intersex and trans

[sophiaserpentia]

Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.

I wrote a filtered post in my LJ about it a couple of years ago, but i haven’t really made it public knowledge that i have an intersex condition. This may come as a surprise, but i don’t actually make it a habit to talk publicly about certain parts of my body. It was diagnosed at birth and i remember when i was eight attending a consultation with a surgeon who talked about ‘correcting’ it surgically.

Yes, i am intersex AND transgender. My secondary sex characteristics are pretty unambiguously male yet my identity is female. But the last couple of days i’ve been pondering the link between these two things.

All my life people have acted as though there is something off about me. Even before i began laser hair removal therapy, it was not uncommon for people i encountered on the street to gender me as female, even if i hadn’t shaved in a week. Then they’d look up at me or look again and ‘correct’ themselves or just look very confused. So, something about me sends ambiguous gender signals to people. I’ve long presumed that maybe i was giving off some kind of unconscious behavioral signal of my feminine gender identity. But what if it’s because i’m intersex?

The gestational estrogen exposure which caused my intersex condition was possibly responsible for the overall female shape of my face and body. People who meet me find it difficult to believe i’ve never taken hormone supplements. My height is about average for a woman, though i have a broad masculine upper body. It’s possible i smell female to myself and others, too; in this regard i’ve heard mixed accounts from different people close to me.

My voice, too, is ambiguous. I have been working with a voice training program my therapist gave me, and while i can speak in female registers without my voice straining or cracking, i have the vocal resonance of a man and comfortably sing tenor. Heck, i could write a long autobiographical post about my voice alone - i have never liked the sound of it and have tended to soften it to the point of whispering - but suffice it to say my voice has never helped convince anyone i was male or female.

I’m going to veer into controversial territory because i’ve been skating on the edge of it anyway. It’s one thing to wonder if my physical ambiguity is due to estrogen exposure during gestation, but quite another thing to wonder if that same exposure affects psychological ambiguity too.

There are those who advocate calling transsexualism an intersex condition. I’m iffy on this for two reasons. First, there is a wide variance in what brings people to where they will say they are transsexual; the desire or need to transition stems from many different things inside many different people, and i’m not comfortable supposing there is one single identifiable root cause.

Second, any proposed causality from biology to psychology is problematic. We can examine the brains of male and female cadavers and find statistical differences between them. But what causes those differences is unclear. Genes paint the shape of the brain in broad brushstrokes; beyond that the brain is shaped by experience. Without clear experimentation (which would be, to say the least, unethical) we don’t really know where to draw the line between nature and nurture.

But as my wife is fond of pointing out, when it comes to treating people with respect it shouldn’t matter whether these things are inborn or cultural. So i am not offering the question of, “Was i born this way?” in the spirit of then saying, “Because if i was born this way, then you should treat me fairly.” You should treat me fairly anyway, even if i have chosen something you don’t like. In the end it’s not scientific evidence that will end discrimination (the anti-gay right has been adjusting their religious argument to accommodate bio-psychological arguments) it is our account of what it is like to be us.

No, i’m just trying to understand why i am the way i am. 37 years of this and i don’t really think i’m any closer to understanding.

Comments

first off

[delascabezas.livejournal.com]

thanks for sharing this information. while it doesn't change my opinion of you, my understanding of you, or alter any of the impressions of you i've cataloged mentally, it is definitely something which draws a mind closer...

i couldn't agree more in regards to your commentary re: origins are not important - equal treatment is.

that being said, allow me to close with a quote which i thought of reading your closing comment:

“I think I've discovered the secret of life - you just hang around until you get used to it.” - charles schultz

Re: first off

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

The one request i get regularly is to write more about my life, about what it is like to be me on a day to day basis. But i don't know, i'm just me, i have trouble understanding why anyone would want to read about me. 95% of my life is mundane, and much of the rest doesn't get posted about anymore ;). I don't really like to stand for candid photos, either.

I've always been much more interested in my inner life. But i suppose i should resolve to be more mindful of what is going on around me and maybe i should cultivate a sense of everyday wonder.

Sorry, i guess that doesn't pertain much to your comment. :)

Re: first off

[delascabezas.livejournal.com]

actually, i think you hit right what i was going for, albeit much more thoughtfully presented.

my knowledge and understanding of you is very intellectual, and from a totally virtual perspective. i've seen photographs of you and memorable moments, but who you are - the mundane, remains a mystery, aside from the small places it is shared.

95% of _everyone's_ existence is mundane to them. that is not to say that there is not something interesting to someone else, or someone else(s) within than 95%.

the parts of your inner life, which you share, are your voice in my mind. strong yet compassionate (sometimes to a fault). wise, but still susceptible to outrage. it is not about timbre or pitch, but clarity and expressiveness.

what i am trying to say above is that getting some of your true voice, through the bridge of that internal-external self, across the medium i have gotten to know you through, is a good thing. it enhances many of the perceptions i have, and challenges many of the assumptions i make - not about other people, but about how i perceive other people.

the short version: thanks for sharing, i'm a better person for having known you, even if my knowledge of you is totally imperfect.

Re: first off

[alobar.livejournal.com]

> i have trouble understanding why anyone would want to read about me.

You are an intesting person. You are far more than the books you have read and the political positions you choose. It is only by seeing all of you that I have a handle on beginning to understand you, what shapes your growth, and what are your weak spots.

I know of no human being (myself included) which is not boring &/or frustrating some of the time. But it only by getting clear looks at all of a person that I can learn to emulate the qualities in that person I admire.

[pixelmonster.livejournal.com]

As the mother of a son who is genetically 45X/46XY and no signs yet of where he is missing the male chromosomes (despite his heterochromia or different colored eyes), we are letting him decide his own gender as he develops more. Currently, he identifies toy-wise and prefers male toys for the most part, and looks physically male equipment-wise with a a VERY petite and girlish build and female facial steucture. Most girls his same age are much larger than him even. We are trying to nurture in a way that nature is allowed to manifest as it will, and whatever our Lindsay is gender-wise (he is considered intersex medically) he is accepted and loved. At three and a half, he walks in two inch heels better than his mommy tho:)

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I googled "45X/46XY" and one of the first things that turned up is a page recommending surgical removal of any male genital characteristics in case they should turn out to be "neoplastic" (or in other words tumorous).

Your son will certainly be amused (not!) to someday learn there are doctors out there who think his pee-pee is a tumor.

Hopefully the stature issue doesn't cause him trouble when he enters school. :(

I'm grateful there are parents like you who's first reaction isn't, "OMG Doctor, can't you just make our baby normal!"

[pixelmonster.livejournal.com]

We were informed when he was 17 weeks of gestation if we wanted to terminate. They had offered us that chance two times before then due to weird testing and lab results. We said hell no everytime. Intersex never scared us. Mosiacism esp intersex genetic mosiacism, is not scary, what to us was scary is how some pending parents chose to deal with it. We're very pro-choice but his chromosomes being mixed was no reason for us to terminate him, it was not a reason for us to make that choice for ourselves. Zwerg's a most wanted child and was always going to have a family gender nuetral name from the moment we found out we were pregnant.

We were warned he has a higher than normal risk of testicular cancer. None so far and no hypospadia at birth. We watch him carefully and get him checked frequently by his pediatrician. His pee-pee looks normal and seems to function. He may be sterile as well and that's fine with us, he and his partner of whatever gender can always adopt if they want kids. He will be fully evaluated by the geneticist again when he's 7 and then again at puberty he goes back to geneticist.

Lindsay IS normal, to us and we love him even when he does dress in drag and demands Princesses as well as toolboxes:)

I'm 4'10" and dad is 6'2", he will likely be average height. My own father was only 5'2" tho so his diminutive stature may not be a problem as he has a high likelyhood of it being wholly genetic and no one in my family is over 5'8" (unlike hsi dad's side which averages 5'8"(for female) to 6'7" (for males).

[dorisp.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I couldn't post in Sabrina's journal forever. Everytime I would click comment it would display only a white page...

Anyway, I have been waiting to post something to this entry and I thought it would be good to post it as a reply to your comment since you have an intersex child.

I just finished reading a really good book called Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides. It's sort of a take on a Greek epic following this one mutated gene through time. It won the 2003 Pulitzer too. The protagonist has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency and itt is about being brought up as one sex when you are really another sex as well as associated struggles. I felt it was a very good read and it was the first time in text that I had seen an intersex protagonist portrayed as neither pathetic or permanently mentally screwed-up. I think it would be worth a read for both of you guys as it tackles a number of subjects like incest, homosexual love, etc. with in a pretty inspired way. Anyway, thought I would recommend it to you both but if you have read it, I would love to hear your thoughts. :D

[alobar.livejournal.com]

of possible interest:

http://veleda.livejournal.com/415694.html

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I seem to find myself surrounded by transfolk wherever i go, which could mean one of three things: (1) there are a lot more transfolk than anyone ever guessed, or (2) transfolk gravitate towards the same communities and activities, or (3) so many places are unwelcoming that we all tend to wash up on the same shores.

In the pagan setting there seem to be quite a lot of transfolk, but i'm not sure whether this is because there is something "spiritually transcendent" about being transgender, or whether it's a simple matter of refugees needing someplace welcoming to go. Maybe a bit of both. Here in Boston where liberal Christianity has a lot of influence, i know a few transpeople who are vocally Christian. In the south i don't think i knew any Christian transfolk at all.

[alobar.livejournal.com]

> 37 years of this and
> i don’t really think i’m any closer to understanding.

hehe. When I was a pre-teen I attended my Uncle Henry's 85th bithday party and he said pretty much as you just wrote.

To me, wisdom and self-understanding is a process rather than a destination.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

i am not offering the question of, “Was i born this way?” in the spirit of then saying, “Because if i was born this way, then you should treat me fairly.” You should treat me fairly anyway, even if i have chosen something you don’t like. In the end it’s not scientific evidence that will end discrimination (the anti-gay right has been adjusting their religious argument to accommodate bio-psychological arguments) it is our account of what it is like to be us.

I have long thought that the "nature made me this way, so it's OK" arguments of pro-gay lobbyists are both fallacious and tactically misguided.

Fair is fair, regardless of science; and biological predilection should not usher in social acceptability for any stigmatised activity.

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I hope that a much later response doesn't come off as winging right out of the blue, but I rather accidentally came to your journal via the chain [of comments and friendlists, redacted out of common sense]. At least that is how I recall it, having not yet had my morning coffee.

I have been mulling over the intersection between intersex and trans for a while; I'm 46-xx CAH, reared as male (which REALLY sucked), had corrective surgery in the late 70s, more or less put the whole adolescent train-wreck behind me until a younger sibling (46-XY and a parent of three) came out as trans. Which has been, in a word, interesting.

Not sure where I am going with this other than "hello" and "best wishes". I note that the medical and biochemical literature on i/s conditions can be quite enlightening, and I further note that the transfolk do certainly at times debate their connection/intersection/distinction vis-a-vis intersex folk.

Friended you, anyway; see where it goes. Not many i/s folk 'out there' in LJ-land.

Angharad Lewis
a pen-name, of course, but a believable one, even fits my sociolect.