A great deal has been written on the experience of growing up gay in a society that lies to us that all people are straight. We grow up expecting that we are straight only to discover that we’re not. The coming out process includes identifying how we have assimilated a heterosexual identity that is at odds with our authentic self and then discovering and releasing that true self. Part of that process includes gender as well as orientation issues. One of the most freeing things we experience and talk about is giving ourselves permission to “just be ourselves” instead of striving to become like straight people. When my son came out to himself, (heaven knows he just had to confirm it to us), one of the first things he did was run out and buy a ton of makeup. He no longer denied himself the desire to do his face because he was now free from “only girls want to wear make-up” gender expression mandates. One of his lesbian friends threw her make-up away for the same reason. All of us have a lot of similar “coming out” stories of discovering; claiming and owning our authentic selves and those stories include sex and a whole lot more. Our gender and orientation affect every aspect of ourselves. So does the experience of living in our bodies. The experience of living in a male or female body affects everything about a person. So does living in a body that is not exactly either male or female.

I’m gay, and came out a long time ago. I’ve been through lots of orientation issues over the years with the support of other gay men, a fantastic counselor and my beloved partner who was also walking that same road. As huge an experience as that has been it was only the “little” coming out where I came to grips with being a man who is romantically and sexually attracted to men. I still had the big coming out to do, coming out as intersexed, a man who is not exactly physically male or female and in many ways both. It was a whole lot harder. Like most intersexed people I had completely bought into the idea that if anyone knew what I was they would never again be able to see me as human. Like most intersexed people I had grown up in ignorance about what I was, or what it meant, or even about what my body is and contains. The hallmarks of intersexed childhoods are secrecy, shame, ignorance and fear. It took me a whole lot of positive adult experiences to come to realize that other people would not reject me as sub-human and in fact I would be found desirable because of what and who I am, not in spite of it. I’ve found that many ordinary men have far worse body image problems and issues than I do. Being intersexed is not the huge obstacle to daily life it was hyped up to be, just like being GLBT isn’t. Intersex issues overlap the issues of all GLBT people.

Intersexed people live a borrowed gender and sex that varies in degree proportional to how different our bodies are from what is considered acceptable for male or female. There are as many different ways to be intersexed as there are intersexed people, and the statistics are 1 in 100 with some difference and 1 in 2000 with ambiguous genitals/organs. We’re not exactly male or female, (although we are men or women) and we’re not rare. Forced gender assignment and/or surgical procedures and hormone therapy have never made males or females out of the intersexed. It has only made intersexed people who have been made to look something like males and females. Not all of us were surgically altered. I wasn’t’. We are all working toward a day when none of us are surgically altered without our informed, mature desire and choice. No child should be mutilated to mollify the gender issues of others. Others should be educated, counseled and if necessary limited from abusing the intersexed child, teen and adult. It is good to teach all children that they should be themselves. It is not good to take that back if they are GLBT or I and organizations like Pflag and GLSEN are working toward that end for the GLBT. It’s time to add “I”. Intersex issues overlap the issues of all GLBT people.

Our legal standing as males or females is controvertible. Our civil rights exist only in as much as we hide behind the label given us at birth, and only if that label is not contested in a court of law. For example, an XY intersexed person with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome who has a clitoris, vagina, and testes and can’t develop male sex characteristics like beard etc. is likely to have been assigned as female at birth and may be very happy with that assignment. However, in states where male and female have been defined by chromosomes her legal identity can be revoked no matter that she has lived her entire life as a woman and has neither the biology nor the identity to function as male. Her marriage, adoption of children and ability to obtain a passport can be revoked on the basis that she is not a “real” woman nothing more than a vindictive, estranged spouse. I’m not aware of such cases in the news yet, but we have seen how transsexuals have had revocation of legal identity recently and have no reason to expect to be treated differently because the reasoning used against them would apply as easily to us. Precedent has been set. The more out we are as intersexed the more we will see these cases hitting the courts. However, it is better to struggle against the consequences of living in truth than to languish half living within the closet. Many intersexed people are assigned a gender that does not fit and transition in childhood or adulthood. However, this transition is often not legally completed because the model for changing the sex on birth certificates was made to limit transsexuals’ access to legal identity and requires some form of genital or internal organ surgery. This is neither desirable to those of us who escaped surgery or those who were already altered surgically and can not be restored to their original bodies. We are finding a pattern of denial of birth certificate change from state governments across the US. I suspect that our only hope is if transsexuals are allowed gender changes on birth certificates without genital surgery, something they desperately need. Only 10% of transsexuals have surgery for a variety of reasons but all need to live their lives as themselves. Legally, it isn’t good enough that we are men or women any more than it is good enough that transsexuals are men or women. Our right live in our own bodies with our own identities while still maintaining an equal status with other people is tenuous. Man and woman in our society implies the absence, if not presence of certain physical attributes. The entire question of legally defining marriage as only between a “man and a woman” becomes a preposterous joke in the face of intersexed existence and if the GLBT political community takes a look our way I believe they’ll have all they need to put it to rest once and for all. Go back. Read that statement three times over, please! No one from HRC to Lambda Legal has clued into this very important point. If there are people who are born not exactly male or female it is not possible to limit marriage to “one man and one woman” because there is no way to draw a finite line between the two, and the lines society draws now are arbitrary, inaccurate and unsupportable. Intersex issues overlap the issues of all GLBT people.

Intersexed children and our parents are given very little information about ourselves and are often openly lied to. The philosophy of the medical community was that if we knew the truth, (that we’re not male or female) we wouldn’t believe the lie, (that we should have been male or female and that the medical profession has “fixed” us with surgery and hormones). The way this negatively impacts identity development in the intersexed varies enormously. For example, an XXY man whose body is very male shows little outward evidence of being intersexed, and who identifies as a man has very little conflict to deal with. However, some XXY people have a mixture of male/female like organs and genitals and gradually feminize over the course of their lives. Some have female identities and if they have been assigned “male” their conflicts are totally different than others with the same type of intersex. Some of us are just too “in the middle” in our bodies, brains and/or personalities to fit into the male/female binary mold no matter how much we’re pounded, or how much is hacked off of us. And yet, every little thing from cradle to grave demands the impossible from us. How many times do we check off “male/female” boxes on forms? There is no box for people who aren’t exactly either. There are no words in the language for us that do not mislead others into thinking we’re something we aren’t. We are rendered invisible. We intend to change that.

Most people aren’t consciously aware of just how differently boys/men and girls/women are treated, and expected to look, behave and think. Gay people know. Transsexuals really know. The intersexed could write the book on it, but so many of us don’t know what we are, don’t know what it means to be us. I’ve always identified as a man, lived my life as one and look, feel, smell and am easily identified by others as one. Make no mistake, I’m not male, (or female) and without hormone therapy I’d go through life looking so androgynous as to be constantly questioned about my sex. Gender/sex attributes are a long list of things we weigh when we look at a person and decide if we’re looking at a man or a woman, or something indeterminable. Many intersexed people, like many transsexuals, walk a daily gauntlet of disdain, disfavor and even assault. Many just can’t find enough in common with males or females physically, mentally or emotionally to identify as or with them. However, like so many other people who are different in some way, it is our commission to demand our place with the rest of humanity. All of us who are different from the imaginary “ideal” person know that it is hard to fight for your right to be yourself, but it is living death to live behind a mask. The coming out process for intersexed people as individuals and collectively has only just begun. All intersexed people (regardless of sexual orientation) have a lot to learn from the coming out of Gay and Lesbian people. Intersex issues overlap the issues of all GLBT people.

Issues over sexual orientation and gender aren't completely separate issues. Gender variance is what gets us into trouble and the more visible the gender variance the worse the trouble. Hence, really butch women or really femme men are at far greater risk for harassment, assault and worse from those who have internalized phobias over gender variance, than those who appear gender conforming. Non-heterosexual orientation is a type of gender variance because part of the gender "should list" is heterosexuality. Even in the gay community people who aren’t gender-conforming often find themselves accused of “perpetuating stereotypes” as if there aren’t butch lesbians and femme gay men who are naturally that way. We have achieved nothing if we are not free and supported by our own community to be exactly who we are, just as we are without being expected to refashion our personalities, psyches, bodies and spirits into something others find more acceptable. Ultimately every single person is confined, conflicted, marginalized, and minimalized in some way by the arbitrary, unreasonable and impossible artificial gender expectations of our society. This is no less true for heterosexuals than for us. Whenever we show them how parts of their story are like parts of our story and vice versa we knock another brick out of the gender wall. Gender issues don’t just affect GLBTI people; gender issues overlap the issues of all people.

©Jim Costich, 2003.

Reprinted with permission of the author. Originally published in The Empty Closet, a publication of the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, NY

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