[RGMCjim]

I was born with ambiguous genitals in 1957. I had no testicles, something in between a penis and a clit, no vaginal opening (fused labia). My parents wouldn't subject me to exploritory surgery in toddlerhood to see what was inside my body, and didn't feel it mattered. (Back then surgery could not be done on infants because there were no anesthesias safe for them)

The doctor told my parents to dress me in yellow and green, call me by a nick name and wait to see if I seemed more like a boy or a girl in order to know how to raise me. I seemed more like a boy, was seen as one, and called myself one so that's how I grew up. I thought I was a partially developed male. My father was great. My mother thought I was a freak and that the world was going to blame her for it. She needed counceling, which parents of children with unexpected birth outcomes get today, but which she didn't get then. She was abusive, it waxed and waned but finally ended with her rejection of me.

I didn't start puberty and ended up needing testosterone hrt which I've been on since my teens. My Dad saw to my medical needs in as much as he could without my Mother getting in the way.

I have had penetrative sex with women and was married for a while despite being gay. I thought that I could win my mother's love if I could just be heterosexual. That didn't work of course. For her, any sexual was just more freakish to her. I'm partnered, have a wonderful relationship with my 19yr. old adopted son and a step daughter by a previous partnership. My sex life has been varied and vibrant. Having an exotic body has NOT been detrimental to finding sex and love. I'm active in an Episcopal Church, a gay men's chorus and a group of Bears. I'm well known in the local gay community and have even been a member of naturist (nudist) men's groups.

At 44 I had my first real medical workup for being intersexed. I learned that I'm actually XX, have a small uterus and ovaries that don't and couldn't work, and a closed over vagina that was opened for me. I also learned that in addition to progestin exposure in utero I have CAH. Finally learning this helped other family members who found out that some of their health problems were related to them having CAH too.

Figuring out I am intersexed was one of the most important and freeing things that has ever happened to me. No longer was I a "poor excuse for a male", "a less-than man", a "partially developed man". I am something. I'm intersexed. Living in my body, having sex with my body is NOT the same experience that either males or females have. I have a vagina and a penis. I don't have testicles, ejaculate, menstruate, or have a vagina that lubes. I'm a man, but not male. If I'd lived as a woman I would not have had many of the experiences that are typically female and it would have been a constant battle to keep my body from developing male secondary sex characteristics. Those are not experiences that ordinary women have. Being able to say that I'm an intersexed man meant that I could finally own and own up to my own particular life experiences and it allowed others to get closer to me and understand me better.

I am not in suport of calling us disordered. Things that are disordered need to be ordered. DSD is a diagnostic term, not some benign label. By allowing ourselves to be pathologized in this way we leave ourselves open for future enforcement of mutilating surgeries, and forced gender assingments. We will forfit our claim to live in our own bodies, self-determination, and the right to discern our own genders because refusing "medical treatment" for a disorder is itself a sickness. Any parent refusing genital surgery, or enforced gender assignment on their child could be called criminal. There are serious legal implications to accepting pathologization. There is an intersexed organization and several Gender organizations researching our legal and civil needs.

Intersex is a neutral term, it just means "inbetween sex". It was/is used to describe any condition that made someone's body not quite male or female, or in some way a little of both in any way. It makes no diagnosis, ascribes no disease or malformation, implies no need for intervention, carries no stigma. The word, Disorder does all those things.
If I say I have an intersex condition, it is just a qualifier for male/man or female/woman. If I say I have a Disorder of Sexual Differentiation it most certainly and unequivically states that I am not like other males/men or females/women. It says we have a problem that must be dealt with before we can be considered full-fledged men or women. I am opposed to that.

I do a bit of educating on intersex issues and I have found that every year people are more educated and aware that male and female overlap in nature. They know that we all start out as female and that it takes more than genetics to get male and female to differentiate. They know that everyone has the capacity to develop as the opposite sex, and that sexual differentiation is complex. They know that some animals change sex due to population pressure, that snails and slugs are true hermaphrodites. They aren't really surprised to learn that some people have a mix of male and female sex characteristics. They are always shocked to learn about how we've been treated in the past.

I am very optimistic for the future of intersexed people. I believe that if we continue to educate the public and to choose our physicians with care we will see more attention paid to our health concerns and to helping us figure out our own genders and our genitals. I firmly believe we don't need the medical profession, or the politcal forces of society to tell us what we "SHOULD" be or have.

Respectfully,
Jim