CAH, raised male and more.

[Betsy]

Nicky Phillips and Leslie Stephens are a friendly, older lesbian couple who live in Richmond with their dog, Mahoney. Nicky had an unremarkable girlhood. Then, in her 20s, she discovered that she is chromosomally male.

Kelly (not his real name) makes his home in a small town in the Kootenays. He is XX, which makes him chromosomally female, but he was born with a mix of sexual characteristics, including a large clitoris and what he describes as testicles. (They may actually have been ovarian tissue.) Most people perceive him as a man, so he accepts male pronouns, even though he feels that he is a combination of both male and female. Kelly was once deeply aligned with lesbian separatists. His journey from that position to public manhood is reminiscent of the cartoon character Pogo, who went on a wartime scouting mission and returned with the news: “I have seen the enemy and it is us.”

....read the entire article at:

http://www.straight.com/content.cfm?id=11822

[MelissP]

Interesting.

[Betsy]

Well, except I may have misunderstood the article. It's not very well written. There's a line in there about him identifying female at one point. In other words, I don't know what the story is.

Betsy

[MelissP]

Well, except I may have misunderstood the article. It's not very well written. There's a line in there about him identifying female at one point. In other words, I don't know what the story is.

Betsy

At first I thought that also, until after reading it through the article
seemed to be more of a collection of paragraphs about separate people.
I agree that the writer could have done a better job of distinguishing
between the subjects. The second subject ("Kelly") was the virilized xx,
?I think?

Every time I read one of these sorts of articles, I end up spiralling deeper
into my own personal pit. The virilized female is always exalted in their
quest for true manhood. It seems no one would ever opt as I have, and if
they do their mindset is denigrated as some pitiful struggle for inner
femme that is only coincidentally bio-correct. No one who ever had
physical needs or instincts that go deeper than the social-sexual "role".
No one who ever physically hurt due to their messed up configuration.
Even books on the subject seldom mention the wall of garbage coming
from supposedly legitimate medical doctors. It leaves me considering
more often running a ravor blade through a thin section of skin and
damning the consequences. This is the way the world ends.

[Betsy]

Every time I read one of these sorts of articles, I end up spiralling deeper into my own personal pit. The virilized female is always exalted in their
quest for true manhood. It seems no one would ever opt as I have, and if
they do their mindset is denigrated as some pitiful struggle for inner
femme that is only coincidentally bio-correct. No one who ever had
physical needs or instincts that go deeper than the social-sexual "role".
No one who ever physically hurt due to their messed up configuration.
Even books on the subject seldom mention the wall of garbage coming
from supposedly legitimate medical doctors. It leaves me considering
more often running a ravor blade through a thin section of skin and
damning the consequences. This is the way the world ends.

Please put the razor blades away, Mellie.

You are disregarding the shame and secrecy aspect of intersex...few people are willing to talk publicly and perhaps it is something about CAH that makes people more willing to speak out. For the thousands of boys reassigned female and who have reclaimed their male gender, I know of one who went public with it and he's dead. I know one that escaped surgery and is public with it. I know many people raised female with CAH...surgery or no surgery who are open with it. I know of none raised male (but do know they are out there based upon research I have read) that were raised male and trying to reclaim their female gender--you. Is that good or bad or does it indicate something that everyone is missing? I have no fucking clue but it doesn't make your life and worth any less.

I've got a major issue with what you write about physical hurt. Do you think someone who had their clitoris amputated as an infant doesn't have physical hurt? If you do, I would welcome the opportunity to trade bodies with you, if it were possible. I understand you are having some medical problems and maybe you want to go see yet another doctor.

It's entirely possible that three who have given you conflicting information are simply human and missing something. Go see another and see what s/he says. There's a highly recommended by the MRKH folks down in Boston named Marc Laufer. He specializes in intersex cases and may have some insight into your situation.

By the way, the films sent to CA would like to be returned to you and I can't seem to find your address. There's another issue as well that was raised (no, nothing towards a diagnosis) which I hope you can respond to. I'll PM you about it.

Keep searching girl, and someone out there will have the answer. In the meantime, remember being a doctor does NOT bestow special powers on someone, even when they think it does.

Betsy
---now, please put the blades away.

[MelissP]

I take your point, about pain.
I'll try to get in touch w/ her.

[Peter]

Hi Melissa,

Everyone has their own pain. It is best not to make comparisons. I have made that mistake in the past when I was full of self pity. I think that bad comparisons often grow out of self pity. Earlier in this thread, you said "The virilized female is always exalted in their quest for true manhood." This is simply not true. FTM men have told me repeatedly that they are often considered traitors by other women.

I agree that you should put away the razor blades. I have concerns about your medical situation. I know that I have discussed your situation privately, and I do not feel that it would be right to disclose the details of your medical history. I am worried that with each additional medical examination, the level of disagreement between medical professionals seems to grow. I too have an unusual body, and with time I am coming to understand it more. I hope that you can increase your own understanding of your body. Maybe the person that Betsy recommended, who practices medicine in Boston, can help you.

Peter

[Sophie338]

Hello Peter :)

Earlier in this thread, you said "The virilized female is always exalted in their quest for true manhood." This is simply not true. FTM men have told me repeatedly that they are often considered traitors by other women.

I suspect strongly that both observations are true. Sadly it is a rather divisive reality. Myself being 5aRd and refusing to identify as "male" has left me feeling treated like filth. And in all honesty this is why I tend to evade these issues a bit. As Besty says there is the shame, the secresy, the pain and the very unpleasant consequences of what the doctors may have done in terms of "intervention".

both observations are true, but this says something very disturbing to me, the fact that they are true means that we still have some way to go in trying to get people to understand that often this is about how the individual is violated by soical norms, customs, ideas, beliefs and dogmas.


Sophie :)

[CC]

5ard

[Sophie338]

Hello Canice :)

5ard

5aRD is an abbreviation for 5 alpha reductase deficiency :)

Shalom

sophie

[Peter]

Hi Sophie,

I guess that it was the term "always" in the original statement, which I quoted, that I objected to. I am very much is favor of changing the world in which people feel that they have to conform to "male" and "female" gender roles. My mentioning the difficulties in challenging these roles was not meant to imply, in any way, that we should not challenge them. I respect you, as a person with 5aRD, for identifying as female. When I look inside my heart, I find very little that I consider male. On the other hand, although I sometimes feel "female", I am also generally clueless about what it means to be female. The other day, my father mentioned to me that the most perplexing aspect of my life, in his eyes, is that I do not have what he called a "stable identity". He said that he had seen a lot in his life, but is at a loss concerning my situation. I felt like joking with him, that not having a stable identity might not be as bad as he imagines. But that conversation is for another day. Heck, maybe I could even make some money out of my situation, by offering myself to medical conferences as a living example that sex assignment for intersex children does not always work. Or, maybe I could even help ISNA revise their guidelines on gender assignment for intersex children because it is too normative in its present form ;-).

Peter