Intersexualism – Hermaphrodites Essay, Research Paper

INTRODUCTION

People known in the medical literature as true hermaphrodites have a mixed gonadal structure, ovo-testis, or sometimes one ovary and one testis. It was stated in this interview that the politically correct word for hermaphrodites is now intersexuals because of the mythological origins of hermaphrodite.

Most intersexed people have a very, very, hard time with personal issues which surround being born intersexed. There is a relatively small group of “out” intersexuals in the world, a number that is steadily growing, but the vast majority live with the silence, shame, and fear that they learned as a child or teen. I taped an interview from the talk-show Leeza where she interviewed an intersexual person named Sallie, who told of her personal struggles when dealing with intersexuality.

SALLIE’S STORY

Sallie is an XX person who was exposed to progestin prenatally and was assigned at first as a female. She underwent no surgery at birth, but at the age of two was surgically transformed into a male in the early 1960’s. She was raised as a male until age thirteen. When Sallie was thirteen she began to experience the first signs of feminine puberty, which she tried to unsuccessfully hide. She woke one morning with blood on her sheets and thought that she had contracted some mysterious disease, but eventually realized her lifelong feelings of “otherness” was actually more than just the alienation of a sensitive and lonely young boy. When she found out she was a hermaphrodite she said that it actually felt like a crash in her head – the train wreck of truth.

Some people had told her that she was lucky to have had a choice of which sex she wanted to be. She disagreed by stating,

“The choice is really just a chance to screw up your life even

more at an age when you should be coping with the first stages

of growing up. It is a no-win choice. Normal people don’t choose

which sex they are…they just are. Intersexed people are told that they

can be a male or they can be a female, but they can’t be themselves.”

She didn’t now anything about her own sex, gender or sexuality. She thought that if she made the right choice, which was becoming a woman that the hurting might stop, but it didn’t. It simply introduced another source of abuse and pain into her life. She states that the irony of all of the attention that she received for the purpose of correcting her abnormal sexual and genital condition was done to enable her to live a “normal life”. This meant to the doctors that she would have a boyfriend, get married, and so forth. But it was this “treatment” and how it was inflicted which really damaged her more than anything else. The treatment was more of a study than self help for her. The damage caused her to live in fear and loneliness, running from every person who might have been attracted to her. In the early 60’s there was no proper counseling available and Sallie felt that none of this treatment was for her well being and instead she thought of herself as “simply a creature to be utilized as a research subject – a lab rat”.

She never uttered a word about being intersexed to anyone. Not a word. Ever. It was something that she seemed completely incapable of doing. She discussed how intersexed people did not talk about their condition until only recently. Sallie stated how it is too frightening to get into a serious relationship with anyone because they might find out about the terrible dark secret, so instead she lived in fear and shame.

SALLIE’S AWAKENING

Then she had what she calls a “constructive breakdown”. All of her notions and defenses about what and who she was fell apart as she fell apart completely. She could only focus on one thing, intersex and what it meant to her life. She felt like she was the only one on the planet since she had never seen any intersex writing, music, or poetry, and no intersexed people on any type of media program at that time. So this is when she had her “awakening”. She began writing on the Internet about being intersexed, hoping to educate people and perhaps find another intersexed person to speak to.

During the “awakening” part she stated that part of her really did die also – the part that clung to the dream of being a normal person with a normal body. She states,

“It still is a pleasant dream to her to be a girl born into a softer

life with her body un-mutilated by exogenous hormones and

un-altered by surgery, un-tortured by dehumanizing medical

procedures, and be not being so completely alone and different.

But it was just a dream and now I’m awake.”

She has found that she is not the only intersexed person in the world and she has went on to educate and publicize intersexuality. Sallie remembers the trauma associated with the having keep quiet and not speak out and she hopes that she can help other intersexuals who may feel alone and lonely.

CONCLUSION

One of the arguments that Sallie made is that intersexuality is not a publicized issue. She stated how difficult it is to deal with being an intersexual and very frustrating when there is not a lot of readily accessible information available to an individual. It is a very confusing issue, whether you are a grown adult or a child. She stated how there are other mis- understood minorities, such as gay men and women, who have made great strides in being recognized, but none for intersexuality.

I believe that the reason may be that most intersexed people have been subjected to very powerful family, medical, and societal restraints when talking about their bodies or medical status. This begins from the very moment of birth for most of us because that is usually when the question is first asked, “Is IT a boy or a girl?”.

Intersexuals who are subjected to neonatal surgery undergo that early physical trauma on many levels. Intersexuals who miss early surgery often grow up alone and confused and often abused, because of their “in between” status. Some intersexed children are abused by peers and family due to their intersexuality. But there is also a sort of institutionalized abuse which Sallie talked about. The constant dehumanizing exams and case studies are painful, humiliating and upsetting for a child or young adult. Surgery as young teens and adults to “correct” their bodies is also traumatic and may not have a satisfactory outcome. It all adds up to one thing: a very strong desire to keep quiet and not tell anyone about being intersexed