Do you ever feel .....

[Dianne]

... that we are a "species" all our own?

There are times I feel like talking about the "after-effects" of being IS, about the lies, manipulations, confusion, and all the rest of the crap but I know nobody else even begins to comprehend. Even among the gay/lesbian/transgendered we are an oddity and don't fit. Romance? Sure, if you are lucky enough to find that 1 in 100,00 who doesn't run screaming into the night. But even friendships have a way of turning distant if you upset the male/female applecart. As Kermit the frog says "It's hard being green."

Anyway, I appreciate BLO and at least having SOMEWHERE to vent!

[Kailana]

Hiya Dianne. Id really like to second your thoughts. I have a tendency to really think we are very special people, who have been traumatized often repeatedly by the hands of doctor's, psychiatrists, parents and family.

We are unique variations of humanity that have been hidden away from the world. These days, more and more of us are speaking out. Society, our friends and neighbors, are starting to hear about us. The world is starting to see the trauma we have had to endure. People are starting to understand how we feel about how we have been treated. Alot of our history has been denied to us. But we are trying so very hard to let everyone know, we exist. We are searching for answers, fighting for a place in the world, where we can all be understood, and accepted for who and what we are and not for what Dr's have chosen to make us into without our knowledge or consent.

I have typed so many paragraphs only to delete them all, as i really dont know what i want to say, or dont like what i just typed.

Freedom of information meens so very much to us, the knowledge parents and dr's have withheld from us, just makes it that much harder to feel we are accepted. So many times i keep reading how parents are told not to tell us, about some of the most important things we need to know, Us, our bodies, surgeries, medications, some of which are life saving, some of which can provide improvement in our quality of life, some of which were made specifically for us. Yet its all withheld, without explanations, without having some knowledge of why things were done, why we need these medications, without knowing what we are, has only led to a lot of confussion, stress, depression, anger, resentment, hate, sucidal ideation, loss of family and friends.

Where am i going with all this? Look at it this way, If we are so happy with what has been done to us? if we are so contented with our life? why is it that we have such a high suicide rate? Often leading to multiple hospitalizations, even death. And that is something i fear the Dr's and psychiatrists still wont acknowledge, has been there fault, there decisions, there solutions are killing us.

Generations of us, so lost, confused, so messed up with not knowing about our own bodies,. I have felt so lost, so freakishly abnormal. i've just wanted to die. I am afraid to say some of the things i want too. To let people know, just how bad i have felt about my own body. to let people know what i really think. how bad i hate Dr's, or how bad i hate my parents, how very dissappointed i feel when i think about them. how i honestly feel they dont care for me, they don't really love me. Or the amount of shame i have felt at times with what has been done to me. I know i am not alone with how i think. Yet i am afraid to write more.

I know I have tried often to state i am normal, just different, In all honesty i feel like nothing, im nothing, so very few of the people who should care for me actually do. It isn't a easy thing to live with. I feel as though my parents are ashamed of me, i feel as though i an nothing to them, an abomination, they just cant come to accept and love.

im rambling again, im sorry for that, i think im gonna go and sleep, im sorry if i hit any raw nerves, But i really feel Dr's just don't get it. Or the few who do, don't really comprehend what they have done to me(us).

aplogies again, but my mind is rambling, and im a little depressed at the moment. I want to write so much more, but my thoughts are starting to turn dark. Depression sucks.

im sorry

[Peter]

I am glad that you feel that you are able to vent your feelings here. I think that the psychological aspects of being intersex are often ignored, because if people have a difficult enough time understanding what it physically means to be intersex, imagine how much more lost they would be by the psychological aspects of intersex. Maybe, in the coming decades, the situation will improve. It's interesting that the most widely read sustained narrative penned by an intersex author, is that of Herculine Barbin, which dates back to the nineteenth century. How did we loose our voice in the twentieth century? Are all the real stories of intersex lives locked away in the archives of doctors and psychiatrists? How can we survive the catastrophe of the medicalization of both our bodies and our minds?

Peter

[Glenn]

I'd be reluctant to use different "species" because that could be quite literally de-humanizing.
I think the core issue is defining what constitutes a person. As Kailana was including, I think it boils down to two major issues:
1) Others have taken it upon themselves to decide things for us, and as a result have raped us over and over again via the medical institutions. Part of the "reason" is that they don't trust us to make decisions for ourselves, or they need to simplify our status to make us easier to label. Only a small fraction of medical procedures on intersexuals are medically needed.
2) And that leads to the second issue - refusal of people to recognize gender as being more than binary. Most atrocities against us have been done with the kindest of intentions, in order to 'help us fit in', 'look normal', when, in fact, we don't fit in!

[Dianne]

Originally Posted by Glenn

<snip> in order to 'help us fit in', 'look normal', when, in fact, we don't fit in!

That's the basic truth, isn't it. It really isn't about us, it's about them! We upset their nice neat little applecart and they'll do anything to cling to their simplistic definitions.