Bathroom bills and the invisible nature of intersex

I regularly frequent the local hackerspace here in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Since this hackerspace does not have its own toilet facilities, we use those of the business centre it is located in. Nothing special about that, I'd say, except for one detail which pleasantly surprised me when I first had to frequent these facilities back in 2013.

On the doors leading to these bathrooms (two of them), it lists the usual 'men' and 'women', as well as 'boys' and 'girls'. Still nothing exciting there, were it not for the fact that then both door then also list 'intersex'. That's right, as an intersex person I have the official right at this business centre to use whichever toilet I wish.

Both seeing it listed so prominently there and the knowledge that people at this centre know about intersex and care enough about it still makes me feel very welcome today. Even if nobody would be able to tell that I am not a regular woman while I keep my pants on, the psychological effect is very positive and most welcome.

It then saddens me that in the recent 'debate' about recently introduced 'bathroom bills' by US states (HB2 in NC), apparently neither law makers, nor journalists, nor anyone else involved ever mention intersex people as being affected as well, beyond hidden, hurtful references such as "children born with gender-related genetic disorders" [1].

Why do these bills affect intersex people, you may ask? Because for most of us both our biological sex and gender are rather fluid or completely up for debate. Pray tell, what would be my own 'biological sex' as a hermaphrodite? My birth certificate used to say that I was male, but now it's been changed to female without me undergoing any type of genital mutilation or other type of surgery.

Back when I was a young teenager in the Netherlands and still convinced that I had to be male, I already had people send me out of public male bathrooms because they thought I was female. I must say that those experiences fuelled my self-exploration and the discovery of me being intersex, years later.

I guess it is a sign of the cluelessness and ignorance which still surrounds biological sex and gender that they would refer to it as an 'LGBT' issue, when only transsexuals and intersex people are affected by it. Just aim a shot in the general direction and assume you'll be fine with one's reporting.

With intersex being much more prevalent than transsexuality it seems astounding that we intersex individuals are not reported on and practically invisible. The sad truth seems to be that it's all part of the general trend to either ignore intersex or to mark it as a disorder.

Personally I think that's much worse than worrying about which bathroom one can use.


Maya


[1] http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2016/04/22/Leading-US-pediatricians-oppose-transgender-bathroom-bill/7821461346167/

My new Android game development book just got published

Two days ago, to be precise, saw the official publication of my new book on game development on Android with the AndEngine framework, creatively titled "Mastering AndEngine Game Development". It's available for purchase both at the Packt[1] and Amazon[2] store. This is my first book to be published with Packt Publishing, a large publisher of Open Source-related programming books and similar.

Some of those who follow me may remember me talking about working on this book for the last year and some. Admittedly it's been a long time to finish it up, not in the least because of the many others happening simultaneously to me personally and in my career. Yet it is all done and over with. No more chapter writing, no more revising. No more pleading with editors for just an extra day to finish up a chapter. It's all done with.

To be fair, it feels kind of empty. All of it has been part of my life for over a year and thus it has become part of my routine as well as my thoughts. To think about never having to do any of those things again... it's weird how much it makes you long back to that period.

I guess this should be just more motivation for me to work on my other activities and hobbies, like the countless projects I have left either unfinished, or haven't started on yet. Some projects I'd really like to spend more time on would include my NGS custom processor architecture project and the resulting design and production of a custom FPGA board for it. Also the file-revision system, YouTube electronics channel (NyanTronics), speech synthesis and artificial intelligence projects. That before I even get into the many game development projects I wish to embark on or continue with.

At least I won't get bored any time soon. The last project I need to work on soon is to find a more quiet place to move into. It's hard to focus on projects, let alone feel relaxed when you have the bloody heating system ticking up a storm and can track the upstairs neighbours literally step by step, including their activities in the kitchen, bathroom and toilet. Truly enjoyable and motivating, that.

But those are things which will hopefully work themselves out at some point, hopefully through some lucky contacts and such.

I am curious how many copies of this new book of mine (both dead-tree and digital) will be bought over the coming months and year(s). Maybe it'll motivate me to try my hand at writing more of such books, or maybe not. I may go back to writing my autobiography again at some point as well, but that would require both a willing publisher and me feeling like I can write it without writing myself into a suicidal depression through the fun of remembering everything leading up to a disappointing conclusion. In that regard writing technical reference books makes for a lot more fun.


Maya


[1] https://www.packtpub.com/game-development/mastering-andengine-game-development
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-AndEngine-Game-Development-Posch/dp/1783981148/

Getting hit by a car, or: my life in a nutshell

I'm incredibly lucky. Or incredibly unlucky, depending on how you look at it. It's the second year in a row that I have found myself suffering a bicycle related accident, yet also the second time that I get out of it without any permanent injuries. This time around it was definitely among my scariest accidents. Worse than when I took a tumble over the asphalt with 50 kilometers per hour, or that time last year when my front wheel got stuck in the tram tracks and I smacked straight into a barrier.

I was on my way home from work on Wednesday when I came to this crossing near a shopping mall. Along this stretch of road I was on all connecting roads had to yield, so I could zip along on my bicycle without too many worries. At this one crossing I noticed a few cars coming from my right and kept an eye on them to see whether they'd slow down and stop as they should. I'm not sure whether my attention had slipped or something, because the next thing I remember is seeing the bonnet of this grey car looming up to the right of me. My only thought at this point was 'it's going to hit me'.

I guess I did indeed get hit, for the next thing I remember is lying on the ground, in a considerable amount of pain. People were gathering around me, telling me to stay quiet. Someone cut away the backpack from my back. Then an ambulance arrived. An EMT at the scene had actually witnessed the event, watching me getting hit and immediately rushing in to help me. At that point I had no idea what had happened exactly or how bad the damage was. As I was lying on a stretcher on the ground, police officers arrived on the scene and began to ask me questions. After I got moved into the ambulance by the EMTs the questions continued, with prodding and poking added as well.

Nothing really hurt too much at that point, and I was able to comprehend and answer coherently to any questions, even if my German was a bit hard to understand for some of them. One of the people in the ambulance turned out to be Belgian and for a moment it was considered to have him talk to me in Dutch/Flamish. I felt relatively calm through all of this. Most of my worrying was about my bicycle which I was told had been damaged severely, along with my backpack which was destroyed, and how to replace it all. I also felt pretty terrible about how just when my life was on the upturn something like this had to happen.

The ambulance arrived at a to me familiar hospital, as it was the same one where I had been a little under a year before as well. I spent a total of three hours at it this time. During this time I got a full CT scan, with contrast dye, plus another check-up. As it turned out I had not broken anything, nor was anything visibly fractured. They did however want to keep me at the hospital for another twenty-four hours for observation, due to me having impacted my head during the accident as well. I felt that I could resign myself to this until I got told a while later that they had no free rooms, so that I'd have to camp out somewhere on the floor.

Faced with spending the next twenty-four hours confined to a mattress or bed parked possibly in some hallway or random room, I picked the second option after some pondering, which was to sign a form to accept the responsibility for going in against the physician's judgement and leaving the hospital. My reasoning was that I'd have a far better night and day at my own place than at the hospital and based upon my knowledge of a previous concussion I was fairly confident that it'd be all right.

While at the hospital I was also visited by a police officer and an EMT. The former informed me about the proceedings of the investigation. He told me that they had already determined that the fault was with the driver of the car which had hit me, as it clearly had to have yielded at the crossing. I also had had my light enabled on my bicycle. The driver of the car fortunately had cooperated fully with the police, having all insurance details readily available. I should be able to get any damage covered that way. The officer also explained about the punitive (criminal) side of the investigation, for which he'd be calling me in a week's time or longer again, in case I want to press charges.

Both with the insurance side and charges I'm not really sure how it all works, but I think I'll have to figure it out, hopefully with some help. I do know that I'll be more than happy to just get all the damage covered. I'm not really the type to go asking for blood, or money. Especially not after this EMT which accompanied the officer told me that the driver of the car had sent her best wishes for a speedy recovery. I can quite imagine that she was pretty shaken by the accident as well. I doubt many people willingly take the decision to go crash into a cyclist.

Standing outside again, a short while after signing the form, I decided to first make my way to the hackerspace. I could use some regular company at that point, instead of heading straight home to an empty apartment. I walked this whole stretch, with just a slight limp because of my injured right knee and carrying my crippled backpack with my right hand as my left wrist would not support any weight. At the hackerspace I spent about an hour, also checking for any damage to my work laptop. It was fine, except for some cosmetic damage to the aluminium shell, with gouges running along one side of it. At the hackerspace one person ultimately noticed my injuries and we ended up chatting about it.

Taking the tram home from the hackerspace, I walked the last bit from the tram stop to my place. There, in front of the apartment building was my bicycle, parked just as the police had told me earlier at the hospital. The front wheel was all twisted and unusable. As I pulled it free, the back wheel turned out to not move at all either, with the gears making clacking noises. Dragging the bicycle to my garage, I put it inside and locked the garage, even though I wouldn't know why anyone would want to steal it in that state. Once inside the building's hallway I found the bicycle's key in my mailbox, also as agreed. Once inside my apartment I was ready to crash, which I did soon after. Getting changed for bed was a painful experience, however.

Waking up the next morning everything plain and simply hurt in ways I cannot even begin to describe. Every motion hurt. Every shift in balance hurt. Only with the help of painkillers was I able to get through the day, working from home, as the project I'm on was simply too important at that point to call in sick. The same story the next day. Around this time it was becoming clear that I definitely had a bit of a concussion, with the tiredness, mild confusion and other symptoms I remembered so well from the first time I suffered one.

Today is Saturday. I have put in a full working day again, because it's crunch time in the project and I wouldn't know what else to do with my time. Aside from finishing this book project for which I'm supposed to finish the last draft chapters this month. I really have no time to be sick, I guess. Tomorrow I have to buckle down again and try to finish some work. Then next week I have to get my bicycle to a repair shop. Somehow.

Those who have followed me on Twitter the past days have seen the images of the damage to my right hand and face, the bruising on my shoulder and other garish injuries. Most of the things which really hurt are internally, however. Particularly my muscles and joints seem to have taken a beating and are keen to remind me of this fact. That said, it could have all been so much worse. I could be stuck with broken bones right now. Or be paralysed. Or dead.

In that regard I'm really lucky, but just like with life in general, it's all relative.


Maya

Job security, at long last

This week saw an interesting improvement in my life when I signed a new contract at my current work place. In earlier posts I reported that I was looking for a new job as my current employer had basically run out of work for me, but things changed with new projects coming in and others being extended. As a result I got offered a permanent contract, which I gladly accepted, despite having a job offer from another company in Karlsruhe as well.

Ending a month of job searching and interviews in such a way isn't bad at all in my view. Not only did I always like this company - synyx - I work at, but its owners have been incredibly helpful and supportive of me back in 2013 already, both in consideration of me as a foreigner but also in how they handled my personal situation. It was their support which allowed me to make the decision to move to Germany and get settled, with my boss going out of his way to ensure that I would find my own (temporary) place. I would have loathed to give all that up just because the non-Java type projects dried up a bit last year.

I quite like the projects I'm working on, with most of what I work on now written in C and C++, aimed at embedded platforms. This means mucking about in a lot of low-level code, analysing protocol logs and hammering out test protocol rigs in hexadecimal notation. In other words, the kind of stuff I love to do.

So with the signing of this contract I'm set job-wise, not having to move countries or cities either. Only change I'm looking at at this point is to find a new place to rent (or buy...) which is a lot more decent than where I currently live. What I'm looking for there is a place which is reasonably well-maintained and insulated, plus where I'm not bothered by upstairs neighbours (hearing walking, toilet use, etc.) and/or ticking heating system and other tubing in the walls. A place where I can sleep at night without having to use earplugs, basically. As a temporary apartment this place has served me well, I think, but unlike with my job, here it is time to move.


Maya

Choosing for one's children: medical necessity and harm

As I write this, the USA is experiencing its first measles epidemic in roughly fifteen years. Fifteen years in which every US citizen, adults, children and infants alike, could be confident that they would most likely never have to experience the consequences of a measles infection. As recent as the late 1950s - before the measles vaccine was introduced - about 450 children a year would die from the measles, with another 4,000 developing encephalitis which all too often resulted in brain damage, blindness or related. In contrast, serious complications from the measles vaccine (MMR) occur in less than one million children who receive it and even this is rarely fatal.

In light of all this, it then seems astounding that parents would choose to not have their children vaccinated against measles. Why are they so horrifically cruel that they'd willingly and knowingly risk their child's life and health in such a callous manner? Is it mere ignorance? With the US having turned decisively anti-science in the past decades, faith in what scientists and thus medical professionals as well say about vaccination is thus regarded with more scepticism than seems acceptable, while wild-eyed, unsubstantiated claims made by fraudulent doctors and ignorant celebrities are embraced unquestioningly.

It all seems to be part of a wider movement within society, where one insane diet after another takes hold. From gluten-free, low-carb, paleo, raw-only and so on, despite there not being any science to back up the benefits of such diets, thousands of people eagerly embrace them and proclaim their benefits. The focus seems to be on 'natural foods' being good and anything else being 'unhealthy', even though this statement is - even at face value - too ridiculous to even begin to analyse. Nothing we eat today can be called 'natural' in the sense that a farmer from a few thousand years ago would not recognize most, if any, of the crops we grow today.

Yet science is not reliable and not trustworthy and thus carefully manipulated, monitored and validated crops are shunned in favour of crops whose genetic selection was more of a shotgun method, all too often using forced mutations induced through exposure to radiation sources. The anti-vaccination sentiment is just another chapter in this insanity which seems to find such fertile ground in today's society, fuelled by a media which seems more than eager to tell people what they want to hear.

Vaccines are supposed to be full of 'toxins' and have various ill effects if they don't cause diseases outright. This is a lie eagerly believed by many despite the ingredients of vaccines being publicly known, verified by countless scientists and open to actual scrutiny by non-scientists. This even before we look at the many decades of actual data from vaccine use and the (also publicised) incidences of side-effects from vaccines. Despite all this openness about the facts, people still insist on believing the lies fed to them by frauds intent on making money of their gullibility. That these are parents who will risk their children's well-being based upon these lies is clearly of no concern.

This is also the crux of the whole issue. What business do parents have deciding about the medical well-being of their offspring? Are they physicians? Did they study medicine? In what way, form or shape are they qualified to make this decision for their children on vaccinations? All based on the fact that they are legally registered as the guardians of said children? That appears to be a rather slim justification for a decision which will decide the faith of these children for the rest of the lives, if it doesn't doom them to an early death, as in the case of the American child who already died from measles complications.

I have had to deal with similar questions for years already, albeit from a different perspective. The issue here is that of physicians giving clearly the wrong advice: namely to perform 'normalization' surgeries on children who are born intersex, i.e. with ambiguous genitals. This is an issue where despite the physician in question being supposedly qualified, most astoundingly gives the completely wrong information, trying to push the parent(s) of the child into accepting a procedure which will most likely cause untold sorrow to the child as it grows up into an adult. How can one rhyme this with the earlier situation involving vaccines. Are we right to question physicians as much as we do on vaccines, or are we wrong to not question physicians more on their attitude towards intersex infants?

The answer, I feel, lies in looking beyond the people. Beyond the physicians. Any answer one needs is found in the actual data produced as a result of people's actions over the years. For vaccines we can see an astounding success in the form of an incredibly decrease in deaths, injuries and hospitalizations, as well as one completely eliminated disease (smallpox). Everything there makes it abundantly clear that vaccines are an awesome thing and that we should embrace them, without exception. It's a completely positive thing for children and they should receive all the common vaccines as soon as they're old enough.

For normalization surgeries there's less complete data let alone studies, as it's still very much a taboo subject with the topic of intersex bathing in ignorance, even among physicians. Despite this the evidence seems to back up that these surgeries are virtually always harmful. Especially how the gender is selected for a child is at best unscientific, as one's genetic make-up says absolutely nothing about one's gender preferences, as evidenced for example by transsexuals. The only person in this situation who knows what the right choice is is the child itself and thus the answer here is to wait until the child can state its choice. Neither the parents, nor the physicians get to make a choice here. That'd be unethical and amoral.

The sad thing is that we so readily accept or even fight over whether the parents or physicians are 'in the right', when all one has to do is to look beyond this front and do the science.

Maybe that's the worst tragedy of all among this anti-vaccination and gender-normalization insanity: the loss of faith in science, preferring to pick personal opinion and gut-feeling over scientific facts and data. Neither parents nor physicians get to decide. Only the facts do.


Maya

The turbulent waters where religion meets reality

I was exposed to religion as a child, but never forced into anything. My mother was the only one from a religious background, but even as a child she had been more interested in the social and humanist aspects of it all. Growing up, I learned about the world's religions and most importantly I learned to form my own opinion, with my mother making it above all clear to always treat others how you'd want to be treated yourself. I still feel grateful about having had a youth like this, especially considering my later experiences in life.

I'm not religious at all, or even mildly spiritual. I fall firmly into the 'agnostic' camp, with the acknowledgement that there is insufficient evidence to decide either way on the existence of gods. This made it interesting for me to end up living in the Netherlands' Bible Belt for a few years. It was there that I first had to deal with religious people directly, in the sense that all three family doctor offices in the city I ended up visiting were staffed by Christian doctors.

As far as these family doctors go, I can be pretty brief. The first office I started off with in 2005 had one of their doctors denounce me for thinking that I could be intersex and another doctor monologued me for about an hour in 2011, trying to convince me to stop trying to pretend to be intersex, stop looking for medical help and try to live a 'normal' life. Also in 2011 I tried two other offices, with the first doctor refusing to take me on as a patient during the first appointment on basis of my intersex condition making her feel uncomfortable. The second office's doctor sent the police after me when I kept reminding them about promises they had made [1].

Honestly, I don't like religion and I dislike it strongly when people let religion influence the way they treat and view others. I can see no benefit to religion existing. All I have seen is that it makes people less humane and more prejudiced. That I had to flee the Netherlands to find refuge in Germany is something I feel I can also at least partially blame on religion as the Netherlands is a highly religious country, with conservative Christian morals determining much of the intolerant attitude towards those who are different. Germany fortunately isn't so eager to embrace 'Christian values' after last century's experiences with the NSDAP. For me personally this translates into an environment where people are in general tolerant, non-judgemental and accepting, even welcoming differences.

After the recent events in Paris - only a few hours away from where I live - I find myself more than a little perturbed by the aggressive, violent responses aimed at whoever dares to associate in some way with the Islamic faith. Although the 'Je suis Charlie' response in some way is the best response imaginable, the attempts to hijack this movement and turn it into something negative and oppressive is astounding and more than a little frightening.

The thing which most disturbs me about this is that people are apparently so willing to denounce others for things they think. Not things they have done, but the mere thoughts and opinions they have. The way I have learned it, just thinking a certain way doesn't make you a bad person as you can still realize the flaws in one's reasoning and change it. It's only when you intend to act upon such opinions that you cross the line. Many Muslims, Christians and Jews hold very outdated, offensive views on how to treat others, yet only a few decide to act upon this. Not every religious person has the same opinions. No religion is a single, coherent thing, instead with each split into many variations until ultimately one arrives at singular minds.

Seeing so much anger directed at Muslims in general recently, makes me question just how civil and educated the average person behind this anger actually is. It's no surprise that at least here in Germany the most anti-Muslim support comes from people in areas where the fewest Muslims live. One also has to question in how far it can all even be put on just 'religion', with a pronounced anti-homosexuality and anti-transgender attitude in the US and Russia as well as certain European countries. What is religion after all but just another fantasy conjured up by the mind? What's the essential difference between believing in magical sky fairies and believing that homosexuality and transsexualism are somehow 'unnatural'? Both forego logic and reason, instead opting to assume dogma as the truth in the overwhelming absence of evidence.

I believe it is that which humankind struggles the most with: not religion or sexual/gender preferences, but the acceptance of logic and reason. The human mind is quite the opposite, after all, preferring quick assumptions and snap judgements over careful reviewing of the available facts before arriving at a reasonable conclusion. This flaw invites the acceptance of dogma, which should be seen as poison to critical thought.

As critical thought dies, so does logic and reason, and with it any chance of a humane outcome.


Maya


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

Furthering My Media Career, Or: Berlin Road Trip

A short while ago I got contacted by Berlin-based producer with the question whether I'd want to partake in this TV documentary episode which is being shot in Berlin in the first week of September. It's part of a documentary series on sexuality in different cultures being produced for the largest TV channel in Chile, TVN. I saw no reason to say 'no', which has led to my current situation where I have an all expenses paid journey to Berlin coming up.

I'll be leaving tomorrow, arrive there pretty late and probably immediately check into the hotel which was booked for me. Then Sunday morning I'll be picked up for a series of shoots in a variety of locations, involving interviews by the two hosts of this show, both familiar Chilean TV hosts. The end of the afternoon I'll then be leaving back for Karlsruhe again, another roughly six hour long trip by high-speed train. Upon arriving home - some time after midnight - I should be ready to collapse into my bed.

As I mentioned in my last video log, the only reason why I'm still agreeing to do these interviews is because it may help others like me in the future. I have given up any remainder of hope that I may ever receive medical help and it's harrowing to deal with this subject matter again, regurgitating the same bad memories once more. Yet if I don't do it, something positive in the future may not happen, or much later. Either way I owe it to newborn and not yet born intersex children to do this.

In many ways the world-wide media seems to be far further ahead on the subject of intersex than physicians, psychologists, politicians and far too many human rights activists. While often the media attention for the subject of intersex is simply because it's one of those freakish things the tabloid media in particular loves to report on, there's also a very serious current of increasing understanding among journalists of why intersex is such an important topic to increase awareness of.

The past week I have had some run-ins with feminists and anti-feminists in online discussions, with both sides accusing me of being the exact opposite of their alignment. This experience made me realize just how irrelevant feminism is to human rights in general, in particular to transgender and intersex rights. It's one of those insane conflicts occurring within 'regular' society, which all the not 'normal' people are not meant to be part of. While homosexual people have more or less clawed their way into society to be met by grudging acceptance, it's still open season for intersex and to a lesser extent transgender people.

What I mean here is that the average person is at least aware of the existence of transsexuality and most people are personally okay with it, while intersex is still this thing which doesn't really exist. It's hardly acknowledged and every day again a number of infants undergo forced genital surgery, with any record of their intersex condition usually erased. While many countries have politicians standing up for homosexual and transgender rights, you don't see the same thing for intersex. There are pride parades highlighting homosexuality and transsexuality, but intersex is absent. Beyond the occasional news article the millions of intersex people around the world may as well not exist.

While I may have lost my personal war over the past decade in my attempts to get medical help with my intersex condition, this doesn't mean that I have to be okay with others having to suffer the same fate. In the run up to this TV interview I have had to go through the usual emotional struggles as I ready myself to once more perform as well as possible, diving back into every memory I'd love so dearly to leave behind me for good.

Maya

Defining The Undefinable: Feminism And Misogyny

Misogyny: hatred of women. (from Greek: misos 'hatred' and gunē 'woman'). [1]
Feminism: the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of sexual equality. [1]

If there's one thing most people in discussions in the media, online and off-line are very assured about, then it has to be their conviction that their definition of specific terms have to be the right and precise ones. This is why some of the most abused terms whenever it's about men and women (or when people think it's about this subject) are those of feminism and misogyny, as well as their derivations. The awkward part about these fiery displays of self-assurance is that there's a painful absence of a clear definition of these terms both sides like to wield so prodigiously.

Let's start with the easy one: misogyny. Seems straight-forward enough, doesn't it? Someone hates women in general, ergo said person is a misogynist. Yet the problems arise when one starts asking what it is that this person hates and what defines women in such a sense that they are all included in this. Take for example the person most recently called out as a horrible misogynist: Elliot Rodger, the shooter in the 2014 Isla Vista, California shooting which killed 8 including himself. [2]

What did Elliot hate? Did he hate all women? No, to one reading his autobiography it becomes quite clear that he is only interested in - or rather obsessed by - the blonde, Caucasian type girl. What he hated was that they didn't flock to him. Over time this sense of rejection grew into hatred. In his view blonde, Caucasian women became 'women' in general. He didn't hate fat or ugly girls, he just longed to have this one perfect girlfriend. Unable to fill in this pre-formatted space in his head with a girl fitting the description, his obsession culminated in rage as he never found himself able to reflect upon this urge and deal with it.

Since 'blonde, attractive, Caucasian' women isn't 'all women', Elliot wasn't a misogynist. Just someone who was raised in an environment which apparently promoted the growth of pre-existing tendencies. The autobiography brings forward the image of an introverted individual who is convinced that he is extroverted, a dangerous situation for one's psyche because of the high probability of disappointment. In the end he found solace among others who blamed their problems on 'women', yet always in the most generic terms possible. No one hates women in general. No one can define exactly what they hate about 'women' without getting stuck in generic descriptions which would fit many men as well.

Much of the issue here is that of defining what a 'man' and a 'woman' are. What makes one into one and not the other? Do we truly have two distinct groups? What is 'masculinity' and what is 'femininity'? As someone who is both and yet neither due to being born in an intersex body, many of such related questions have been asked of me. Despite spending so many hours thinking about how I would define myself, or rather what parts of my personality could be defined as either feminine or masculine I can still only conclude that they're irrational stereotypes without a solid founding in reality.

Would a misogynistic person hate only, say, fifty percent of a person like me? Only the feminine bits, essentially. What if these properties are also found in men? When it comes down to it all properties can be assigned in relatively equal amounts to both men and women, whether it comes to patience, management capability and not getting lost. The only significant differences can be found in the brains, where brains defined as 'male' have a more pass-through structure, whereas 'female' brains are significantly more interconnected and are more aimed at analytical processing instead of snap-judgement. These are just the two ends of a spectrum, of course. From these tops at either side a gradual merging occurs until both types meet up in the middle.

Fine, you may think at this point, but if misogyny is - if you'll excuse me - a bit of a misnomer, then surely feminism is quite undeniable and easy to understand, right? In a way, yes. In Western society the group of individuals classified as 'women' based on their biological sex have for a long time been considered to be inferior to men for rather shaky and unscientific reasons. The reversal of this process and the harmonization of society into a more merit-based one has to be seen as one of the biggest sociological accomplishments of the 19th and 20th century which continues to this day. Yet when the easy to grasp part was done and over with and all women had the right to vote, the right to marry who they wanted, decide when they would get pregnant and the many stigmas surrounding women in Western society began to fade at long last, the nit-picking started.

The part where things go bad here is that at some point feminism crossed from the territory of 'suppressed group of individuals' to 'women's rights'. While some of the current issues at stake are fair ones, such as equal wage and everything else that fits into a merit-based system, things get fuzzy quickly when it zips into issues such as 'representation'. Why would any group of people in any function have to consist out of roughly half men and half women? What is the rational explanation for this? It's obviously not merit-based, but instead seems to make the assumption that 'it's the right thing'. While equal representation is logical in politics, in many other areas it's a curious position at best.

Here too starts the issue of trying to define 'women' and 'men'. Women are better at A, because of specific reasons, as well as at B and C. Yet 'women' isn't 'all women'. While some women are great organizers, or skilled with various technologies and the like, you see a similar diversity as on the male side of the spectrum, with those who can do marvelous things with a piece of wood, a computer or who are great leaders, while a similar number would be helpless at any of these tasks.

Ironically the insistence by certain individuals who call themselves feminists on various topics usually lead to blanket statements made about 'men'. Listening to some of the ranting done by these prominent figures show a disgruntlement towards men more severe than what even Elliot Rodger raged about in his autobiography. If anything these so-called feminists went straight from feminism into the exact opposite form of misogyny, missing of course the point that this straw man they set up of 'men' is largely fictional. The diversity of personalities among the individuals marked with a biological male sex is such that it is impossible to classify them all as part of one singular group.

This is something which I as an intersex individual understand quite well, as 'intersex' is the very definition of diversity. It covers thousands of medical conditions and biological variations, with each individual different from the other. I am an intersex individual, but I'm not every intersex individual. In fact I would say that I have very little in common with most intersex individuals, both physically and in terms of personality. This is no different from the diversity among so-called 'men' and 'women'. It's this diversity which makes all of us so very different and yet so very much the same.


Maya


[1] Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 12th edition.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Isla_Vista_killings

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

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

Why DSD Is Destructive For Human Rights

The last few weeks the world media has been covering the outrage surrounding Uganda's decision to make homosexuality illegal, narrowly missing its original goal of making it punishable by death. Instead anyone found to display homosexual behaviour is sentenced to life in prison. According to President Museveni of Uganda his inquiry into whether or not homosexuality is genetic or social behaviour was answered by 'medical experts' that it's fully learned behaviour [1]. In countries such as Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen, as well parts of Nigeria and Somalia homosexual behaviour is punishable by death. In another seventy countries people are imprisoned for such behaviour [2].

As exemplified by the statements by Uganda's president, the entire witch hunt against individuals with homosexual or bisexual preferences is based on misinformation, the spreading of fear and outright lies. The most remarkable and least reported on part of this is the reasoning behind such decisions to make something which does not affect society as a whole into something on the same level of criminality as murder and terrorism. Here conservative religious values on sexuality combined with a political agenda appear to be the most likely culprit for inciting such blatant and horrific violations of human rights.

Yet it doesn't end with homosexuality. Many other types of behaviour are also punished in a similar manner, and astoundingly around the world including in the most rich, prosperous Western countries millions of infants and children undergo forced surgery to remove unwanted features from their bodies. Not for medical reasons, but simply because society deems them to be 'unwanted' and 'uncomfortable'. These are the individuals who were unlucky enough to be born with a body configuration which differs from a biologically male or female body in genotype, phenotype or both. Those born with such an intersex condition only rarely need any kind of medical help during their life and are generally unaffected by it, health-wise. Human rights activists have been fighting for their right to decide about their own body as well, albeit in a far more limited fashion than for homosexuals.

Quite recently this struggle for human rights for intersex individuals took a sharp turn for the worse, as supposed physicians decided to change the terminology for intersex, indicating that from then on it should be called 'DSD', or Disorder of Sex Development. While seemingly a minor change, the implications of this is astounding, especially on a psychological level. Just imagine how it changes how an individual can present and be perceived by its environment.

With intersex you can say 'I am intersex' and 'our child is intersex'. With DSD this becomes 'I have DSD', 'I have a disorder', or 'Our child has a disorder'. The automatic stigma is obvious. To society it seems clear at that point that the child was born with some horrific mutilation but that surgery and therapy will take care of it, and that the individual who reports to have DSD has something on the level of a mental or physical deficiency, as though they are some kind of retard, if you'll excuse my language. This whole naming scheme completely nullifies any attempts made by intersex activists to make it a discussable, socially acceptable thing to be.

As an intersex activist myself this is exceedingly disheartening to watch, especially when some intersex individuals also assume this DSD term, as though it will somehow improve their situation. To me this is more an indication of how horribly medical society treats intersex individuals, that the mere promise of better treatment or a reward will have them crawling back to their masters. I have been in this situation myself with the Dutch physicians long enough to know how it works. In the end it just leaves the affected individual scarred and traumatized. We don't need more victims.

It all comes down to scientific facts, whether it's about sexual preference or the phenotype of one's body. One is born with it and nothing but unwanted, invasive surgery is going to change this to some extent. Sexual preference is hard-coded in the layout of a specific part of the brain and the complex interaction between genes during development makes it more astounding than not that so many children are born with a phenotype which gaves at least the appearance of them being male or female. This is also a part where I have been extremely lucky.

Being born in the Netherlands, where so-called 'normalization surgeries' on intersex infants are common place, if it had been discovered at birth that I also have female genitals I would have a scar now on my abdomen through which they would have ripped out any kind of female organs they could find, including the vagina, ovaries and the like. I wouldn't have been told about this until maybe as a teenager or adult, if at all. I would have had to deal with this intense feeling of loss and of being violated. This is why getting this reconstructive surgery is also so important to me: I was lucky enough to escape such barbaric surgery as in infant, but without this reconstructive surgery I might as well have been the victim of it.

That I want surgery is not due to an immediate medical need or urgency. It is my personal choice to shape my body the way I want it, using the organs I was provided with. What I desire is far less significant than what a transsexual person would undergo with a sex-change surgery, which makes it ever so more bitter that it is so hard for me to find a surgeon for it. In the end it is all about personal choice with intersex, homosexuality and transsexuality. If you know absolutely certain that something will make you happier and you don't harm others with it, then it should be nobody else's business.

Yet this is exactly why DSD is so harmful: it removes the option of choosing for oneself, as by designating it a 'disorder' which medically means 'a disruption of normal physical or mental functions' (Oxford, 12th edition). If strictly interpreted this would make anyone who is infertile, has reduced fertility or anything even vaguely related to anything which could be the result of genetics or development issues a DSD sufferer. It would also mean that anyone who is intersex yet fertile not affected by DSD. This shows why it is sheer lunacy to use such a term instead of the more accurate 'intersex'.

A disorder is by definition something which has to be acted upon and treated, to restore normal functioning. Looking at my own case, however, if I had grown into the role of being a hermaphrodite from a young age and would just have had those few surgical 'tweaks' to steer things into a direction I would feel more comfortable with, then I would not be suffering from severe PTSD and have an innate distrust against medical professionals. The past decade to me has been the most horrific I could imagine, completely thanks to the Dutch medical system. Yet it's not just the Netherlands. While I fled to Germany to escape the persecution I suffered in the Netherlands with so far mixed results, places like for example the United States are also quite hostile against intersex individuals. Take for example this entry from the FAQ at the North-American Accord Alliance, a self-professed intersex organization:

"“Hermaphroditism” and “pseudo-hermaphroditism” are outdated terms that used to be employed for some forms of disorders of sex development (DSD). These terms have been abandoned because they were misleading and stigmatizing." [3]

There are many things wrong with these two sentences. First of all, the medical term used for my intersex condition here in Germany as displayed on all of my medical documents is 'Hermaphroditismus', or hermaphroditism. The term DSD is not used in Germany in any significant sense. Hermaphroditism is not an outdated term and has not been abandoned. I also vehemently disagree with the 'misleading' and 'stigmatizing' parts. The misleading parts because the formation of the word in Greek mythology is extremely fitting, with a hermaphrodite being formed out of a male and female as a single being, which is exactly what the condition is. There is no stigma either. What stigma would this be, anyway? People generally view hermaphrodites in wonderment, amazement and in some cases even a kind of reverence. True, there is the occasional individual who just can not comprehend a single individual possessing both male and female genitals, but those are the exception.

Further on the Accord Alliance site we find further claims that DSD is the perfect term and that a child afflicted by this horrible condition can be saved through the proper surgery and therapy. Guess who will benefit the most from these expensive undertakings? Hint: it's not the parents or the child. The skeptic in me finds it hard to deny the possibility that ultimately the term DSD was invented as a mixed result of religious conservative fears for the unusual and the desire for more money by medical and psychological 'professionals'.

To most intersex individuals it is clear that 'DSD' is a horrible offence, though, and we refuse to apply it to ourselves. Organizations such as Accord Alliance do not represent intersex individuals. They are more like president Museveni: touting scientific nonsense as an excuse for their continued existence and relevance. Their existence neither benefits nor sustains humanity's progress towards an accepting and progressive society, instead forcing it down towards a medieval-level of ignorance and suffering.


Maya


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Act,_2014
[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-25927595
[3] http://www.accordalliance.org/faqs/what-is-hermaphroditism/

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

Dutch Health Minister's Response To Intersex Discrimination Case

Last year I filed a discrimination case with the Dutch Human Rights Institute (College voor de Rechten van de Mens) against insurance company Unive for refusing to fully cover hair removal therapy for intersex individuals where they do fully cover this procedure for transsexuals. During the hearing at the Human Rights Institute in Utrecht on November the 25th the representative from Unive was asked to justify its decision. Unive's response was that they were just following the ruling by the central organization for health insurance companies in the Netherlands, CVZ. According to CVZ the situation for transsexual and intersex individuals when it comes to such a therapy is vastly different.

This therapy involves the removal of facial hair in a permanent fashion for individuals who wish to transition to a female role, but have had sufficiently high testosterone levels that they began to develop facial hair at some point. After lowering testosterone levels this hair growth does not stop by itself, ergo this therapy is required. Why the situation for transsexuals (who 'choose' to transition) and for intersex individuals (who are born like this) when they move towards a female role would be different is something which was asked by the Human Rights Institute after the hearing to CVZ and the Dutch Minister of Health. After a long delay of many weeks because bureaucracy is a busy process, I recently received the answer from the Minister of Health, Edith Schippers, or more specifically the director of health insurances, drs. G.G.J. Ikkink.

The Minister of Health got asked a total of three questions, the first one being: 'Do you share the opinion of the CVZ? Please further motivate your answer to this question.'

The response says that they support this opinion of CVZ, because it fits with the regulations concerning the health insurance law.

The second question: 'Could you provide further information or explanations regarding the relation between the CVZ and the Minister of Health, in particular whether the Minister of Health can provide mandatory instructions on the question of how this health insurance law can be interpreted?'

The response basically details how the Minister of Health determines the extent and scope of health coverage. CVZ hereby has the duty to explain and interpret this law, whereby the Minister of Health can not force CVZ to change its interpretation because the healthcare law does not include such a provision.

The third question: 'During the development of the healthcare law, did the coverage options for a person with an intersex condition, such as in the relevant situation, get determined or considered? If so, can you detail this?'

The response denies that any such consideration was made for intersex individuals. They claim that because intersex individuals are not named specifically in the relevant law, this therefore does not apply to such people. It is made clear that at no point in the decision process intersex individuals were ever considered.

---

What is striking about this response is most of all that if you put the actual law article next to it ('Besluit zorgverzekering', article 2.4, first member, part b) [1] it never actually mentions transsexuality except for the fifth item in relation to sex-reassignment surgery. The first and second item are decidedly neutral in their formulation:
1°. afwijkingen in het uiterlijk die gepaard gaan met aantoonbare lichamelijke functiestoornissen;
(aberrations in one's appearance which are due to measurable physical functional disorders)

2°. verminkingen die het gevolg zijn van een ziekte, ongeval of geneeskundige verrichting;
(mutilations which are the result of disease, accident or medical actions)

Transsexuality falls under item 2, due to the need to remove facial hair in the case of a male to female transition which is the result of medical actions (hormones, surgery). The hair removal therapy is thus part of the whole medical procedure of the transition.

An intersex case whereby one wishes to portray a female role while suffering from excess facial hair would fall under both items 1 and 2, as often medical actions are involved, though it's also due to physical characteristics which one was born with which could be classified as a disorder.

For the Dutch Minister of Health to thus defend the decision by CVZ to reject coverage for intersex individuals and to pretend that that it only covers transsexuals despite the law itself being completely neutral in its construction is simply patently ridiculous. It further suggests a more widespread and fundamental discrimination against intersex individuals, something which I have encountered among the Dutch medical community between 2005 and 2013 in a very significant manner as well.

At this point I'm very curious as to what the response from CVZ to a similar set of questions as those listed above will be. If they are indeed the final authority on interpreting and explaining healthcare laws then they should be able to provide us with a reasonable, well-reasoned explanation for why they found that the above law article's members can only be explained as applying to transsexual individuals.

CVZ had until February the 3rd to send in their answer. As soon as I receive my copy of their letter I will update my blog with the details.


Maya

[1] http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0018492/geldigheidsdatum_14-02-2014#Hoofdstuk2_1_Artikel24

The End Of Justice In The Netherlands

Today I received two items from my personal damages lawyer's office: one massive parcel containing my medical archive as I had lost part of it when the psycho ex-housemate destroyed it along with most of my belongings. The other was an email with the PDF attachments of the rulings of the medical disciplinary commission on each of the four physicians and psychologists. The medical archive is filled by report after report by Dutch medical specialists and the like on why I can not be intersex and why I'm actually an oddly behaving transgender. It also contains the German reports containing the conclusive reports by three independent German medical teams that I am in fact intersex, based on a variety of examinations and a surgery. It shows the clear madness of the past nine years during which I have searched for my identity.

The ruling by the medical disciplinary commission is the final evidence I needed that I have made a capital mistake in not abandoning the search for help from the Dutch side sooner. In every of the four cases they have rejected all of the points on which those four individuals of the VUmc gender team could have been punished. This leaves me with virtually no further recourse in the Netherlands, legally speaking. Appealing this decision is quite futile, as the central disciplinary commission in Utrecht is unlikely to change this ruling. This means no acknowledgement that Dutch physicians were wrong on any point during my treatment the past nine years. It also means no compensation, financially or otherwise.

I'm not even angry at this point any more. It is what I more or less expected. All physicians in the Netherlands so far have covered each other, blindly repeating the same lies and attempting to complete the brainwashing of me. It should come as no surprise that this medical commission would do the same. That the German medical world and the Dutch justice system disagreed with their assessment couldn't phase them in the slightest. I have no idea why they had to lie to me for those nine years and hurt me in so many ways, not in the least by wasting nearly a decade of my life on something so ultimately futile and pointless.

Next month I'll be moving to Germany. There I will go to this surgeon who has seen my medical file, agreed to the previous conclusions on the MRI scans as well as the exploratory surgery and will hopefully be performing the reconstructive surgery on my female side as soon as early next year. With that I'll have the medical side of my search finished, leaving me as a virtually perfect natural hermaphrodite. For the first time in my life I could allow myself to feel happy. It's such a stark contrast with how things were and are in the Netherlands.

Let hereby the lie that the Netherlands is in any way progressive or tolerant be shattered for eternity. Any country where the medical profession is so ignorant and the political system so apathetic when it comes to issues like these doesn't deserve any of these labels. All it takes for me to see how things should be done is to look just over the border in Germany where since 2007 I have had only positive and useful experiences with German physicians and surgeons. Where in the Netherlands I got treated as... a number? A freak? An annoyance? What exactly? In Germany I got treated consistently as a human being, with all of my questions and worries answered and eased.

I still feel like an idiot for not realizing sooner that the Netherlands as a country and institution is hell incarnate for anyone who isn't 'normal' by the sickeningly narrow definitions employed by its elite. With less than a month to go until I bid farewell to the Netherlands I can honestly say that nothing would cheer me up more at this point than to be able to swap my Dutch passport for a German one. I'm ashamed and humiliated that I'm still able to call myself a Dutch citizen.

I wasn't born into the wrong body, I was simply born into the wrong country.


Maya

Sickening, Hopeful Uncertainty

My last post two days ago was filled with quiet despair and the certainty of no help from anyone. Maybe it's just how the universe works, but the day after I posted things started changing. First I got a response yesterday from the German clinic I had sent an inquiry to about whether they could help me. Yesterday I got the response, which was affirmative. The surgeon would like to see my medical file and the MRI scans using which he'll determine which type of surgery would be appropriate. After that he'd like to see and examine me in person. Of course I immediately sent the clinic the relevant files, which naturally are all from German sources aside from three MRI scans.

The first report is the initial MRI report from the first German clinic, followed by the reports from the clinic in Hamburg and accompanied by four sets of MRI scans spanning five years (2007-2013). While I do expect that this German surgeon will see the same things as the other three groups of German physicians, it's nevertheless an exciting and nerve-wrecking period for me. Not only about what the surgeon can see, but also what he thinks is attainable in my case. With some luck I'll end up learning many of the final details about my body and maybe even gain the normal sexuality which has so long been inconceivable for me.

It's odd how rapidly my mood changed upon receiving the response from the clinic. From a suicidal depressive mood and a general feeling of loneliness and misery suddenly I began to feel careful optimism and a loosening of the noose around my neck. Yet at the same time I began to feel somewhat nauseous at the thought that this might just be a repetition of what has been and possibly always will be. A repeat of the muddied, bloodied shards of innocent hope lying trampled on the cold ground.

I also really hope that it'll work out at this clinic, as it'll really help me in my efforts to migrate to Germany. A successful surgery at this clinic would make Germany into the absolute saviour to me from the gnarled clutches of the evil Dutch systems. While I'm very independent, I am nevertheless very respectful to those who do their jobs well, as well as those who support them. I'd have no issue with living in Germany after such a success story. If not, I'd have reason again to feel bitter, which would make things so much harder emotionally. A lot depends thus on the coming communication with this surgeon.

The other great thing which happened occurred today, when I received an email from the office of my personal injuries lawyer, Yme Drost. It contained communications from the medical disciplinary commission. They have decided that the case against the radiologist of the VUmc - Van Waesberghe - will be merged again into the main case together with the other three individuals. Considering how crucial the denial by the Dutch radiologists has been the past years that they could see anything unusual on the MRI scans, I feel that it is important that this matter be highlighted as well. Tomorrow I'll be discussing these recent changes in the case with my lawyer. The public hearing against the VUmc gender team will take place on September 24th this year in Amsterdam.

In many ways it's a cruel game which is being played with me and my feelings: dangling the resolution of my troubles right in front of me over and over again only to snatch it away again at the last moment. It has made me into an uncertain, doubtful and somewhat skittish person. And yet there's absolutely nothing I can do about it beyond hoping that maybe, just maybe this time things will be different...

I wouldn't count on it.


Maya

Shedding Tears For Those Who Were Struck Down

My initial response to the reports of the bombings at the Boston Marathon a few days ago was one of reluctance and hope. Reluctance about accepting yet another report of violence, and hope that it would not be too serious. The reality of the event soon became clear to me, however, with each subsequent news report and fact updates.

The thing with such reports is that one's mind tries to shut it out, and with good reason. There's something absolutely troubling and hopeless about the aftermath of an attack like this, regardless of whether it takes place at a market place in Iraq or an international event in an American city. The focus on harming innocent people in order to further selfish goals is beyond infuriating. It drives one to the edge of despair at the realization of so many lives destroyed or forever ruined.

The images of the Boston bombings are burned into my mind, same as for those of other bombings I have seen. There's something savage and brutal about the aftermath of an explosion like that, before one even considers the victims of it. From the gruesome details such as torn off limbs which one's mind can still ignore as being something innocent like a doll's limbs, to ripped apart bodies and those unfortunate enough to still be alive.

All of it just resonates inside your mind as being wrong, shaking the very foundation of your being. For someone like me it doesn't just resonate with that which makes me a caring human being, but also with the memories I had to suffer over far too many years. The stark contrast between a moment of innocent happiness when one is standing there near the finish line, cheering on a loved one or just enjoying the moment, to the sudden turmoil when one finds oneself lying there on the ground with the blast's shock wave still ringing in one's ears. Only to realize with a sudden feeling of numb panic the grievous nature of one's own injuries and forever remembering every single detail of one's surroundings as shock takes over.

At that moment there's just the pain, slowly burning through the numbness of shock. The worry about loved ones and the rush to save those struck down. I'll never forget those images. Not of those with only mild injuries lying on the ground as they got treated. Nor those of people with both legs blown off with just most of the bone still poking out. The moment when we all uncomfortably realize that we're just spirits inhabiting fragile shells of flesh.

Afterwards the anger takes over, as well as the frustration, feelings of hopelessness and despair. To me in many ways following the aftermath of this bombing is somewhat akin to reliving my own memories of what has been done to me. While shrapnel didn't tore away the flesh on my bones, a similar kind of damage was done inside of me. As the victims of the Boston bombings and their families go through the torrent of emotions following the event, all I can do is sympathize with them. I can feel their pain as it's my own as well.

The tears I'm shedding now aren't tears for my own pain, but theirs and mine. Together with those tears there is also the hope for them, me and everyone else that things will improve. That nothing like what any of us went through will ever happen again.

I can not turn back the clock on my own life. Nor can I turn back the clock on what happened in Boston. All I, they, anyone can do is face the future with raised heads, as tears stain our cheeks.


Maya