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Two Months! Oh My! Tempus is definitely fugiting, as they say in Latin, ‘tempus fugit’, in English we simply say “time flies!”
I have a confession to make. It’s not an excuse, it’s just plain old lack of inspiration, or knowing the best way to start the final part of my book.
I’ve had a serious bout of “writer’s block.” I am constantly in a state of amazement at those of you who put out a post every day! I find that truly astounding, and you all have my true admiration!
Let me backtrack just a bit, in order to put this all into some kind of context. Six months ago I came down with a medical condition that required a visit to the local ER. I walked in not knowing what my condition was, but with the understanding that I am a transgender woman. I walked out seven hours later, and my life had been changed.
It took developing a condition common to women, a UTI, or urinary tract infection, in order to have a lady doctor tell me that the UTI was a result of my unique anatomy. Making a long story short, she had spent some time going through my medical history and told me many things about myself, while asking me many questions that I had few answers to. As many may be aware, female chromosomes are XX and male are XY. My DNA and blood tests showed that my chromosomes are XXY, and my hormone levels are high in estrogen. I also have “unique anatomy” that had been noted in much of my medical records but never mentioned to me. It’s what she told me, in a quiet and calm voice, that changed my life. She explained to me that I was an intersex person, and placing her hand on my knee, said to me, “Lauren, you ARE a woman!”
I walked in to the ER with the understanding that I was an AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth) trans woman, and I walked out with the knowledge that I was actually, a woman, biologically an intersex female.
It has taken some time to adjust to this knowledge. I’ve spent hours, days in fact, learning as much as I can, about being an intersex person. There is much to learn, and the understanding of being intersex is evolving as further research continues.
Let me ask you to visualize something. I want you to imagine living your entire life being told who you are, what is expected of you, how you’re supposed to act and respond. And, throughout all of this, you NEVER fit! You never felt remotely like who you were told you were supposed to be.
This is life for many intersex people. Many of whom are such a mix of male and female that they have a difficult time truly identifying with just one gender, they are what is referred to as non binary. Some of us, myself included, have a strong identity with being feminine, but were raised as being masculine, and many others went the opposite way.
The medical profession didn’t know how to deal with us, and to a large degree, still doesn’t. But they now say that if you are in a room with 200 people, the odds are one of them is intersex, as one out of every 100 people are born intersex, and we are just as common as redheads and lefties. But being relatively common doesn’t offer much comfort when most of the world views us as weird, wrong, shameful, immoral, and a bullseye target for bigotry and abject hatred from those with ultra right wing leanings.
The critics cry out that it’s biology! You’re either male or female, period! Guess what? We are BORN THIS WAY!! They can’t even imagine dealing with intersex people. We’re just lumped together with all the rest of the LGBTQ+ people and targeted with the same bigotry and hateful rhetoric.
We are people, born just like you, except along the way, prior to coming down the hatch, our prenatal experiences were somewhat different. There have been many studies done, and are ongoing, that show how changes in the hormonal flows of the pregnant mother can have dramatic effects upon the fetus. Many of those changes are responsible for and can result in a child being born with intersex traits and physical differences in their reproductive anatomy.
So the big question to consider, and the one I must seriously ask of the reader, is this:
If someone is born this way, as an intersex person, with no control whatsoever on how they were born, why does our society and culture treat them with such disdain?
This is a heavy post, it was difficult to write, has resulted in many tears as I get quite emotional, and has taken much longer to put together than most of my posts. It will be part of my book, as finding out that I am an intersex person, is a another definite fork on the path of my Journey as “The Woman Inside.”
Until next time,
Lauren
If someone is born this way, as an intersex person, with no control whatsoever on how they were born, why does our society and culture treat them with such disdain?
Why? Fear & disgust are two of the most powerful human reactions.
People fear what they don't understand. People fear the "others", if we are different than them and disgust is mixed in with this one.
@reallylauren Thank you so much for sharing your moving story. The ability to do this and share it with others who will understand and be supportive is the essence of CDH and what makes it so valuable to folks like us. Having contributors like you for our group is so valuable.
I agree that people like us suffer from pervasive ignorance in our society and that understanding is key to more widespread acceptance of people like us. I am a true believer in science and that every condition has roots there. I firmly believe that I was born the way I am and I am psychologically wired to be a woman. The degree to which our society chooses to ignore science either out of ignorance or convenience is appalling at a minimum and very dangerous at worst.
In your case, the thing that really disturbs me is how the medical establishment failed you. The fact that this incredibly significant information wasn't brought to your attention for a long time points to widespread negligence. Why this occurred is really concerning. This is consistent with my belief that we all need to be our own medical advocates. It certainly sounds like you have been doing this.
Thank you again for sharing your moving and enlightening experiences with us. I sincerely hope that writing your story helps you find the peace that you deserve so much.
Thank you for your post Lauren. I found it a very interesting and informative read.
Re the big question; The only answer I can give is that regrettably there are some people in our society who have closed minds, narrow minds and/or are appallingly ignorant.
Ignorance can be cured by education. Unfortunately, stupidity cannot, and I'm afraid that there are people out there who fit the first two categories.
Keep your chin up! And (hope my Latin is correct)
Na illegitimus non carborundum.
Lauren,
Unfortunately, the reason people act with such hatred and bigotry comes down to one simple word. Ignorance. But for most them it’s even worse than ignorance, it’s willful ignorance. They don’t want to know the science of your condition because it contradicts their notions of science and in many cases, religion.
It must have been extremely difficult to grow up with your feelings being so different from what you were being told you were. I can’t imagine how frustrating that must have been or on the other hand how freeing and exhilarating it must have been to be told by a doctor, a woman of medical science, that you’re a woman. At least I hope it was a great thing to have that new knowledge.
I wish there was a very simple but effective way to change the hearts and minds of people to understand that we all deserve kindness, love and respect. I REALLY wish I could go out in public whenever I wanted as Jill and not worry about running into family and friends who wouldn’t approve, or worse. Jill is definitely a part of my overall being and to have to hide and stifle her, hurts.
I wish you all the happiness and love you can find now in your new life.
Hugs, Jill
@jillannquinn Hi Jill, and thank you so much! It is truly amazing to finally have the knowledge that how I always felt, was not wrong, but actually very correct, and who I have always been since birth. I knew I was supposed to be a girl when I was only three years old, and that followed me throughout my life!
Hugs,
Lauren
Oh Lauren how many of us have had your life experience of feeling different, having strong female tendencies and ultimately wanting to be a woman.
Surely the diagnosis and some of societies negative attitudes is the same whether intersex or trans. You have not only understood you are trans but now diagnosed as intersex which sadly wasn't recognised at birth. Your gender was wrongly diagnosed and now you have the proud status of womanhood by default.
I think from your postings that you have been embraced and loved by those around you and any negativity is small. You have embraced yourself and now an ambassador to change attitudes which we all applaud and admire you for. You are an inspiration.
I consider it an honor and a privilege to be an ambassador for us. Even though I pass and am viewed as the woman I am, if given the opportunity, I will eagerly speak with somebody about who we are and let them see that we are simply ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives.
Agree all too well. I, too, am "born this way". I'm a woman, my true self, finally. It took time and a good therapist. My medical staff knows and recognizes me as Kathy. Far too often I fall back on being a transgender woman because it's more familiar and easier to explain. We are the "I" in LGBTQI+ and I hope in the coming years more intersex information comes to light.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful story! I've read a lot about intersex conditions, mostly because I like to be informed when I argue with idiots who try to say that chromosomes only allow you to be male or female. The XXY phenotype is as common as you mentioned, and could be higher but without any kind of testing most people don't know they have it. Did you know that there are also XX males (de la Chappelle syndrome) and XY females (Swyer syndrome)? We should all be allowed to live our truths without hateful idiots telling us we're wrong, and if people would just take a minute to actually learn about something rather than repeat points they get from memes it would be a much better place.
@cdkaylasnow Indeed Rilee, I agree that the problem is simply ignorance. Although these chromosome variations have always existed humans never had the ability to see chromosomes before, so things like Klinefelter, Chappelle and Swyer syndromes were never recognized. Now we know, as with hair, color, eyes, build, nature has endless varieties in every species on the planet, we are no different. I knew from a young age, around puberty, that I was different, didn't develop like the other boys, never got a hairy body, even arms and legs. Some years ago, as I aged, my testosterone levels dropped, a natural situation for older men, and strange things began to happen both physically and mentally. After talking with my doctor, tests done, and of course the low testosterone was brought up, but also that I have Klinefelter syndrome, and as my testosterone drops the X chromosome exerts more influence. Of course, he suggested I start testosterone shots to "restore my natural balance". Isn't that strange in itself, isn't what was happening actually my "natural" balance. I chose not to, instead allow my body to actually do what it seems to have been programmed to do. I'd been a male, by choice but forced to make that choice by society, all my life, why not finally let go and see where it takes me. I don't use hormones, and have no intent on surgery (had enough of that with colon and lung cancer), but even so I'm changing. My breasts are a nice B and still growing, my hips are widening and my waist is tapering. I never had body hair and now I've even slowed with facial hair. Well, anyway, living here in the deep south, the Bible belt, you can imagine that most of the people have been raised with a pretty staunch Baptist background, and of course, someone like me is not normal, based on all they've been taught their whole lives. But when I tell them about the genetic variations, they're completely ignorant. Of course, their first impulse is to whip out the phone and google it, but after it sinks in and they realize that yes, indeed, there are real genetic variations, that we are not all simply male or female, they begin to open their minds and become accepting of us as just another fascinating variation of the species. This is what mature adults do when they're presented with new information, and fortunately my friends are mature adults. Yes, what we're dealing with is thousands of years of ignorance, generational, and something like that is not overcome overnight. But as we become more visible and educate more people, our own lives become better. Of course, as usual, there are always some who cannot be reached, who will never, no matter what facts, accept that they have been wrong. But those people are becoming more rare, maybe because of the internet, and for the most part we just have to take the time, have the patience, to educate them.
Hugs,
Jennifer
Thank you Lauren for posting about being Intersex. I know that we've talked about this before and slowly but surely the word is getting out. I will be giving a major presentation on living an intersex life at the Atlanta Comfort Conference in August and I will also again give a presentation at Keystone in March if I get the final approval from their committee. Also, I do commonly wear a name tag that includes the words "Intersex, and Born This Way". For those that follow my profile, I admit to being confused and in the dark about my intersex condition (I'm a DES baby) and then hiding for many years until I finally accepted it and lived openly and authentically. I look forward to the day when I can give my presentation to medical students, emergency service workers and especially protective service workers like TSA. Most of the presentations that I give are to smaller PFLAG Groups. Whenever I'm questioned about what I am, I'm proud to say "INTERSEX" and if possible add a small explanation to be sure that folks know what I just said. It seems that the I in the LGBTIQ+ has slowly been disappearing and I'm concerned that we are being erased from the public consciousness. At the last Intersex Convention that I attended in July, that was one of the topics of discussion. Thank you for being a champion for intersex folks everywhere. Happy New Year and Hugs, Marg
Thank you Lauren for your recent post,very moving indeed.I always read your posts because they are very true to life and very honest.There is some of me in your posts,mainly the knowledge and compassion for others.You are truly an inspiration to us and me. Sincerely,Michelle.
Lauren,You are welcome and I will probably say this wrong but thanks for your thanks and the friendship request is yes.I am still trying to figure out some parts of the site besides not being a computer person,
