My View

by Pissed Off Hermaphrodyke

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

The article "Gene Team Works on Intersex Babies' (Polare 34) made my blood boil, so much so, that I decided to write and hopefully, destroy these medically and legally constructed and perpetuated myths. Although a positive for Polare was to place the I.S.N.A. article beside this piece of drivel, touted to be "science".

Male and Female are obviously not the only genders, even though they are the only ones accepted legally. The article states that the cause of intersex are "malfunctioning" genes or hormones, but in a third of cases the cause is unknown. Would this not suggest that intersex is a naturally occurring gender that should have the same rights as male and female?

Dr. Andrew Sinclair states "sexual ambiguity has crushing social and emotional effects on a child and implications for the family". While Professor Werther says "it provides insights to explain to distressed parents why their child has no clear-cut gender". Herein lies the root of the problem; social conditioning and the family. Through surgical intervention the medical profession continues to reinforce that male and female are the only options. The problem is not the intersex child but the family and Western society.

Why Western society? Other cultures have accepted intersex as part of the continuum between the dominant genders, ie male and female. They were assigned specific roles within their societies and therefore accepted as a valuable asset and made a contribution to the community. In Western Society we are seen as freaks and medical guinea pigs, to be poked, prodded, pumped full of hormones and mutilated. Mutilated, may appear a strong word. I mean, female genital mutilation is considered abhorrent, yet it is condoned when the child is intersex.

My "normalisation" surgery left me scared both emotionally and physically. Growing up, I was never told why all these operations were necessary, what should have been an erogenous zone was a medical zone. As an adult, I have never had pain free sex, these days I don't even bother trying.

Emotionally, I do not feel totally female or male. Emotionally, physically and sexually, I fit somewhere between the two. After many years of struggling to cope, the silence was broken, when I finally discovered that I was born intersex.

Now, I do not have a problem coping. I finally love and celebrate who I am, unfortunately it is other people who find it difficult to cope, because they can't stick a socially acceptable label on me.

The myth that this mutilation is for the emotional well being of the child, is based on research from Dr John Mooney. Whose research, has in recent years shown to be false, by the famous John/Joan case. Herein lies the problem - no follow up research has been conducted on adult intersexuals.

Those who do speak out, such as I.S.N.A. are branded as loonies and radicals by the legal and medical profession. The few other intersexuals I have known (who haven't committed suicide) are unhappy with the medical intervention in relation to their gender and the surgical results.

The medical profession are terrified to give these people credence because of the litigation that would occur, based on the emotional and physical harm their procedures have caused intersexuals worldwide. Should these "wonderful" doctors, finally work out how to switch off these genes which cause people like me, then all their concerns over litigation will be gone. Western Society will have won, the silence will remain and we will be once again relegated to the world of mythology. I still have people telling me that I don't exist.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.