physicians who completely counter-indicated everything the German physicians said, despite the surgery done in Germany in 2011 decidedly refuting the Dutch reports. As the recess ended we went back into the room.
The College asked me whether I would be willing to take Univé up on this offer upon which I repeated my objections. Univé responded to this by saying that they would talk with their medical advisor again and would let both me and the College know in about two weeks time what information they would require from me. This I found to be acceptable, changing the case into the mediation situation whereby Univé and I will try to settle our differences. I argued to the College that if Univé covers the costs I have made it would be sufficient for me as this is what I initially set out to accomplish.
With this the hearing ended. It'll take about two weeks now before I know whether I can settle matters with Univé or that it has to go back to the College for judgement. All depends on what Univé thinks they require to prove to themselves that I am intersex. Apparently the Dutch judge's ruling in 2012 that I am in fact intersex and a stack of reports from four German medical teams doesn't suffice. If they keep up their claim of only accepting a Dutch physician's report, then I fear that it will have to go back to the College for a ruling. Dutch physicians at this point have proven themselves to be completely and utterly unreliable if not untrustworthy when it comes to handling intersex cases.
My way back to Germany after the hearing was uneventful. Walking back to the train station in Utrecht I observed everything around me, but didn't really detect any sense of longing or loathing. My feelings towards the Netherlands in general are more of an uncomfortable sadness. While I loathe the Dutch medical system with all my might due to what they have inflicted upon me, I do not dislike or hate the country in general. Having spent a few months living in Germany I also got impressed by just how small the Netherlands is, in a physical sense. It makes me question the relevance of spending much time on achieving justice in such a small country.
Crossing the border back into the Germany I mostly felt relief. The Netherlands hadn't felt welcoming or pleasant to me. While I recognize much of the sights and of course speak the language fluently, it would be amiss to claim that I in any way feel a connection with the country. It's just another country, albeit one which has done me considerable harm. I just don't know what to think, really. In fact, the next day I noticed that I felt much better about living in Germany and Karlsruhe now. Everything just feels more relaxed and pleasant here and I even get proper medical care. The Netherlands feels like strife to me, whereas Germany - though not a vacation - actually offers me possibilities. In a way I actually feel more human in Germany.
Here is to a quick resolution to the Univé case. Two years is a long time to fight over something so silly.
Maya
During the hearing which took well over an hour the facts as they had been gathered in the letter exchange of the past months (detailed on this blog as well) were put together. In essence it came down to that the Ministry hadn't done anything untoward as the legal article they had written was neutral and implicitly inclusive. The interpretation of this article by CVZ was addressed, however, as the interpretation they had provided of said article had been unclear and focused on transsexuals. The question to CVZ by the College thus was how they defined 'intersex' and whether this falls into their interpretation of this law article.
CVZ seemed to be quite ignorant of what intersex exactly was, quoting a statement by one of their medical advisors that only three types of intersex were defined before (hermaphroditism, semi-hermaphroditism, gonadal), something which is patently false. They then went on to reference DSD as the new and current term, which would be better because it is more inclusive. While I vehemently disagreed with this statement, I did not interject or otherwise object against these statements as it did not directly affect my case. CVZ ultimately did agree that there are a lot of conditions which would also fall within the reference frame when applying this law to individuals. The conclusion here was that with me being intersex, I should have received full coverage.
Finally Univé was left to make a statement on how it wished to proceed from this point. Here a clear tactical retreat was made, with the Univé representative stating that they might be willing to retroactively cover all of the costs I have made while undergoing the hair-removal therapy over the past years (over 6,000 Euro still uncovered), if they could verify via an independent Dutch physician that I am in fact intersex. The College asked Univé to clarify what kind of medical information they would further need to prove that I am intersex, quoting a section from a report from the surgeon from Hamburg in which he stated that I have an intersex body in his professional opinion. Univé responded that they did not know this information and would ask their medical advisor.
Then the College asked me to comment on this proposal. I objected against the demand that it would have to be a Dutch physician, explaining the complete disagreement between Dutch and German physicians on my physical state. I suggested that the reports by the now four German medical teams would qualify as 'independent' since they have no connection or relation to me, Univé, the Dutch medical system or anything else which might make them not impartial. Finally I mentioned my visit to a German reconstructive surgeon next month who will reconstruct my female side. In my view this already fully proved that I am in fact intersex.
A brief recess was called. Outside the hearing room the representatives and I talked about the case, finding that we pretty much agreed on everything I had said and finding no points of disagreement. On the contrary, we all agreed that it was a very weird case, especially with the unusual reports from the Dutch physicians who completely counter-indicated everything the German physicians said, despite the surgery done in Germany in 2011 decidedly refuting the Dutch reports. As the recess ended we went back into the room.
The College asked me whether I would be willing to take Univé up on this offer upon which I repeated my objections. Univé responded to this by saying that they would talk with their medical advisor again and would let both me and the College know in about two weeks time what information they would require from me. This I found to be acceptable, changing the case into the mediation situation whereby Univé and I will try to settle our differences. I argued to the College that if Univé covers the costs I have made it would be sufficient for me as this is what I initially set out to accomplish.
With this the hearing ended. It'll take about two weeks now before I know whether I can settle matters with Univé or that it has to go back to the College for judgement. All depends on what Univé thinks they require to prove to themselves that I am intersex. Apparently the Dutch judge's ruling in 2012 that I am in fact intersex and a stack of reports from four German medical teams doesn't suffice. If they keep up their claim of only accepting a Dutch physician's report, then I fear that it will have to go back to the College for a ruling. Dutch physicians at this point have proven themselves to be completely and utterly unreliable if not untrustworthy when it comes to handling intersex cases.
My way back to Germany after the hearing was uneventful. Walking back to the train station in Utrecht I observed everything around me, but didn't really detect any sense of longing or loathing. My feelings towards the Netherlands in general are more of an uncomfortable sadness. While I loathe the Dutch medical system with all my might due to what they have inflicted upon me, I do not dislike or hate the country in general. Having spent a few months living in Germany I also got impressed by just how small the Netherlands is, in a physical sense. It makes me question the relevance of spending much time on achieving justice in such a small country.
Crossing the border back into the Germany I mostly felt relief. The Netherlands hadn't felt welcoming or pleasant to me. While I recognize much of the sights and of course speak the language fluently, it would be amiss to claim that I in any way feel a connection with the country. It's just another country, albeit one which has done me considerable harm. I just don't know what to think, really. In fact, the next day I noticed that I felt much better about living in Germany and Karlsruhe now. Everything just feels more relaxed and pleasant here and I even get proper medical care. The Netherlands feels like strife to me, whereas Germany - though not a vacation - actually offers me possibilities. In a way I actually feel more human in Germany.
Here is to a quick resolution to the Univé case. Two years is a long time to fight over something so silly.
Maya
Saturday, 22 March 2014
This Could Be The End Game Or Just More Of The Same
On Monday I'll be boarding the train towards the Netherlands in order to attend the hearing at the Human Rights Institute (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) in Utrecht as I announced in my previous post. I have prepared it as well as possible, with a nice place to stay during the night of Monday on Tuesday and the Insitute's offices within walking distance. My train tickets to and from Utrecht have been booked and I have taken up the necessary free days from my work. I have read up on the details of the case already quite a lot due to the blog posts I have written on the responses from the Minister of Health, CVZ and the like. While everything seems to be heading into my favour with this case, there are still many ways that this could play out.
Most negatively, the Institute could determine that my claim that my former health insurer Univé discriminated against me for being intersex - when determining whether I could get full hair-removal therapy coverage - is invalid due to some or another reason or loophole. Since Univé's statements have included phrases such as that 'intersex in no way comparable is with transsexuality' (paraphrasing), while CVZ's statement counteract this, it seems that a more positive outcome is likely. It is hard to tell what this might be exactly.
Also quite negatively would be if my claim would be found to be valid, but no further measures would be taken. Not against Univé, not against CVZ, not against the Minister of Health. More positive outcomes would be Univé getting disciplined or fined, either through the government or CVZ. CVZ itself deserves disciplining as well for so easily dismissing me before in the 2011/2012 case at SKGZ as being intersex. SKGZ itself falls outside the Institute's case, but the Minister of Health should get reprimanded by the Insitute at least for so completely ignoring and forgetting about a group of people in the Netherlands much larger in count than that of transgenders while drawing up and revising law articles.
We'll know in a few months when the verdict of the Institute becomes known. At any rate I hope it doesn't turn out like my case at the Medical Disciplinary Commission in Amsterdam against the VUmc gender team last year which was fully dismissed. That was a bitter defeat. Yet even in this case at the Institute I do not expect I will get any apologies or findancial compensation for the emotional and financial costs of the past years due to Univé's refusal.
At least partially I seem to be correct about Germany so far. The medical professionals here seem to be far more human when it comes to more unusual cases. When I first visited my new family doctor (GP) a few weeks ago, she learned about my intersex condition only there during that first appointment. Yet it didn't phase her one bit, taking it in stride, only commenting on it being very unusual for her, but immediately drawing up plans to find me the proper help and having no issues with contacting this German surgeon I had found for me. During our email conversation this week she even commented on how interesting she found my case to be, if only as a very educational experience for herself. I cannot remember for the life me when any medical professional or similar in the Netherlands has ever said anything like that to me.
Anyway, to make a long story short: I have an appointment with this surgeon on the 24th of April at 11.00, so just over a month to go. The clinic the surgeon works at is in the Munich area, so that's going to mean another bit of logistics. Since it's a 3-hour trip by ICE from Karlsruhe to Munich alone, that will make doing it in a single day a tough task. I think I would also like to have someone accompany me on this initial consult appointment for both practical and mental support.
While this appointment is 'merely' a consult, the surgeon has already looked at my medical files and MRI scans before so we both will go into it with the goal of setting up a surgery. Here my dreams of regaining my body by having my female side restored through a reconstructive surgery will meet this surgeon's professional reality and the limits of his skills. Here I know that I can take small disappointments and compromises. If I can get access to all that my body has been born with, that is all that I need right now. All I fear here is a repeat of last year's disappointment when I thought I had found a surgeon in the Netherlands, yet he turned me resolutely down at the last moment without a proper excuse.
To think about this surgery actually happening and it being over with in maybe two months from now is almost inconceivable to me. For a decade now I have been stuck in this infinite loop where any hope to get medical help got squashed mercilessly. No recognition, just accusations of me being a lying, self-deceiving, impossible to handle transgender person who was just making life hard for itself by being so difficult and suffering from those self-delusions about somehow having an intersex condition. Only thanks to German medical evidence have I been able to partially break out of this loop, but only a successful surgery will fully break it forever.
When I think about after this potential surgery, that I could reach down there and feel the changes. This thought doesn't carry any kind of sexual energy with it, only sheer and utter relief, enough to send me wailing into tears of thankfulness, that it's all finally over, done with it and never will come back again. This would be the end game: the proper conclusion to a decade of suffering due to the rigid, patronizing and human rights violating attitude in the Netherlands towards medical minorities.
Or just another series of horrible disappointments, sending me back to square one.
Maya
Most negatively, the Institute could determine that my claim that my former health insurer Univé discriminated against me for being intersex - when determining whether I could get full hair-removal therapy coverage - is invalid due to some or another reason or loophole. Since Univé's statements have included phrases such as that 'intersex in no way comparable is with transsexuality' (paraphrasing), while CVZ's statement counteract this, it seems that a more positive outcome is likely. It is hard to tell what this might be exactly.
Also quite negatively would be if my claim would be found to be valid, but no further measures would be taken. Not against Univé, not against CVZ, not against the Minister of Health. More positive outcomes would be Univé getting disciplined or fined, either through the government or CVZ. CVZ itself deserves disciplining as well for so easily dismissing me before in the 2011/2012 case at SKGZ as being intersex. SKGZ itself falls outside the Institute's case, but the Minister of Health should get reprimanded by the Insitute at least for so completely ignoring and forgetting about a group of people in the Netherlands much larger in count than that of transgenders while drawing up and revising law articles.
We'll know in a few months when the verdict of the Institute becomes known. At any rate I hope it doesn't turn out like my case at the Medical Disciplinary Commission in Amsterdam against the VUmc gender team last year which was fully dismissed. That was a bitter defeat. Yet even in this case at the Institute I do not expect I will get any apologies or findancial compensation for the emotional and financial costs of the past years due to Univé's refusal.
At least partially I seem to be correct about Germany so far. The medical professionals here seem to be far more human when it comes to more unusual cases. When I first visited my new family doctor (GP) a few weeks ago, she learned about my intersex condition only there during that first appointment. Yet it didn't phase her one bit, taking it in stride, only commenting on it being very unusual for her, but immediately drawing up plans to find me the proper help and having no issues with contacting this German surgeon I had found for me. During our email conversation this week she even commented on how interesting she found my case to be, if only as a very educational experience for herself. I cannot remember for the life me when any medical professional or similar in the Netherlands has ever said anything like that to me.
Anyway, to make a long story short: I have an appointment with this surgeon on the 24th of April at 11.00, so just over a month to go. The clinic the surgeon works at is in the Munich area, so that's going to mean another bit of logistics. Since it's a 3-hour trip by ICE from Karlsruhe to Munich alone, that will make doing it in a single day a tough task. I think I would also like to have someone accompany me on this initial consult appointment for both practical and mental support.
While this appointment is 'merely' a consult, the surgeon has already looked at my medical files and MRI scans before so we both will go into it with the goal of setting up a surgery. Here my dreams of regaining my body by having my female side restored through a reconstructive surgery will meet this surgeon's professional reality and the limits of his skills. Here I know that I can take small disappointments and compromises. If I can get access to all that my body has been born with, that is all that I need right now. All I fear here is a repeat of last year's disappointment when I thought I had found a surgeon in the Netherlands, yet he turned me resolutely down at the last moment without a proper excuse.
To think about this surgery actually happening and it being over with in maybe two months from now is almost inconceivable to me. For a decade now I have been stuck in this infinite loop where any hope to get medical help got squashed mercilessly. No recognition, just accusations of me being a lying, self-deceiving, impossible to handle transgender person who was just making life hard for itself by being so difficult and suffering from those self-delusions about somehow having an intersex condition. Only thanks to German medical evidence have I been able to partially break out of this loop, but only a successful surgery will fully break it forever.
When I think about after this potential surgery, that I could reach down there and feel the changes. This thought doesn't carry any kind of sexual energy with it, only sheer and utter relief, enough to send me wailing into tears of thankfulness, that it's all finally over, done with it and never will come back again. This would be the end game: the proper conclusion to a decade of suffering due to the rigid, patronizing and human rights violating attitude in the Netherlands towards medical minorities.
Or just another series of horrible disappointments, sending me back to square one.
Maya
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Final Hearing In Intersex Discrimination Case Against Unive
I received a letter from the Human Rights Institute (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) this week informing me that I'm obligated to appear at the next and apparently final hearing in the intersex discrimination case against my former Dutch health insurance company, Univé. This regarding Univé's decision to not fully cover a therapy for me which they fully cover for transsexuals. Their reason for doing so was that supposedly the Dutch Minister of Health as well as the central health insurance organization CVZ have only specified full coverage for the latter group and not intersex individuals. During the discovery phase the past months it turned out that this was not the case. CVZ has made it clear that this therapy coverage can also apply to intersex individuals.
The hearing itself is on the 25th of March, at 11.00 AM at the Institute's office in Utrecht (Kleinesingel 1-3) and is open to the public. This means that I will have to travel to Utrecht on the 24th and spend the night somewhere as the trip from Karlsruhe takes about 6 hours, which would force me to board an ICE around 3 AM to make it to Utrecht in time. I'm still sorting out the logistics of how and where I'll stay. Any help with this would be most welcome. Somewhere in Utrecht would be the most practical, I'd imagine.
This will also be my first time back in the Netherlands after migrating to Germany in December last year. To me it brings back many painful memories and feelings, both positive and negative. It reminds me of how much I miss the Netherlands in some ways, but also of why I had to leave it. Dealing with these contradictory feelings combined with my PTSD and having to organize the logistics of the whole trip is putting me pretty much at the limits of what I can take emotionally.
At the end of the hearing on the 25th it will be announced when the Institute will pronounce their official conclusion in this case. Though they can not enforce Univé to do anything, it would nevertheless set a strong precedent for any future legal case, whether by myself or others. I do not think that there is a reasonable chance that I will see back the around six-thousand Euros I should have received back with full coverage, but it is something which has to be done nevertheless. Justice is more important than anything else.
Maya
The hearing itself is on the 25th of March, at 11.00 AM at the Institute's office in Utrecht (Kleinesingel 1-3) and is open to the public. This means that I will have to travel to Utrecht on the 24th and spend the night somewhere as the trip from Karlsruhe takes about 6 hours, which would force me to board an ICE around 3 AM to make it to Utrecht in time. I'm still sorting out the logistics of how and where I'll stay. Any help with this would be most welcome. Somewhere in Utrecht would be the most practical, I'd imagine.
This will also be my first time back in the Netherlands after migrating to Germany in December last year. To me it brings back many painful memories and feelings, both positive and negative. It reminds me of how much I miss the Netherlands in some ways, but also of why I had to leave it. Dealing with these contradictory feelings combined with my PTSD and having to organize the logistics of the whole trip is putting me pretty much at the limits of what I can take emotionally.
At the end of the hearing on the 25th it will be announced when the Institute will pronounce their official conclusion in this case. Though they can not enforce Univé to do anything, it would nevertheless set a strong precedent for any future legal case, whether by myself or others. I do not think that there is a reasonable chance that I will see back the around six-thousand Euros I should have received back with full coverage, but it is something which has to be done nevertheless. Justice is more important than anything else.
Maya
Thursday, 20 February 2014
CVZ's Response To Intersex Discrimination Case
The discrimination case I have running at the Dutch Human Rights Institute (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) since last year against my former health insurance company Unive is an odd one. Before I had it taken over by the institute it seemed fairly simple, in that the position of Unive was that full coverage for permanent hair removal by intersex people was not possible at all, whereas for transsexual people it was totally covered. The excuse from Unive being that they are two medically completely different situations.
In the first case I started against Unive, at the SKGZ, the opinion of the central organization for healthcare insurance companies, CVZ, was asked for the first time. Reading back their original conclusion from 7 September 2012 it can be summarized as follows: they never suggest or state explicitly that they distinguish between transsexual and intersex individuals in the coverage of permanent (facial) hair removal. They state that the medical evidence provided is insufficient at that point to say that I'm a hermaphrodite or intersex. They agree that there is no sign of transsexuality. Note that at this point I have had my official gender changed already (March 2012) due to medical evidence of me being a hermaphrodite, considered to be sufficient by the judge, who even went so far as to more liberally interpret the law in question due to my female side not being visible externally.
With the response from the Dutch Minster of Health (see earlier blog post) essentially indicating that they never considered intersex individuals in any way, form or shape. Thus saying that the law which enables full coverage for certain therapies in the case of for example transsexuals can not be guaranteed to also apply to intersex individuals. They simply never spent a single thought on the matter.
The pattern we thus see here is one where things start off benign; with a clueless collection of civil servants and ministers putting a law together without considering the full scope due to having bad medical advisors from the looks of it. The resulting neutrally phrased law is then passed on to CVZ which isn't making any definite statements when you read into their words, thus not limiting or setting the scope. Finally the health insurance company who has to implement sees this lack of scope as an opportunity to limit it for as much as they can and meanwhile end up blaming CVZ for 'making them do it'. During the hearing at the Human Rights Institute in Utrecht last year it was literally the Unive representative repeating himself, saying every time that they were just following the interpretation from CVZ.
Recently I received the response from CVZ to the questions asked by the Insitute after another long delay much like that for the Minister of Health. In it they basically state that intersex and hermaphroditism do most definitely contain cases which are comparable to those in transsexuality whereby full coverage of hair removal therapy is provided, as pointed out in their 2008 statement as listed on the website. They repeat that the only reason why they didn't indicate me for full coverage in 2012 was because they could not assign the diagnosis 'hermaphrodite' to me. This again despite the recognition of me as such by the Dutch legal system.
The conclusions one can draw from this whole is that a) Unive lied when they said that they were just following CVZ's interpretation and b) that the refusal by medical and insuring Netherlands to recognize me as being intersex seems to be once again at the center at this issue. Or to put it differently, of fundamental discrimination against intersex individuals within the insurance and medical world in the Netherlands. I have legitimate proof of me being intersex and a hermaphrodite, which according to CVZ would have been enough to qualify me for full coverage. I did have said evidence back in March 2012 already. There was no reason to deny my request.
Instead Unive lied and CVZ ignored a recent court ruling while the Dutch Health Minister looks like a foolish knave, wholly unaware of the real world with its real people.
With this last response it is now up the Human Rights Institute to decide on the next step. Whether there will be another hearing, another evidence gathering round or something else I do not know. I will just patiently await their judgement as I hope that some justice can still be served in the Netherlands.
Maya
In the first case I started against Unive, at the SKGZ, the opinion of the central organization for healthcare insurance companies, CVZ, was asked for the first time. Reading back their original conclusion from 7 September 2012 it can be summarized as follows: they never suggest or state explicitly that they distinguish between transsexual and intersex individuals in the coverage of permanent (facial) hair removal. They state that the medical evidence provided is insufficient at that point to say that I'm a hermaphrodite or intersex. They agree that there is no sign of transsexuality. Note that at this point I have had my official gender changed already (March 2012) due to medical evidence of me being a hermaphrodite, considered to be sufficient by the judge, who even went so far as to more liberally interpret the law in question due to my female side not being visible externally.
With the response from the Dutch Minster of Health (see earlier blog post) essentially indicating that they never considered intersex individuals in any way, form or shape. Thus saying that the law which enables full coverage for certain therapies in the case of for example transsexuals can not be guaranteed to also apply to intersex individuals. They simply never spent a single thought on the matter.
The pattern we thus see here is one where things start off benign; with a clueless collection of civil servants and ministers putting a law together without considering the full scope due to having bad medical advisors from the looks of it. The resulting neutrally phrased law is then passed on to CVZ which isn't making any definite statements when you read into their words, thus not limiting or setting the scope. Finally the health insurance company who has to implement sees this lack of scope as an opportunity to limit it for as much as they can and meanwhile end up blaming CVZ for 'making them do it'. During the hearing at the Human Rights Institute in Utrecht last year it was literally the Unive representative repeating himself, saying every time that they were just following the interpretation from CVZ.
Recently I received the response from CVZ to the questions asked by the Insitute after another long delay much like that for the Minister of Health. In it they basically state that intersex and hermaphroditism do most definitely contain cases which are comparable to those in transsexuality whereby full coverage of hair removal therapy is provided, as pointed out in their 2008 statement as listed on the website. They repeat that the only reason why they didn't indicate me for full coverage in 2012 was because they could not assign the diagnosis 'hermaphrodite' to me. This again despite the recognition of me as such by the Dutch legal system.
The conclusions one can draw from this whole is that a) Unive lied when they said that they were just following CVZ's interpretation and b) that the refusal by medical and insuring Netherlands to recognize me as being intersex seems to be once again at the center at this issue. Or to put it differently, of fundamental discrimination against intersex individuals within the insurance and medical world in the Netherlands. I have legitimate proof of me being intersex and a hermaphrodite, which according to CVZ would have been enough to qualify me for full coverage. I did have said evidence back in March 2012 already. There was no reason to deny my request.
Instead Unive lied and CVZ ignored a recent court ruling while the Dutch Health Minister looks like a foolish knave, wholly unaware of the real world with its real people.
With this last response it is now up the Human Rights Institute to decide on the next step. Whether there will be another hearing, another evidence gathering round or something else I do not know. I will just patiently await their judgement as I hope that some justice can still be served in the Netherlands.
Maya
Tuesday, 26 November 2013
Discrimination Case Against Unive Not At An End Yet
Yesterday I had the hearing at the College voor de Rechten van de Mens (Human Rights Institute) in Utrecht against my health insurance company Unive for discrimination against intersex individuals. Not too much can be said about the hearing other than that after I summarized the essence of the matter, we just kept spinning in circles as the guy representing Unive could not say why they wouldn't fully cover this hair-removal therapy for an intersex person while they do so for transsexuals. In the end it all came down to that their medical adviser had initially said that it should be like this, then CVZ (the organization representing all Dutch health insurance companies) had released their view on the matter, also limiting coverage to transsexuals.
As the members of the institute who were represented at the hearing correctly mentioned neither Unive nor CVZ ever explained their reasoning behind the exclusion of intersex. With the situation being virtually identical from a legal and medical perspective, it'd be hard to argue for such an exclusion anyway. Both concern the transition from a male to a female role and both involve a higher-than-female level of testosterone which resulted in beard growth (which never goes away on its own) prior to a medical procedure which removed the source of the excess testosterone. The presence of this beard growth is thus regarded by the relevant Dutch healthcare law (2.4) as a 'verminking' (disfiguration) and full coverage to have it removed by a professional is provided.
This matter will now be taken to a higher level as the institute will query CVZ for their reasoning behind this decision to limit this law to just transgenders despite it being an open law. Depending on the response another hearing may be schedule at a later date. At any rate this matter can't be put to rest just yet. It is conceivable that even the Dutch Minister of Health (Edith Schippers) may have to justify or clarify certain matters here. At this point it seems that the claim of discrimination based on gender is well and truly justified here and thus a direct violation of the very first article in the Dutch constitution.
For me it would definitely help to get this discrimination acknowledged and possibly be reimbursed for the money I should have received back from Unive. This too was a question during the hearing, namely how much money I had spent beyond the 200-300/year Unive had covered from the extended insurance. This amount came down to over 6,000 Euro in about 6 years time, or over a thousand Euro a year.
I do hope that this Human Rights Institute can provide some measure of justice here, so that I can at least regain some of my trust in the Dutch justice system after my case against the VUmc gender team got thrown out by the medical disciplinary commission earlier this month.
Maya
As the members of the institute who were represented at the hearing correctly mentioned neither Unive nor CVZ ever explained their reasoning behind the exclusion of intersex. With the situation being virtually identical from a legal and medical perspective, it'd be hard to argue for such an exclusion anyway. Both concern the transition from a male to a female role and both involve a higher-than-female level of testosterone which resulted in beard growth (which never goes away on its own) prior to a medical procedure which removed the source of the excess testosterone. The presence of this beard growth is thus regarded by the relevant Dutch healthcare law (2.4) as a 'verminking' (disfiguration) and full coverage to have it removed by a professional is provided.
This matter will now be taken to a higher level as the institute will query CVZ for their reasoning behind this decision to limit this law to just transgenders despite it being an open law. Depending on the response another hearing may be schedule at a later date. At any rate this matter can't be put to rest just yet. It is conceivable that even the Dutch Minister of Health (Edith Schippers) may have to justify or clarify certain matters here. At this point it seems that the claim of discrimination based on gender is well and truly justified here and thus a direct violation of the very first article in the Dutch constitution.
For me it would definitely help to get this discrimination acknowledged and possibly be reimbursed for the money I should have received back from Unive. This too was a question during the hearing, namely how much money I had spent beyond the 200-300/year Unive had covered from the extended insurance. This amount came down to over 6,000 Euro in about 6 years time, or over a thousand Euro a year.
I do hope that this Human Rights Institute can provide some measure of justice here, so that I can at least regain some of my trust in the Dutch justice system after my case against the VUmc gender team got thrown out by the medical disciplinary commission earlier this month.
Maya
Thursday, 26 September 2013
Aftermath Of Hearing Against VUmc Gender Team
Two days ago was the hearing against the VUmc gender team as previously announced on my blog. That I haven't written about it yet has multiple reasons, mostly that I needed some time to process it all and due to being quite busy with the efforts involved to leave the Netherlands. Long story short, I got virtually everything arranged there now. All services I was subscribed to have been cancelled where appropriate, I have no official place of residence in the Netherlands any more, and I have all the necessary paperwork to settle in Germany. Only blemish on this all is having to deal with the theft of my belongings, but this too should soon see some police and legal action.
Anyway, with all of that out of the way, I finally am able to write this summary of the hearing. Of course to me it's been something which is more than a day. Since the previous hearing on February 10th this year I have been more or less living towards this hearing. It's also in many ways the culmination of the nearly nine years I have had to suffer, the wasted decade of dealing with physicians refusing to be physicians. Yet despite the importance of the whole event I couldn't find myself to be nervous or apprehensive in any sense. If anything it was more of a 'let's get this over with' kinda thing, what with the low chances of success I have written about before.
On the day itself I travelled to Amsterdam together with my mother. We arrived just a few minutes before my lawyer, Yme Drost, joined us fresh out of another hearing at the same courthouse. He and I spent the minutes before the hearing started reading up on some parts of the massive piles of medical evidence and letters collected as well as discussing a few items of importance. Two friends also had arrived at this point and were waiting in front of the doors to the room where the hearing would be held. Shortly after 2 PM we were all let in and the hearing started. There was a surprisingly large audience, according to my lawyer. Nearly half of the seats were filled.
An interesting and pleasant surprise was the commission presiding over this hearing. The chairman was a female jurist, flanked by two physicians and two psychologists. This was unusual because psychologists aren't normally a part of the medical disciplinary commission, for quite obvious reasons. The chairman explained that because of the involvement of psychologists (Ms. Cohen-Kettenis) in the case, as well as the general psychological aspects, their presence was warranted. She also started the hearing by asking me how I was doing, after which I told her that I'm in the process of moving to Germany, for work and personal reasons, including my hope to have the final surgery there soon.
The general theme during the hearing which would take close to two and a half hours was that the VUmc members kept repeating the same mantra that it was their task to prevent unnecessary surgeries, that their approach of having only psychologists talk with patients even if they indicate being intersex is the right one, that their use of a blood test and quick external examination is sufficient to rule out intersex (or 'DSD' as they kept calling it), and that I was the one who had refused psychological help instead of them not having offered such help. They also insisted that I had normal male blood levels at the time and a normal functional set of male reproductive organs. The radiologist, Dr. Van Waesberghe, insisted that he had not seen any female organs on the scans, in addition to claiming that there had been no reason to contact the German radiologists, scoffing at the notion.
As the two physicians of the commission began to ask their questions, they asked me a number of informative questions, including on this restorative surgery I hope to have soon in Germany, the effects of testosterone blocker on prostate and testicle size as well as on the presence of the sperm-producing tissue (absent in my biopsy report). They also asked me questions about how I had experienced the help from German physicians, where I answered truthfully that I had loved it with their quick, efficient and personal attention. During their questioning of the VUmc physicians the latter were quickly forced to surrender on a few points and admit grudgingly that there were indeed a number of things they could have checked, including genotype (chromosomes, mosaicism), have performed an ultrasound and in general have paid more attention to the list of points I had brought to the VUmc's attention in the form of letters which were also part of the evidence.
The psychologists mostly had questions for me, especially on my drive for answers, whether I wasn't trying to prove that I had to be intersex or such. I told them about how until quite recently I'd regularly be standing in front of a mirror looking at myself and not knowing what I was seeing. How frustrated I felt at this, and how much I wanted to have a self-image. Some idea of what I was looking at instead of just facing endless questions. This was the only part where I actually became somewhat emotional.
During the final round of statements and questions my lawyer asked Dr. De Ronde of the VUmc whether the testosterone value measured of 21 nmol/L couldn't just have been a measuring error, considering the low amount of testosterone blocker I had to take (25% of what a male-to-female transsexual takes). De Ronde here upon dodged the question, saying that the exact amount of the blocker taken differs per patient. Besides, as he pointed out the other values which should be affected by a low testosterone level would have to be affected too, such as LSH, which were also 'normal male levels', according to De Ronde. I would like to note here that there is no way to verify the VUmc's measured values in any form or shape at this point. The testicular tissue biopsy results and testosterone blocker medication levels seem to put reasonable doubt there.
Yme also pointed out in his closing statement that it should be obvious to anyone in the room that even to his not medically trained eyes an intelligent woman was sitting next to him. That I would get referred to as 'male' by the VUmc seemed bizarre to him.
The gynaecologist of the VUmc, Dr. Trotsenburg, said in his final speech that all they wanted to do at the VUmc gender team was to avoid that people got unnecessary surgeries which wouldn't make them happy (despite me never have discussed surgery there). He also addressed me directly, saying that he had no idea where I found this current German surgeon, but told me to be careful. After this the lawyer of the VUmc gender team went on what I can only call a rant, distributing a stack of A4 pages to everyone with on it the reasons why I was a bumbling fool, couldn't be intersex, had arrogantly refused psychological help at any point and that all of the complaints against the VUmc should be summarily be dismissed. She sounded so angry at some points that I found myself thinking how much I disliked this person if she truly meant what she said.
After this I got a chance to say my piece. In my closing statement I mentioned how confused I still felt. I pointed the commission to how in 2010 a Dutch judge had approved my request for a first name change based upon having a female appearance, followed by the approval of my gender change to female by another Dutch judge in 2012. This, I said, showed that the justice system in the Netherlands agrees with me a) having a female appearance and b) being intersex, specifically a hermaphrodite. It also means that Dutch judges agree with the German physicians and not the Dutch ones. The only ones who do not agree here are Dutch physicians for some reason. I finished by saying that this was all I wanted to point out.
With the hearing over, Yme and I said goodbye to the commission and went outside along with everyone else. I felt pretty exhausted by then. Fortunately I could go home almost right away together with Yme. Before leaving, one of the friends who had arrived to watch the hearing gave me this plushie he had brought for me. I liked Yme's response to this: "That's part of it too, I guess." referring to me being female, I think.
Once back home I felt initially pretty good about things, what with Yme being more positive about our options of winning the case than ever before. Gradually I began to feel more depressed, though, until I couldn't stop myself from crying for a while. Even though I did very well at the hearing, with my lawyer complimenting me a number of times on my performance, it is as I pointed out in my final statement a ridiculous situation. To hear people who have ruined my life for so many years already say the same hurtful things again, defending their decisions and using the crude term 'Disorder of Sex Development' as though people with an intersex condition are some kind of freak, in addition to vehemently accusing me from exaggerating things and being a selfish little bitch... yes, it hurts. A whole lot.
I really hope that I do win this case. That those involved will have to eat some humble pie for once in their arrogant, infallible little lives. That life for people like me won't be turned into a living hell over and over again. Things have to stop here. If there's any justice left in this god-forsaken country, I hope it will be dished out here.
Whatever happens, though, I hope to be living safely in Germany by the time the verdict is made official. I still have to find house in the Karlsruhe area, but I have good hope that within two months it should all be arranged. Hopefully sooner. And please let this current German surgeon end the medical nightmare. I'm so sick of being 'special', 'different', 'unique' and whatever other sickening terms keep getting thrown at me. I want to be a plain, boring as hell person who just happens to be female. Pretty please?
The ruling will be made public on November the 19th this year.
Maya
Anyway, with all of that out of the way, I finally am able to write this summary of the hearing. Of course to me it's been something which is more than a day. Since the previous hearing on February 10th this year I have been more or less living towards this hearing. It's also in many ways the culmination of the nearly nine years I have had to suffer, the wasted decade of dealing with physicians refusing to be physicians. Yet despite the importance of the whole event I couldn't find myself to be nervous or apprehensive in any sense. If anything it was more of a 'let's get this over with' kinda thing, what with the low chances of success I have written about before.
On the day itself I travelled to Amsterdam together with my mother. We arrived just a few minutes before my lawyer, Yme Drost, joined us fresh out of another hearing at the same courthouse. He and I spent the minutes before the hearing started reading up on some parts of the massive piles of medical evidence and letters collected as well as discussing a few items of importance. Two friends also had arrived at this point and were waiting in front of the doors to the room where the hearing would be held. Shortly after 2 PM we were all let in and the hearing started. There was a surprisingly large audience, according to my lawyer. Nearly half of the seats were filled.
An interesting and pleasant surprise was the commission presiding over this hearing. The chairman was a female jurist, flanked by two physicians and two psychologists. This was unusual because psychologists aren't normally a part of the medical disciplinary commission, for quite obvious reasons. The chairman explained that because of the involvement of psychologists (Ms. Cohen-Kettenis) in the case, as well as the general psychological aspects, their presence was warranted. She also started the hearing by asking me how I was doing, after which I told her that I'm in the process of moving to Germany, for work and personal reasons, including my hope to have the final surgery there soon.
The general theme during the hearing which would take close to two and a half hours was that the VUmc members kept repeating the same mantra that it was their task to prevent unnecessary surgeries, that their approach of having only psychologists talk with patients even if they indicate being intersex is the right one, that their use of a blood test and quick external examination is sufficient to rule out intersex (or 'DSD' as they kept calling it), and that I was the one who had refused psychological help instead of them not having offered such help. They also insisted that I had normal male blood levels at the time and a normal functional set of male reproductive organs. The radiologist, Dr. Van Waesberghe, insisted that he had not seen any female organs on the scans, in addition to claiming that there had been no reason to contact the German radiologists, scoffing at the notion.
As the two physicians of the commission began to ask their questions, they asked me a number of informative questions, including on this restorative surgery I hope to have soon in Germany, the effects of testosterone blocker on prostate and testicle size as well as on the presence of the sperm-producing tissue (absent in my biopsy report). They also asked me questions about how I had experienced the help from German physicians, where I answered truthfully that I had loved it with their quick, efficient and personal attention. During their questioning of the VUmc physicians the latter were quickly forced to surrender on a few points and admit grudgingly that there were indeed a number of things they could have checked, including genotype (chromosomes, mosaicism), have performed an ultrasound and in general have paid more attention to the list of points I had brought to the VUmc's attention in the form of letters which were also part of the evidence.
The psychologists mostly had questions for me, especially on my drive for answers, whether I wasn't trying to prove that I had to be intersex or such. I told them about how until quite recently I'd regularly be standing in front of a mirror looking at myself and not knowing what I was seeing. How frustrated I felt at this, and how much I wanted to have a self-image. Some idea of what I was looking at instead of just facing endless questions. This was the only part where I actually became somewhat emotional.
During the final round of statements and questions my lawyer asked Dr. De Ronde of the VUmc whether the testosterone value measured of 21 nmol/L couldn't just have been a measuring error, considering the low amount of testosterone blocker I had to take (25% of what a male-to-female transsexual takes). De Ronde here upon dodged the question, saying that the exact amount of the blocker taken differs per patient. Besides, as he pointed out the other values which should be affected by a low testosterone level would have to be affected too, such as LSH, which were also 'normal male levels', according to De Ronde. I would like to note here that there is no way to verify the VUmc's measured values in any form or shape at this point. The testicular tissue biopsy results and testosterone blocker medication levels seem to put reasonable doubt there.
Yme also pointed out in his closing statement that it should be obvious to anyone in the room that even to his not medically trained eyes an intelligent woman was sitting next to him. That I would get referred to as 'male' by the VUmc seemed bizarre to him.
The gynaecologist of the VUmc, Dr. Trotsenburg, said in his final speech that all they wanted to do at the VUmc gender team was to avoid that people got unnecessary surgeries which wouldn't make them happy (despite me never have discussed surgery there). He also addressed me directly, saying that he had no idea where I found this current German surgeon, but told me to be careful. After this the lawyer of the VUmc gender team went on what I can only call a rant, distributing a stack of A4 pages to everyone with on it the reasons why I was a bumbling fool, couldn't be intersex, had arrogantly refused psychological help at any point and that all of the complaints against the VUmc should be summarily be dismissed. She sounded so angry at some points that I found myself thinking how much I disliked this person if she truly meant what she said.
After this I got a chance to say my piece. In my closing statement I mentioned how confused I still felt. I pointed the commission to how in 2010 a Dutch judge had approved my request for a first name change based upon having a female appearance, followed by the approval of my gender change to female by another Dutch judge in 2012. This, I said, showed that the justice system in the Netherlands agrees with me a) having a female appearance and b) being intersex, specifically a hermaphrodite. It also means that Dutch judges agree with the German physicians and not the Dutch ones. The only ones who do not agree here are Dutch physicians for some reason. I finished by saying that this was all I wanted to point out.
With the hearing over, Yme and I said goodbye to the commission and went outside along with everyone else. I felt pretty exhausted by then. Fortunately I could go home almost right away together with Yme. Before leaving, one of the friends who had arrived to watch the hearing gave me this plushie he had brought for me. I liked Yme's response to this: "That's part of it too, I guess." referring to me being female, I think.
Once back home I felt initially pretty good about things, what with Yme being more positive about our options of winning the case than ever before. Gradually I began to feel more depressed, though, until I couldn't stop myself from crying for a while. Even though I did very well at the hearing, with my lawyer complimenting me a number of times on my performance, it is as I pointed out in my final statement a ridiculous situation. To hear people who have ruined my life for so many years already say the same hurtful things again, defending their decisions and using the crude term 'Disorder of Sex Development' as though people with an intersex condition are some kind of freak, in addition to vehemently accusing me from exaggerating things and being a selfish little bitch... yes, it hurts. A whole lot.
I really hope that I do win this case. That those involved will have to eat some humble pie for once in their arrogant, infallible little lives. That life for people like me won't be turned into a living hell over and over again. Things have to stop here. If there's any justice left in this god-forsaken country, I hope it will be dished out here.
Whatever happens, though, I hope to be living safely in Germany by the time the verdict is made official. I still have to find house in the Karlsruhe area, but I have good hope that within two months it should all be arranged. Hopefully sooner. And please let this current German surgeon end the medical nightmare. I'm so sick of being 'special', 'different', 'unique' and whatever other sickening terms keep getting thrown at me. I want to be a plain, boring as hell person who just happens to be female. Pretty please?
The ruling will be made public on November the 19th this year.
Maya
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