Hello all. Some very busy weeks are almost behind me. I am having the photo shoot for time magazine tommorow.

Walking into a high school was neat. How I wish that there was programs like the gay/streight support groups when I was in school. It may have changed the course of my life much younger.

It is sad though because I still have teenagers at my place of work who think that gayness is against God's will and really think that they are better then them. I go nose to nose with them and tell them "because of people like you, people like me are needed to educate teenagers!" Most of these kind of kids don't have any ideas that are really their own, they are just like parrots, preaching what was preached to them.

So much more work needs to be done to snuff out homophobia's ugly face.

It was a good feeling to know that most of the students who listened to my speech were hearing the word intersex for the first time from someone who understood its meaning.
When I was in High school physcial education, they used a map of the body said said things like, penis, vagina, orgasm, erection, to teach us about sexual education. I could use none of those words in my lecture which seems to be a little backwards.

When I met Michael the transgendered speaker [female to male] I had no idea that he was transgendered. Kind of like one knows I'm intersexed unless I tell them. He was really imformative.
5% of familys will disown the grasngendered child if the child changes sex.
5% percent of faimlys will be so supportive that they will become transgendered activists themselves.
90% of familys will adjust to the change slowly, but never understand it.

Micheal said that parents will go through a greiving period like a death in the faimly then slowly except the real person you are, but don't be suprised if they never understand why you did what you did.

I liked his comment about how if you can snap your fingers and say i'm male or female and never "question" your gender and sexual identity then you really don't understand who and what you are. Don't walk through life"snowblinded" about what gender really is.

It is interesting that they gave a lot of attention to me in the news articial. Although they missed the connection between my father being an educated man. He understood my pathoilgy better then my mom so I had a much easer relationship with him then I had my mother who only saw gender as black and white.

At the end of the lecture I sat around and listened to the other speakers. When I went to leave two male students stopped me wanted to learn more about my condtion. Of course now I could speak more openly about myself. It was funny that they had a really hard time grasping my biologial maleness because I looked so female. As I tried to leave again a female student want to know more about me as well, once again this was the first time she had heard the word intersex.
Hay! 3 out of 200 isn't bad. I know the next day those three students had quite the story to tell to there friends about what the intersexed girl had to say about her surgerys off record.
SO that my story. Sorry it took so long to post it.

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You really have to love yourself, to get anything done in this world!

Julanne