Looking for input about a wiki [Archive] - Intersex Community Forums

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Jane_S

10-24-06, 05:35 PM

Hi everyone :-)

My net name for this sort of thing is Jane. I'm not intersexed. I'm trans (MtF, post-op, transitioned almost a decade ago in college, pretty happy with the whole thing). I do online support stuff to help a girls just starting out with transition. Anyway, enough intro stuff :-)

One of my pet peezes (that's relevant here) is the way *some* of the women in "my community" sort of "wish they were IS" as though having some obvious biological thing to point to would create a "justification for transitioning". Every so often someone decides to transition and actually does turn out to have something diagnosable like being mosiac XX/XY (obviously mostly XY if they're transwomen who started out looking mostly like a guy) or having partial AIS... but in my experience it's relatively rare compared to the women who are mostly engaged in wishful thinking and creatively rewriting their life stories... and in the meantime they're basically erasing the real issues of actual IS people (with like procedures being performed on babies with no informed consent and secrecy over this stuff and on and on)...

The other thing that sometimes happens is that transwomen start political or internet projects and say it's for "Transgendered and Intersex" on the theory that people whose lives are mixed up with "the gender binary and living a life that's not consistent with it" are going to automatically have issues in common. But sometimes this happens without the transwomen involved actually, you know, reaching out to the IS community and seeing if they want transfolk speaking for them like that.

So that's what I'm doing right now :-)

There's a wiki getting started. It's definitely for transwomen. I'm trying to do some outreach with transguys and expect them to get involved, and I wanted to see if the Intersex community *wanted* to be involved or if you folks would rather we shut up and not talk about you at all... or, yeah, is anyone interested in this kind of thing? Wikis work better when they have "large topics" but they also work better when they have "coherent communities with common values" and I'm not sure that applies here.

The wiki is at tgwiki.perttukitty.com (possibly subject to change depending on the name the wiki settles on and so on) and it's only been running for a couple days.

There's a mission statement discussion where we're trying to hash out what "the community we represent" is and what that should mean for like an editorial policy that you can find a link to on the main page (the forum software won't let me post links because I haven't posted 5 things yet, otherwise I would do that).

Basically, if some of you show up and start editing things it will help us work out whether the wiki should be inclusive and welcoming of IS people... or if we should stop talking about IS stuff... or if we should be doing some third thing we haven't even thought of. I know that *IF* the wiki is going to talk about IS stuff *THEN* I'd personally really really like there to be someone tapped into the IS community with admin powers because otherwise it's pretty messed up politically...

I'm really *not* tapped into the IS web community. I just found this forum by googling. I expect that you have LiveJournal communities and maybe some MySpace people or whatever tucked into nooks and crannies around the net. I'd appreciate it if someone here would pass the information and request for comment along to other IS communities with a link to the wiki and to the mission page especially.

Or if you could give me links maybe I could just go spread the word myself?

Thanks for your time and your patience :-)
Jane S.

Gentilly Girl

10-24-06, 09:07 PM

:shades_sm hey Jane!

As a long-time Trans/IS advocate who is now medically in the Intersex catagory, I'd be interested in helping with your wiki.

IS biologics I understand, but it's the upswelling of emotions caused by learning about my "assignment" that got me to come to this forum.

I also have experience with wikis as several of us down here maintain ThinkNewOrlean's wiki and the ones for the offshoots we have created.

Just give me a yell and off we go.

Namaste!

Morwen Madrigal,
"Witch by Nature, Bitch by choice, New Orleanian by birth"
GentillyGirl.com

kayleighsmom

10-25-06, 11:12 AM

I have met online some folks who really get offended because there is not a distinction made between Trans and IS. My daughter is IS (and just 4 years old) but has shown some distress over the fact that she is a girl even though her genetics tell her she's a boy. When I say distress, I guess that's really an understatement "emotional crisis" is a better way to describe it.

Anyway, I went on the DrPhil show which hasn't aired yet, but the 3 guests before us talked about transgendered and the we talked about my daughter's issues. I felt not the least bit uncomfortable about it.

The umbrella issue of DSD that's been discussed recently has caused a stir because there are so many types of IS conditions. On the flipside of that, there's a huge community of trangendered that could help promote understanding and acceptance in our daily lives. That is my single greatest wish for my daughter.... that whatever she chooses to be, she is accepted. I

So the issue I guess is come together and create a larger community for the common good or make specific distinctions about IS vs. Trans. I think they are closely related. While some may get pissed at me for saying that ... think of it... you were assigned a girl as an infant but you were really a boy. Sex change, plain and simple without your consent.

There are so many things the now 2 separate communites have in common that the average JOE SCHMOE wont' make the distinction anyhow. One thing I KNOW to be true with all my heart is that IS & Trans have painful existences at times and we are all people and should be able to acknowlege our own differences yet still be a support system for each other.

Just my opinion....

Linda

Gentilly Girl

10-25-06, 02:20 PM

Linda,

You hit the nail on the head: the path to acceptance lies within education by a large community of IS & TS folks. The key is to teach the general population "Who we are, and what we are not.".

This has been the crux of my work here in New Orleans for the last five years. I am the "out" person, first as TS, and after our return from exile, speaking up and]out for IS folks. This approach has wended it's way through many segments of our local society with good results. Acceptance is growing down here for two groups of folks that the general population never thought about before.

We have full protections here in the city, but the Gret Stet of Loooosiana doesn't. Two of our Statehouse Reps are taking a bill to the capitol with the purpose of extending protections for all of the state this Spring. I have talked extensively with both and have been given guarantees that the Trans and IS folks will not be dropped from the legislation. This would never have occured if they hadn't been faced with working with me on rebuilding issues. I'm the first openly Transitioning person they had ever met.

To my way of seeing things, both groups could benefit from a coalition. TS and IS folks have different origins, but our daily lives can be very similar. A win for one group becomes a win for the other and vice-versa.

Jane_S

10-25-06, 02:35 PM

Thanks to both of you for responding so fast. :-)

Morwen, it sounds like you're in "ready to go" mode. If you want to take a crack at the wiki, feel free to check it out and add whatever you think it's missing: tgwiki.perttukitty.com

On the other hand, one of the big reasons I'm here is more for people like Linda's daughter than for you, Morwen: the people who aren't really trans at all but are intersex and sometimes get "coat tails and side billing" when gender variance is discussed. I want to make sure that *if* IS stuff is discussed on the wiki *then* it's done so only with constant input from people who are "IS and not trans at all".

Linda, thank you for saying something. The Dr. Phil show sounds very similar to the stuff I'm talking about and trying to avoid. Honestly, I could see IS people getting a lot out of avoiding my community. There are lots of different "kinds of trans people" but the media has latched onto basically three stereotypes:

(1) Pretty girls with "a surprise" (the porn industry has a lot to do with this).

(2) Tragic "men in dresses" who might be wise and/or emotionally grounded but will "never really be women".

(3) With Female-to-Males have finally started getting some media attention... as rape and murder vitcims.

I know transfolk get steamed over these kinds of portrayals and I wonder if intersex people might do better on their own. I'm certainly up for "alliance and mutual benefit" but I expect that your daughter and I don't have that many things in common other than having our sex/gender/whatever be unsual in way that involves dealing somehow with the medical industry.

A lot of the wiki will probably be devoted to cataloging and sharing gossip about surgeons and endocrinologists and so on... Building a directory of local doctors who are good at various things like being open minded and friendly and willing to do some reading when they're dealing with nonstandard bodies.

But the *kinds* of nonstandard bodies trans people have are pretty stable as either MtF or FtM while I suspect that each specific IS diagnosis would involve a whole range of specialized expertise.

Anyway, I don't know we should put out an "IS welcome!" sign or if such a sign would end up being lip service and second billing. I dont' want to have to make the decision, I'd rather you folks did that.

For now, tgwiki.perttukitty.com is the place to go. We might be getting a more clear domain name... tswiki.com has come up in one of the trans forums where I'm promoting the wiki... but if IS people are going to be involved maybe it should be something else...

Can anyone suggest a good name?

:-)

-Jane

Sunshine1

10-25-06, 08:26 PM

Dear Jane:

Your group will help the small but not insignificant number of women with CAH that need to trans and that is a good thing ....a good and needed niche if you will.

But for you to speak for CAH and have any idea what it is like growing up with this condition is something that is upseting that you are trying to link the experiences. Although I don't blame you and I understand why someoone that is trans would look toward CAH and find it interesting. It seems like linking to my adrenal gland condition would help with making trans more mainstream?

I've already suffered from people that trans that bring up CAH which has the possibility of intersex symptoms ....pseudo hermaphrodite. I went to a therapist to talk about dealing with CAH - a life threatening medical condition that was tramatic also because of the medical exams and after telling the therapist about it : ( she then with the biggest confident smile goes TRANSEXUAL ! because it was trans people that had come to her graduate class talking about medical condition that may have intersex symtoms. I walked out of there defeated - i needed help will dealing with a chronic life threatening medical condition- my experinces with it and she was thinking trans issues that I have no idea about and never would be able to understand.

Also, my health was put into danger because doctors thought the same thing- they then didn't look for female medical issues that I could of died from but again your group will help the small about of woman with CAH that do trans and that is good. Please don't ever gloss over or ignore the medical part of CAH. By the way : ) CAH is already on here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia

I didn't trans into anything and CAH does affect male babies also. The fear is that for CAH is that this condition know but people really aren't educated on it and it's hard to get help for adrenal crisis when the Doc is telling you and I quote "Good job nobody can tell" because he thinks your condition has something to do with trans. But again your group will help the small amount of women with CAH that do trans.

I also feel that besides the small amount of women that wish to trans on that you will help : ) that from my experience with CAH and talking with other that CAH plus those with other intersex conditions that any issues about gender are intertwined with and specific to our conditions and that is where it is difficult that trans just wants to come in and link to it or absorb it. This makes us lose because then we don't have our own concerns resolved .....whew ...I don't know if that makes any sense but it is a very important thing in helping to cope manage the condition and it's hard when trans wants to cozy on up ....Do you get it? I need support for the actual condition and then another problemn is when people that really don't know the conditions make these wide statements about them as in the surgery that I do need at least by age 10 and some are better with it earlier and some latter - It's upsetting when other try to use it as a cause and bash doctors instead of realizing that doctors are listening, learning and trying to do what is the best for each individual case. Yes, what I went through in the 70's and 80's for CAH was difficult and I have some cracks in my psyche but in the 50's girl and boy babies died out right from CAH. Medicine is always changing.

Another thing is I've always known my gender...I have a ball with gender and my feelings about it are very wide and it's hard that people that need to change from one gender to another want to be the mouth piece for me and my condition. It's like being used for other peoples needs when one hasn't ever been able to know and be comfortable with their own condition and what or if anything it really has to do with gender.

Tell me what is the difference between my thyroid condition and my adrenal gland condition?

I do feel that my issues about gender are different and very specific to my condition and would really want support for that but also feel it is wonderful that you wrote and want to hook up with the samll amount of women that have CAH that were meant to trans.

I've worked with people that transed (non CAH) to the gender that they were meant to be and they were no different than other people.

I that you are worried about trying to engulf the gender that you were meant to be.....to find peace and be free : ) and I respect that concern whereas for example myself is finally finding peace in weaving everything I need from all sources of gender to find my place in the sun. I'm just a girl with a slacker of an adrenal gland (cah) to go with a thyroid condition to go with a small intestine condition and the cherry on top was gyno cancer (survivor two years knock on wood there) I would love for CAH to be known for itself because then the CAH wouldn't be a factor in blocking other conditions from being found out. Such a fucking freaky thing that they don't venture that this person might actually have other conditions.

I did like your post and found in very refreshing.You will help the small about of those with CAH that need to trans and that is awesome.

You don't need extra cortisone for surgery or when you are really, really sick ...you're lucky.

Respectfully yours,

Aimee

Jane_S

10-25-06, 09:54 PM

fraulein_Maria

10-25-06, 11:40 PM

My net name for this sort of thing is Jane. I'm not intersexed. I'm trans (MtF, post-op, transitioned almost a decade ago in college, pretty happy with the whole thing). I do online support stuff to help a girls just starting out with transition. Anyway, enough intro stuff :-)

One of my pet peezes (that's relevant here) is the way *some* of the women in "my community" sort of "wish they were IS"

>>> You can please tell them that they are essentially wishing to be medically raped as infants (CAH... the most common IS condition) and suffer life-long sexual difficulties as a result of that rape. They wish to have a chronic, life threatening condition that needs management like diabetes, and that they can be killed by ER personel with a mistake as simple as using the wrong IV solution.

Or you can tell them that they are wishing to discover at the age of 13 that they are not the young girls they had believed themselves to be, but genetic males...(AIS) and any dream they had of giving birth is now shattered and cannot be replaced with the dream of fathering. You must take this secret to your grave... because even if the man you marry understands that your a woman, and not an effeminate gay man... your positive that no one else (but another AIS'er) will.... and if the latest crap coming out of hollywood is any indication... they are right. Oh and BTW, DOMA is fucking them out of there marriages.

Klinefelter's or Turner's more they're style? If they're fortunate enough to not be retarded as a result..... they will suffer the tyrany of low expectations.

Though there are some here who love the way they were born (or assigned) and would not want it any other way, they are sadly in the minority....

As i explained on another site.....

A person who transitions almost always has a perfectly healthy, fertile body that we (IS'ers) would envy. While we do not condemn there choice, when they compare themselves to us, they do not understand that they are (at best) acting as if rape and making love are the same thing... and that we ought to have simply lain back and enjoyed the experience... because they did.

We do enjoy our trans. friends and are thankful for there company... but we OFTEN have our space invaded by those who claim to be one of us for nefarious purposes. Others are simply acting out there psycho-drama's, but they too, inflict a great deal of pain in the process.

Do you and they really want to help us?

I have a modest proposal......

Start a class action suit against any and all genito-urinary surgeons who ever performed a clitorectomy for violating the civil rights of children to not have there genitals mutilated. Do i care that "innocent" MD's might get swept up in this?
NO. by there silence they are complicit in what was done to us.

Less controversially....

become a genito-urinary surgeon (or nurse in that dept.) and........... FIRST DO NO HARM.
Truely become your pateints advocate AGAINST the doctors who look at our bodies and our parent ins. policies and see there next boat payment......
AND against the parents who would pressure the few good surgeons into performing this rape, rather than love there children just as Godde made them.

Become a preacher who shouts from the highest mountain that FORCING gender conformity upon a CHILD is a sin for which doctors and parents can expect an eternity in hell.

prince....ss?

10-26-06, 06:54 AM

What is a wiki and who comes up with these strange names???:help:

Sunshine1

10-26-06, 08:56 AM

Dear Prince...ss,

It's an Encyclopedia.

Here is the one for CAH. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congenital_adrenal_hyperplasia

I put that link in with all the others that I found when I wrote the post in the CAH section of BLO titled CAH educational info.

Aimee

Jane_S

10-26-06, 01:57 PM

Yay, an easy question :-)

What is a wiki?
A wiki is a website with the simplest possible editing model. Anyone who can see a page can edit it by clicking the "edit" link, making changes, and then hitting "save". Wiki software generally tracks who makes what changes and if you make "bad changes" then they'll be reverted by someone else. If you keep doing it (like spammers) there are tools for banning you. Basically it's an "assume everyone is good and then deal with the exceptions" model for doing "collaborative writing". Wikipedia is the biggest most successful example of a wiki, but there are hundreds of them floating around the net.

Who comes up with these strange names?
The guy who invented wikis is named Ward Cunningham. His working name for them was "Quick Web" but he was in Honolulu airport and heard "wiki wiki" describing a bus (which is derived from "waka waka" which means "fast" in the indigenous language of Hawaii) and he liked the sound and the "quick, convenient, and easy" connotations.

...

And now some hard stuff. So... fraulein_Maria...

I really don't see it as my place to start a class action lawsuit on behalf of IS people because I'm not IS. I'm not in the medical profession either and changing careers purely out of a desire to *change IS treatment* from inside the medical community seems to me like it would *still* be messed up in a "trans appropriating IS issues way". Maybe you have the passion and committment for that. I don't.

I help trans girls who are dealing with transition issues that I dealt with a couple years ago in order to give back to my community. The wiki is part of that. It isn't earth shattering like a class action lawsuit or preaching. It's just a place where people can get together and write for each other and the public.

The trick is that *other people* in my community aren't going to worry about "trans appropriation of intersex issues" unless I can point to web pages (like the one we're in the process of writing with our conversation) where I can say "Look, there are no IS people in our group so stop talking about IS stuff on the wiki! They don't like it. Don't believe me? Go look *here*."

I'm looking for answers from you guys... either:

(1) Desire for inclusion and followup participation in the wiki.

or

(2) Requesting that we leave you out of writing on the wiki.

or

(3) Actually being OK with transfolk constantly bringing up IS stuff when most of us don't have the slightest clue was real IS issues are like.

I'd appreciate it if someone from here who isn't trans at all but who is IS (or has IS children... hi Linda!) could express a direct opinion on what our wiki's approach to intersex issues should be.

Gentilly Girl

10-26-06, 02:54 PM

:thumbs_up Jane,

I am in total agreement with your assessment of the Trans/IS issue. Though I seem to have a foot in each camp, the fact that I am Transitioning has answered many of my concerns about my basic being. My worries are about anomalies in my physical makeup and the emotional toll that being lied to has on my emotional stability.

With that said, I'll check out the Wiki in a few days. I'm overseeing the rebuilding of our flooded home, have to help with a halloween party for the kids of New Orleans, my initiation into the F.O.I., my first Mardi Gras Krewe meeting, and a pub crawl through the Quarter on Tuesday night. (Acckkkk! the elections are in 11 days.... have to get things set up for the local debates.) It never ends down here.

Namaste!

:magic-2:

Jane_S

10-26-06, 08:48 PM

I just wanted to let people here know that I have a page out the wiki linking to here and describing other attempts to get opinions from intersex people on whether IS inclusion in the wiki would be worthwhile. I started exchanging emails with Emi Koyama, the Director of Intersex Initiative (who appears to be against significant IS inclusion but is willing to edit pages that exist in the wiki for the sake of trans education on IS issues). I've also sent email to ISNA, but I haven't got anything back yet.

Here is the link (you'll have to copy and paste because I still don't have URL posting privileges) describing the various attempts to contact people on this issue:

perttukitty.com/tg/wiki/index.php/Intersex_Outreach

-Jane

fraulein_Maria

10-27-06, 12:52 AM

[QUOTE=Jane_S;12140]Yay, an easy question :-)

And now some hard stuff. So... fraulein_Maria...

>>> sorry about that. i was not having one of my better days. A trans woman i had been talking to had decided to "help" me by declaring she knew more about solving my medical difficulties than i did........

which considering I've been in nursing for over 20 years (which she knew) really snaps my bra strap.

So you have my apologese. I re-read your letter and feel foolish for breaking the first commandment of e-mail....

Though shalt calm down before hitting the send key! <<<

Jane_S

10-27-06, 01:17 PM

Don't worry it's cool. I understand that this stuff gets people pretty worked up. Political appropriation stuff is a big issue back in trans forums where "different kinds" of transwomen argue over what words like "transsexual" and "transgender" should mean what their political consequences are (and implicitly, what different life paths mean for a person's authenticity). I've seen people get banned from forums for when arguments get particularly nasty :-(

Whenever I have to tiptoe around our issues like that I just talk about "transitioners" (as in "anyone who transitions") or about specific people with no overarching baggage. Using labels with people is just really complicated and delicate otherwise...

Basically, I'm just trying to say that I understand that talking about differences is tricky and it's easy for misunderstandings to develop and I don't think it's foolish at all to want to defend a personal identity. I really think distinct interests and identities are worth defending and articulating if they're not being respected. I'm trying to respect our differences and see if our commonalities are significant enough that people from this community would be interested in working on the wiki and sharing gossip on endos who are cool with unusual issues or whatever.

If I ever step out of line, feel free to call me on it, and in the meantime, Maria, it's water under the bridge :-)

-Jane

Kailana

10-27-06, 08:39 PM

hi Jane.

A fellow transexual here, just happen to be intersexed.

Explanation: There are a great many different opinions from us, by us i mean, those born with varying degrees of ambiguity to our genitalia. With all the differrent variations of how our body's developed, do too our various conditions that made us this way, too our own perception of what we are, do too what Surgeons have done or not done, has given each of us our own unique way of viewing, perceiving what we actually are. Now theres one hello of a run on sentence. I do concider myself to be transsexual/transgendered, just that becuase of my I.S. condition at birth, i was assigned male, lots of surgeries, lots of scars, I have lived with for many years, Gender dysmorphic because they chose wrong, its that simple. So now I am transsitioning, weehee, I am almost happy. Long way to go still. But am alot happier, slowly rebuilding a life that was not so very good.

Now then, most of the Doctors i have seen treated me like crap, not because i am trans, but because i am intersexed. That is the one thing that many transsexuals who wish they were IS make there biggest mistake. End up angering alot of other IS people. Now then for me, I however see almost no difference between being trans versus IS. We still get treated like crap from many doctors, society, family and sometimes people we thought were are friends. That is what we have in common. What makes us different, is the amount of lies, deceptions, and lack of compassion when it comes to what some of us have, or have had done to our bodies all in the name of supposedly making or giving us a normal life. That unfortunately, seldom happens. For the ones that are happy, godbless, alot of us are not.

The wiki sounds like a good idea, but my understanding of a wiki is that they are constantly being edited by those who can do so. Is there a way to keep some of the additions from being edited out by those who are ignorant of some of own philosophies. I am not computer savvy, my knowledge is not as well rounded as many of the others. What i do know, is that this body of mine is mine and mine only, What has been done in the past was cruel and inhumane, and for me really screwed up my life, it did not give me a normal one, it did not make me happy, all the secrets only added distrust, feelings of betrayal, a whole lot of anger and hate. My last surgery forced onto me was not so long ago, July 2002, at 31 years of age. I am now 36 years old, my experiences just like many other IS people have not been so good. That is my view of being IS. Now then my view of being TS/TG, It simply must be, there is no other way i can see myself as living, I must correct what has been done for me and no other. I do not care for trying to make some Doctor and psychiatrist to decide i am ready for surgery, however, i must as that is the required standards. I get treated as though i am Transsexual, so there really is no difference. I would advise your own girls, to remember that, being IS does not make transitioning easier to get, approved. From how my life has gone so far, it only made things worse. My own knowledge also has found that even from those surgeons who do gender reassignments, that there are some who refuse to do so on Intersexed persons. Might want to tell your girls that too.

Now then, I still think it is a good idea. Why you ask? Because it will spread more information out there. It may open a few more eyes, alter a few more of the more bigoted views that are out there, and maybe just maybe get a few people to think before they make rude comments, judge, criticise, or assault someone just because he or she is a little different.

Thank you again for posting this thread, there is value in spreading knowledge.

Jane_S

10-28-06, 01:29 AM

The wiki sounds like a good idea, but my understanding of a wiki is that they are constantly being edited by those who can do so. Is there a way to keep some of the additions from being edited out by those who are ignorant of some of own philosophies. I am not computer savvy, my knowledge is not as well rounded as many of the others.

...

Now then, I still think it is a good idea. Why you ask? Because it will spread more information out there. It may open a few more eyes, alter a few more of the more bigoted views that are out there, and maybe just maybe get a few people to think before they make rude comments, judge, criticise, or assault someone just because he or she is a little different.

So with wikis each article is sort of "what anyone thought was worth saying and no one thought was worth deleting". The content is mostly determined by the people who care about the issue enough to edit the page and then watch over it. For example, I added a bunch of "local color" to the article on wikipedia about my home town. Every couple months I swing by to make sure no one has vandalized it or otherwise added lame changes. Mostly the article is a little better every time I swing by :-)

That's why I don't think it's appropriate to "spread more information out there" about IS issues unless there are IS people to notice and fix it when some random transguy or transgirl makes a self serving edit. We (the trans community) would be spreading *bad* info (at least from my perspective) if we talk about IS stuff on the wiki without IS participation.

As to "keeping bad edits" out that comes down to talking out an editorial policy and then having the owner of the site (and admins delegated by her) enforce it by giving anyone who keeps violating the editorial policy a time out or banning them.

It's looking to me more and more like we shouldn't talk about IS stuff. I was hoping someone who was "IS and not trans" would be up for wiki stuff

Now then my view of being TS/TG, It simply must be, there is no other way i can see myself as living, I must correct what has been done for me and no other. I do not care for trying to make some Doctor and psychiatrist to decide i am ready for surgery, however, i must as that is the required standards. I get treated as though i am Transsexual, so there really is no difference. I would advise your own girls, to remember that, being IS does not make transitioning easier to get, approved.

OK... and now this is where we do do the "trans advice and support" in someone else's forum... :-)

As near as I can tell, shrinks have way way less power than lots of transwomen just starting out with transition seem to think they do. As near as I can tell, shrinks are just running a wracket based on our lack of self esteem by "giving us permission" to do something we don't need permission for. (At least we don't in the US... maybe in Canda and the UK you can't get gov't subsidized treatment without jumping through hoops?) Seriously, over the years I've gotten hormones from two endos and two GPs with nary a letter. (One of the endos wanted to ask a bunch of questions about my childhood after she realized the reason I didn't have ovaries and needed 'mones because I was trans and I basically told her it was none of her business and then gave her like a two sentence version of "a classic trans childhood" so she could save some face about "having made a decision".) And I've had two semi-significant surgeries with no letter (though with SRS that probably had something to do with looking like a sort of pretty girl and with Mom coming along and being supportive and not being in the US where the SRS surgeons are lawsuit-phobic).

Basically, if you just show up and you obviously know what you're doing and you show some moxie then lots of doctors won't know or care if there is a "Standards of Care" that they're ignoring by not asking for a shrink letter. And it makes transition way cheaper to skip the gender therapy stuff and just get on with your life. (Not that I'm advocating skipping therapy if you're honestly not sure and/or you want to work through some issues before doing anything physical... just remember that you've got options and and don't necessarily have to take their crap if they're not *helping* you exactly the way you want them to).

It's one of the useful things the wiki can do: hook people up with doctors that don't suck so the ones that do go out of business for failure to offer proper (patient respecting) treatment. Yay for capitalism! Slowly improving the world for any demographic with $$ and good shopping skills :-)

Speaking of which... there's still a page for Doctors Who Are Good With CAH Patients (http://perttukitty.com/tg/wiki/index.php/Doctors_Who_Are_Good_With_CAH_Patients) that could really use some names...

-Jane

Kailana

10-28-06, 07:27 PM

*It's looking to me more and more like we shouldn't talk about IS stuff. I was hoping someone who was "IS and not trans" would be up for wiki stuff *

Jane, This is where i think you are incorrect, in my opinion. I have been TRANS, since infancy. That is the one thing that i believe most people do not understand. My gender is and has always been both. I am both male and female. Surgeons made me into a boy, even though at birth i looked more like a girl. It took labwork, and scopes, for the them too know that i did in fact have a Y chromosome, and testes. I was Dorothy first, because they saw me as a girl, I was assigned boy, reconstructive surgery made me look like a boy.

Labels again. My gender identity disorder is caused by the fact that i am intersexed. In the DSM, i am diagnosed as 302.6 Gender Identity Disorder due to an intersexed condition. At least that is what older DSM's said. I have not bothered looking at a DSM in many, many years. Now then, The cause of such things, like GID can be varied, But in the end there is little difference how most Doctors see us. Old outdated standards are still being used to define who we are, what we are suppose to be, and how we are suppose to be happy when forced into a Gender. Some of us, were fortunate enough to have been assigned the correct gender, some of us were not. Depending on what source of medical text you happen to read, as there are so many, someone like me can be considered as Trans, others will say that an IS person is not to be considered a transsexual. This is why I think there should be some information on your Wiki, about us. If for no other reason, it may keep some people who are trans, from making hurtful foe-pahs's like making comments that "they wish they were IS". With information on IS issues present, Some who are infact transitioning, may discover that they are also IS.

I can't say as too whether or not that would be a good thing. Finding out at 22 years of age, was extremely difficult on me. My experience with Doctor's and Psychiatrists even harder. Finding the faith, strength to keep asking what was done to me as an infant very trying. My need for counseling, a neccessary requirement for me, I know i needed help, dealing with all of my issues. The most challenging for me, was how my parents chose to not tell me, or support me, my decision to correct what was done. Next came how doctors treated me, withheld medical records. When i was in extreme need of help, both my Doctor's, and my Shrink, made things worse by pushing antidepressants, and when they didnt work, added Antipsychotics. That combination nearly killed me, I became suicidal. During my 2nd overdose, Surgury, without my knowledge or consent was performed again on me. 31 years old, and still being treated like a guinea pig, a lab rat, made things even worse. This time though, i was old enough, and had enough knowledge to at least challenge what they had done. While my efferts at getting a Lawyer and filing a medical malpractice suit didnt work, i did find the strength to say, "Enough, I will take no more of this crap". All the doubt, all the things i was afraid of, fear of being accepted, fear of being harrassed, fear of ever being accepted as a woman, all faded away. I do not fit into standards for Trassexuals, i am not worried about stealth, or passing, or anything along those lines. All of my IS issues, clouded my stability and with surgery in 2002, grew to rage. I dont think anger is the best form of therapy, but it did give me the strength, to do what needed to be done. I Got rid of my old Doc's, and found better ones. Who didnt have all the bias and bigotry. Refferal for endo came soon after, Lots of more labs and hey what do you know HRT, without all the stress or anxiety that i had, tell then, been subject too.

Someone like me, who is Intersexed, can also be Trans, society sees us as not being different. Many Doctors see us as being the same too. That is why there is so much anger from some of the other members, when Doctors made comments about someone being trans, rather then IS. The two often get mixed together. But there are differences, particularly as there are so many different conditions and variations within the conditions.

You mentioned Emi Koyama, i hope i spelled that right, You might want to at least ask her about "The Survivor Project" at http://www.survivorproject.org/is-intro.html
That could also be of use to both Is and Trans persons, male or female, and to the general public too. Above has some online handouts on Domestic violence and abuse against Intersexed and transsexuals that are free for download.

Back to the main comment. You need to put IS issues in the Wiki. You allready have some interest in it from Emi. Even I would like the opportunity to at least share some of what little knowledge I happen to Poccess.
And thank you as well for your earlier comments to my last post.

Jane_S

10-29-06, 07:39 PM

I just wanted to let people know that things were still happening with this issue and they can find out about "how things are going". I wrote up a summary of my interactions with this board, with the Portland based "Intersex Initiative", and with ISNA (http://perttukitty.com/tg/wiki/index.php/Intersex_Outreach). I've asked the two women I've been corresponding with from ISNA and Intersex Initiative to check out that page and edit it if they think it should be edited. I'm asking the same of people from this forum.

In the meantime I also started a page on the wiki describing Bodies Like Ours (http://perttukitty.com/tg/wiki/index.php/Bodies_Like_Ours) in a purposefully bad way. Bad because that makes it clear that it needs edits from people who know what they're talking about... The page could use a few edits from people here and might serve as a nice way to get people to join this forum if they stumble across it during a Google search and hear something they like. I'd really appreciate an edit or two explaining what this forum feels like from the inside...

-Jane

fraulein_Maria

11-15-06, 08:19 PM

[QUOTE=fraulein_Maria;12145][QUOTE=Jane_S;12140]Yay, an easy question :-)

And now some hard stuff. So... fraulein_Maria...

>>> sorry about that. i was not having one of my better days. A trans woman i had been talking to

>>> and now i have a public apology to make.....

this particular woman i was speaking of above, is not a trans woman, nor have i ever thought she was.....

i was just really pissed off at her in particular (at the time) and some trans women i know, and unforgiveably conflated them.

I was wrong. and i'm sorry. :(

sparklingdreams

11-19-06, 08:48 PM

I agree everyone should be accepted,

But any Wiki could not address issues of those with any of the D.S.D. (or Intersex, whatever). D.S.D. are many and varied, and yes many of us do deal with emotional trauma associated with 'gender' issues, these extend from at least, our genders being decided by others and then our genitals than mutilated to fit their paradigm. But this is in no way the same as trans issues. For those with any D.S.D., who does not have their genitals mutilated and finds their genders just incorrect, such as some with C.A.H. or A.I.S., in most cases we simply deal with completely different issues. I'm not discounting the pain of any trans person, indeed I have no idea what they live through. Likewise and then some for any trans wiki attempting to 'address' D.S.D. issues. No matter what they are very different, and D.S.D. issues involve things being done to us while infants without our consent, which is not the case for trans people. So I personally feel that trans and D.S.D. issues should remain separate, especially when attempting to educate. Otherwise all our issues become cloudy. So to answer your question as you put it "Sssshush up" (just joking... kinda).

jenny

11-24-06, 07:09 PM

To me it comes down to this. Gender and the issues associated with it are not as easily defineable as people would like to believe. In this way, I think that intersex, trans, and gay issues are all related. Of course they are all very different, and many people have their own reasons for wanting to keep them very much in their own boxes at all times, but...in the struggle for our basic human rights, we are all very much in the same boat. Society wants to keep viewing everything in it's little binary way, while we all know it's not that simple. It sounds like you are sensitive to the pertinant issues, and if education and acceptance is the goal, then I have no problem with it. Legally and socially we have many things in common, even if medically we do not.