What You Don't Want To See

[AneBarker]

While I'm not looking for miracles, I had hoped to have at least one or two responses to my initial post yesterday.

I realized through the night that I probably should be asking, what you don't want to see on a movie screen.

As I mentioned in the first post, I already have the character set, my goal is to ultimately ignite the ultimate (average u.s. american joe smacking himself in the head and saying) Oh, Now I get it, the world isn't black and white, sexuality and identity aren't wrapped up in the neat little bundle that the pruient society has pushed on us since the Mayflower landed. No human being is freak, and everyone is an individual that deserves love, respect and I liked this person before, so why would I stop liking them because they have different reproductive organs than the majority of humans.

When I was a little girl, my father was working up in Fredonia on the new science building(eons ago). He commited the ultimate smack in the face to builders and hired men from the Seneca tribe at the same rate as his union buddies from here in New York. Back then (and probably still) they paid the Seneca as little as they could get away with.

Anyoldways, my father became a blood brother, and we stayed on the reservation for the rest of our time there (18 months). I met Jimmie, I forget how to spell out his native name, but it meant one who is one with all of nature. Jimmie was my life there, unable to read or write because of what I now believe was severe dyslexia, I would get to read and print notes for Jimmie, which I loved. In turn, Jimmie took care of me when my mother had to go back to Staten Island, and I started to called him mama. He was more demonstrative than my own mother, who was embarrassed by my shyness and my chubbiness, and I wished with all my heart then and even now that he was my 'real' mother. I was able to keep in touch with Jimmie with greyhound and letters read to him and dictated by him until he passed on in 1975, when I was 18. Long distance was out of the question except on birthdays and a few holidays.

Jimmie was what was explained to me as one who possess many souls, and that Jimmie was a special gift to their tribe and to me because we were considered soul mates. Jimmie wore traditional native american clothing, and house dresses, which had then prompted my asking if he was a boy or girl.

I followed him around, and he supervised my day to day activities, and after my mother left, he kept me in his home, as my father was a raging alcoholic, who partied with the boys way too much.

When I was older, many years after Jimmie passed, my father and I were watching a television program and the topic was 'Hermaphrodites', and he told me that was what Jimmie was, and because he was born on the reservation and not in a hospital, the doctors weren't able to get a hold of him and take away his male genitalia.

So, while my character is living as a woman, she iis imbued with all of the love and patience, hopes and dreams of Jimmie, and I hope to reveal his soul to as many people as possible up on that screen. To know Jimmie, was to know love.

I just want to make certain that I don't offend, and stereotype the intersexed. So, please if it makes more sense, tell what you don't want to see up on the screen, rather than some stories of this or that, please do so.

Always,
Ane Barker

[Betsy]

Hey Ane,

While I wish it wasn't the case, not everyone visits our boards everyday at the same time. Patience is a good thing.

Betsy

[claraJane]

Ane,

Thanks for posting, although I'm not quite sure what you'd like.

I've corresponded with perhaps a dozen people who, like myself, have an intersex condition, were raised as boys, and who have changed our legal status to female. I'm not sure how much we all have in common other than the trials that we've been through at the hands of those who were trying to help us.

I'm happily married. Two or three others that I know of are as well. A few others are in somewhat stable homosexual relationships. A few prefer to live by themselves.

One's a nuclear physicist, one a nurse, three computer geeks, one a teacher, one a graduate student. Missionary, helicopter pilot, housewife, federal agent, linguist, and writer are labels that could apply to us. Are we really that different?

None of the dozen had any special drive to be women, at least not the way that some transsexuals claim. For most of the dozen it was a desire to just find a place to have a life and to get away from the doctors and therapists. In my case I would call it exoproandrophobia, a fear of being forced to become a man. I turned down testosterone because I liked my feminine body the way it was. I sought genital surgery to be able to change my legal status to female and to be able to have a sexual relationship as a woman.

I don't have misgivings or uncertainties about being female but I do often struggle with doubts about my right to exist, probably because it took such a struggle to find this place in the sun.

Jane

[AneBarker]

Betsy, thanks for the advice.

Jane:

That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I've heard only one story from a woman that was forced to be a 'boy' for her homophobic rednecked father, and since Chris' emotional turmoil greatly resembled the emotions of my character, just thirty years earlier, I was drawn to finding out some other peoples experiences.

Would you be offended if a movie portrayed a intersexed person, as being feminine and felt they were a woman and not an 'in-between' person and not a male? I don't think so, but that's what I want to know from those that are intersexed. I've been given a talking to by several members via e-mail and each has a different reaction with the same result, they are afraid of 'kind' and pissed at me.

Reasonably and/or unreasonably so, I guess.

I don't think being intersexed means anyone is less than or more than a human being, just as I don't think being gay, lesbian, bi or straight or a-sexual, democrat, independent, republican or socialist means someone is more or less than a human being. (Well maybe a republican sort of makes me wonder).

I have never been able to get a grip on why being either intersexed, transsexual, transvestite in all it's colors, gay, lesbian or bi or a-sexual or straight matters to society, or being overweight, or skinny or in between. I was raised to treat everyone with respect and to enjoy our differences, and not to judge anyone for those differences.

I am trying to understand why a parent would force a child to be something their not, and to hear from the grown-up child what it felt like, what carried them through and what knocked them on their asses.

I understand that being born intersexed must carry zillions of feelings, along with plain old angst in getting through the puberty teenage woes. Adding society sort of paints this taboo message to being intersexed, the sort of thing to be kept hidden away like it's a dirty secret is the icing on the cement cake.

It upsets me that you or anyone else would feel that they haven't the right to live in their bodies as they choose too. Just as it upsets me that so much of this issue for me is about child abuse, and not loving and accepting a child as the gift a child is.

I also realize it is difficult for those out there reading my posts, not knowing what the story is about. Therefore, if anyone is interested, once the first draft is in, I will post the outline with some of the dialog on my agents website or even here if wanted.

Thanks...

Always
Ane Barker

[Rudy]

Hi Ane
I'm finding it hard to find an answer? I believe that the many different conditions that causes intersexuality each has its own way of affecting an individual. I dont know if any of that made sense. What im trying to say is that each person is uniquely different and handles things in his or her own way. For myself growing up i've always felt different, being not manly enough for my family, you know a sissy-boy, mama's boy. And i have had a hard time finding my place in society. As a young man !* i joined the military,"infantry", i believe trying to prove to myself that i was man enough to do so. How,ever as accidents do happen i had a minor back injury and blew two discs in my lower back while still in the military service. And after MY MRI exam i was shown two have a uteris and ovaries, and im missing my right adrenal gland. I had alot of counseling and medical exams then for that reason. Many talks with a psychologists and medical doctors. Lots of Blood samples. I was very worried at the time that i would be Kicked out of the military. First i was told i had CAH after some of the lab reports came back with unusual hormone lvls. Plus the missing adrenal gland, eventually the doctors sent my blood in for a karyotype and it came back as xy/xo, so at the age of 22 i had medical proof that i was definately different then other males. I know im different. I live as a male, not my personal choice mind you. That is just how i live, so i'm sort of a girly-man despite my parents best intentions. I often Feel as many transexuals feel. Trapped in the wrong body, but i find it hard imagining myself as a woman. I dont have the courage to take that step. And to be honest i dont think id make a very good looking girl. I also dont really call myself a guy, I may look like one, but i know im different. I feel different. And in in its own way i can live with that.
I hope this helps in some way. I know that i wouldn't be offended by your expected portrayal of an intersexed person,we come in all shapes and sizes. Not everyone believes as i do, and you can't always make everyone happy. I find it encouraging that you would make an honest effort in portraying any aspect of an intersexed person. I also really liked your information on Jimmy, i found that to be very enlightening, and wish i had known someone like that growing up.
Hope this helps Rudy A. Alaniz
P.S. If youd like to hear more of my history please email me i could go on and on, on here but id think other people would get annoyed.

[claraJane]

Originally posted by AneBarker

I have never been able to get a grip on why being either intersexed, transsexual, transvestite in all it's colors, gay, lesbian or bi or a-sexual or straight matters to society, or being overweight, or skinny or in between. I was raised to treat everyone with respect and to enjoy our differences, and not to judge anyone for those differences.

I am trying to understand why a parent would force a child to be something their not, and to hear from the grown-up child what it felt like, what carried them through and what knocked them on their asses.

I understand that being born intersexed must carry zillions of feelings, along with plain old angst in getting through the puberty teenage woes. Adding society sort of paints this taboo message to being intersexed, the sort of thing to be kept hidden away like it's a dirty secret is the icing on the cement cake.

It upsets me that you or anyone else would feel that they haven't the right to live in their bodies as they choose too. Just as it upsets me that so much of this issue for me is about child abuse, and not loving and accepting a child as the gift a child is.



Ane,

Have you read any of Orson Scott Card? He's written quite a bit about the concept of degrees of alienness. He has some good theories on why people who are different are considered a threat.

I spent some time overseas as a missionary and they tried to prepare us for the possibility of being kidnapped by terrorists. They said that the most important thing we could do would be to become a person in the eyes of our abductors. The theory is that they'd be less likely to kill someone whom they knew. To me it would be important that you develop your characters well. I don't think you even need be entirely sympathetic so long as you're not demonizing. After all, we aren't perfect. We just have uncommon problems to deal with.

My parents were very good to me when I was young. Like many xy/xo kids I was tiny. I had a voice that might have reminded you of silver wind-chimes on a winter's day. I loved singing and was encouraged in it by my parents. When I asked, mom taught me to cook and sew. My father, for his part, gently tried to encourage me in more masculine pursuits. I wasn't punished for sharing clothes with my sister. I wasn't punished for loving dolls and teddy bears more than my erector set. But, I was afraid of who I was. I didn't understand why I was so different. I envied the boys their strength, speed, and agility, but I also loved being tiny.

Puberty meant an end to happiness, if only by its absence. The girls I knew started budding. The boys developed as well. I grew faster but remained sexually undeveloped. And the gap between my body and "normal" grew daily. One result was that I withdrew from the world around me. I built a "boy", albeit an anticsocial misfit, to face the world, while I remained inside with my wind-chimes voice and my diminuitive little-girl self. When I put my faith and hope in Christ I expected to become "normal". To my surprise I was shown that I needed to be the same person on the outside that I was on the inside. That outer shell, along with most of the rest of my life crumbled, until I was willing to admit, yes, this little girl is who I am.

Once I drew the line the doctors reversed course and their energies were devoted to making me a "normal" woman. So, I went through a rapid chemical and surgical puberty, without the benefits of friends or socialization.

Ane, you know, the truth that you can demonstrate is that, we're really, really not all that alien after all. Develop the ordinary humanness of your character.

In grade school I sang like an angel. In junior high I sewed clothes for Barbie and looked forward to being a wife and mother. In high school I was a cynical but brilliant rebel. In college I was told to look like a boy or leave. At 21 I graduated, found more sympathetic doctors, and then picked up where I left off in junior high. At 50 I'm happily married.

Is that really so different?

Jane

[Andi]

"Therefore, if anyone is interested, once the first draft is in, I will post the outline with some of the dialog on my agents website or even here if wanted."
It might help. If we know something about your screenplay it would be easier to give our input & feedback.

[RGMCjim]

Anne,
I think you've got an interesting scenario for a novel. Don't be afraid of working with intersexed characters. Talking with us will give you some sense of accuracy and it will also show you that we're so varied that virtually anything you do with your characters, including portray their own misunderstanding of self, is ok.
You're not portraying your character as a hopeless victim and are using ways to help your readership identify with the character and question their own sense of sex/gender. That's all good stuff. Portraying us as pathetic or angelic would be bad.
Amazingly, a large number of intersexed people have escaped surgery. You wouldn't HAVE to have come from an Indian Reservation or an Amish Community, but it would be an easy place to find people. I was born in 1957 in a medium sized city and had no surgery.

Jim