help with book

[gncallahan]

Hi,

I am currently working on a book tentatively titled The Mismeasure of Sex which Chicago Review Press will publish in 2008. A portion of that book focuses on issues of intersexuality, androgen insensitivity, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, sex chromosome differences, and related matters. I contacted Jan Goto at ISNA and she suggested that I contact support groups for more information. I am very interested in speaking with a person or persons who are living with these conditions. My reasons are that I think as part of the book, it would be wonderful for readers to hear from these people in their own voices. The main purpose of the book is not to suggest we need more sexes, but rather how we might all benefit from a change in the ways we think about sexes and what is usual or unusual. As part of my project, speaking with someone who is experiencing androgen insensitivity as a way of life would be especially important and useful to me. My only interest would be in providing this person or theses persons with an opportunity to express their feelings about their lives in ways that might help to educate all of us. Anything that I attributed to anyone I spoke with would be available for review and correction before publication. I have attached my current table of contents to give you a better idea about the breadth and depth of the book. If I can do anything further to convince you of my sincerity, please let me know. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Gerry Callahan

[JOS]

Is this a semi-scientific book.... from which stand point are you coming from? Doctor, psychologist, intersexed?
What exactly is it that you'd like to know?
I have thus far discovered that I am CAIS.

[gncallahan]

I am an immunologist by training and a writer. My books are science-oriented with a broad audience as the target.

Here is the proposed table of contents:

The Mismeasure of Sex:

Table of Contents


Section I. Among the Sexes

1. Case Report: A History of Misunderstanding

2. What We Imagine Happens: Where Babies Come From

3. What Really Happens: Where Babies Come From

4. What We Do About It: Deconstructing the Ambiguous child
5. How Some of Us Feel About It: A Medical Miracle
6. How Some Others Feel About It: Letters from the Front
7. Personal Stories: Living It.

Section II. How We Came to Believe in Two (and only two) Opposite Sexes
8. The Opposite of Sex: We Haven’t Always Believed in Two, Opposite Sexes

9. The New World of Sex: How Columbus Discovered the Clitoris

10. Some People Still Don’t Believe There Are Only Two Opposite Sexes: The Lens of learning


Section III. Other Species, Other Sexes

11. Animal Sex: Giving Birth Through a Penis and Other Uncommon Abilities

12. Hot Stuff: Changing Sexes on the Fly

13. Infectious Sex: Sometimes, It’s the Little Things That Count

14. Sex and Sexual Preference: The Curious Bonobo



Section IV. Refiguring Sex

15. Sex and Reproduction: A Case of Mistaken Identity

16. Sex and Self-Perception: Where Biology Meets Psychology

17. Refiguring Sex

What I want is mostly just to know what you might want to say about yourself, your experince, your situation. It seems to me that many people do not understand the nature of CAIS and related experiences. I think that through better understanding of human beings we can all learn more about what remarkable creatures we truly are. It is my hope that sharing some personal experinces with my readers might help to move things in that direction. Thanks for your response.

[JOS]

Sounds like an interesting read... is most of it written already
How would you like to proceed?
Asking questions?
The true details were kept secret from me for most of my life and to be honest once I finally discovered the truth (out of the blue by accident) suddenly everything made sense and I actually felt a great deal better.... although obviously the betrayal of my parents and doctors is still a bit of a black hole of emotions.
anyway... ask specifics cos I'm quite shy to just spread my life story.... actually that's a good point.

[peaceandparty]

plus many of us our old....and to tell you our life stories...we may as well write a book ourselves

jos......i would say number one or two on your agenda should be making sure that your parents know that you have to love them in some ways.....and that the undercover operation to cover up your genders truth was probably organised by the doctor,advised by the doctor,and your parents were probably advised by the doctor to keep it hush hush

anyway.....i would love this book writer to go over passages in the book so that we could nearly proof read it before it gets published

[prince....ss?]

I normally don’t flame but your post flat sickens me. Why don’t you write a factual book on the life and organisms of Neptune. You would have just as of a chance of getting it right.

People like you can do little more than guess about the complexities of sex and gender and I can tell by your outline that you don’t have a beginning clue as to how things really are. So you will just make up some bullshit and the people that read that kind of crap will learn to be just as ignorant as you.

Some poor soul who is confused about their sex or gender will be looking for help and will stumble upon this crap. Do you think this will enlighten them? What gives you the right to come off as an expert because you emailed a few intersex people?

Try writing about something you know about and understand!!!

[peaceandparty]

thats equally off putting!

if someone comes in here or anywhere to TRY and get more understanding on intersex issues
then---fair play----

lets give them a fighting chance to prove themselves----ie:that they can manage the inner thoughts of so many intersex individuals and put it into words that will ultimately not sum up how it really is anyway

i understand the anger and annoyance for so many intersexed when someone like this comes in
one point i would mention
is if you are going to come in here....please introduce yourselves.....and get very nitty gritty in your writing,because its easy to come across wrong

i would also expect you to slightly ignore the majority of books out there written on these subjects because like most here at this site and possibly in the world-books have not yet been written well enough to describe the intricateness of wording feelings!and especially intersex feelings


i would say prince....ess or anyone else for that matter
that thinks that 2 wrongs make a right...are wrong....lol

"People like you can do little more than guess about the complexities of sex and gender"

we can all just guess and sometimes we will say something that
rubs nicely against the bone...and other times it will itch the bone
and i am personally in the mood for someone else to write books on these subjects...because my procrastination trait is not good for these tasks!lol

i am whole heartedly happy that someone would come and even be interested

here is a perfect opportunity to make something better

would it be better if this book writer didnt come at all?

isnt it great that they have come

i do hope you will stay
but be ready for many questions coming your way too!

prince...ess if you normally dont flame...then dont flame now.....because this is the start of a possible success story or a possible failure(again)

its like a relationship....most of us have had more than one....because we knew we had to keep trying
but many of us also,have tried and tried and trusted and trusted only to get fecked each time in the end....so we give up
lets not give up before it starts

thats what i say anyway

i understand the annoyance and predictions of someone who say that they will write a clear book,and then end up not
sometimes as we know its out of the writers hands
because of the publisher and editors
so lets give this person a chnace
because i think they are/were giving us a chance

fair play....keep in mind

[JOS]

If someone writes a load of rubbish because they haven't bothered to research properly,then fair enough to complain. But if they ask for your input and you refuse... you can't really complain when they get it wrong.
I guess the really tricky bit is when they ask you and put your name to something you generally don't agree with.... take your words out of context etc.
Trust is a very difficult beast.... it opens up your insides for the vultures to peck at.... but you get a warm fuzzy feeling whilst it's doing it!! LOL

I guess that's why most good relationships are built slowly?
what do you all think?

[JOS]

you could always try asking questions and see who replies

Although I have only relatively recently found out about CAIS, I have known I am infertile since I was 15. That fact often made me wonder what the point to my exsistance was.
It also made it hard when I met my partner because I felt that I was cheating him out of having children and also his parents out of grandchildren... lucky for me he doesn't see it that way... or at least not yet (we've now been together for over twelve years)
I guess I'm trying to say that I never really identified as being wholly female even when I knew nothing about intersex.... so the 'cover-up' never worked anyway, it just kept me away from people who could have stopped me feeling like a complete freak.

Interestingly, when I asked my GP about everything in 2003 and she told me I was CAIS, she also said that I didn't have to tell my husband as 'men sometimes find it hard to understand [stuff like that]'.... and I think I said somthing like 'what, you mean men like me....' I found it really hard to tell him after that cos I thought he'd think that I'd lied to him all along, that I'd known and deceived him.... so the lies I'd been told made me feel like a liar....

sorry I'm gonna go have a bit of a cry now.
JOS:(

[prince....ss?]

Look I don’t want to be mean but just look at his outline. He talks about CAH and AIS but does not address the other intersex conditions that don’t have the catchy initials. Secondly his out line make it out that these folks with CAH or AIS have a gender identity issue. If I’m correct most people with those conditions don’t have an identity issue. Then he switches to animal sex to compare us to the things that give birth through our penises. So read his outline he does not have a clue and is just looking for a freak show.

[peaceandparty]

listen,how many doctors are on intersex sites

i havent seen many

if doctors really want to know

then they would use the internet more

and start talking to the people who know more

-----us-----

prince.....ess i really like you......so dont get me wrong

but lets also try and trust ,jos!

and i hope jos that your cry was ok.......it must be awful sometimes!

i know i have cried a few atlantic oceans in my lifetime over my "abnormality"
-which actually turns out being a very "normal" occurence

intersex is damn normal........but not dealt with properly

[JOS]

Thanks Prince..ss I can appreciate what you're saying and I will take that into consideration. Afterall it's not just me that would be affected! and you do make a really good point as to why he's concentrating on certain syndromes.

And thank you too PeaceandParty, yes I did have a good cry... I'm a bit emotional this week, I think because I went for another oncology appointment. it's always quite stressful anticipating the worst but this time I had loads of questions that the consultant couldn't actually answer... so now I have to wait for a referal and then syke myself up to ask all over again with another random stranger (who googled my syndrome that morning)!!

sorry for the windging there... I know I haven't got it anywhere near as bad as some, so sorry

[gncallahan]

I haven't tried to focus on just a few sorts of differences. In the book, I have tried too suggest that because of the complexity of fetal development, all of us are different and the more we know about how people think about those differences the closer we will be to understanding one another. Also, I have tried to consider every aspect of sexual development and all of the disorders that might arise when the biology of development changes.

All I am seeking is some advice about how to go beyond what the textbooks have to say and show what real people think about how this affects their lives.

And my chapters about animals are simply intended to help people see how narrow our ideas are about human sexulaity in particular and mammalian sexuality in general.

I would still apreciate any of your insights about how I might do a better job of this.

Gerry Callahan