Hi Miriam,
I find there is much to like and admire about you, and I value your voice very much. No way do I take lightly, or in any way minimize in my own mind, the distress and pain inherent in being born with AIS. I get the distinct impression that you feel many of us do however.
There is a subtle, when not overt, defensiveness regarding this in your presence here Miriam. It is a defensiveness which appears to spring from an assumption on your part, that we all make unconscious "of course" comparisons between AIS women and ourselves, which automatically relegate AIS women to some sort of "lucky and less affected" status. I know that I do not have such an opinion. I do not compare myself to AIS women and feel envy, and neither do I feel that AIS women and men have it easier. I wonder if perhaps you yourself are making such an unconscious comparison Miriam, and so you feel that you must defend yourself, from those very feelings, by defending against us unnecessarily.
Really I think that AIS people may be in an even a more difficult position. For all the subtle expectations, insidiously painted upon a backdrop of the same lousy presumptions of misplaced pity, as are also unfairly placed upon us. The same wrongly issued by the emotionally blind, who determine the norm arbitrarily to the hurt of most people, who of consequence remain outside of it for the arbitrary and unrealistic narrow definition of it.
You are human Miriam, gloriously and beautifully so, and you have nothing either to defend or to defend against. You matter, your presence is essential, your contribution salient and softly helpful to make the larger picture clear, both to all of us together, and also to those outside who think they are somehow "normal" or "ideal".
Peace to you dear Miriam.