07 June 2012

Intersexed People And Faux Fascination

Recently, Faux (I mean, Fox) and other media outlets made a spectacle about the "man who found out she was a woman."  


For an organization whose "conservative" commentators preach "family values" and such, the network seems, sometimes, to have an almost-lurid fascination with people who don't fit into the traditional categories of gender and sexuality.  Of course, Fox and their ilk see us as freaks, or worse.  But the fact that they pay more attention to us than the supposedly-liberal outlets is, to say the least, interesting.

But it's the subject, I think, of another, much longer, post (or something other than a blog post).  The reason I paid attention to the story is that I realized such "discoveries," while not common, aren't exactly unknown, either. 



During the days immediately following my surgery, when I was resting and recuperating in The Morning After House, an intersexed woman came to Trinidad for Marci's help. Like Steven Crecilius, "Lindy" found out she, essentially, the entire female reproductive system inside her when she went to a hospital for another condition that nearly killed her.  Like Steven (who, I imagine, will change her name), "Lindy" felt she was not the male her birth certificate said she was.  And, the discovery of that internal uterus cleared up that mystery, and others, as Steven's visit to the doctor did for her.


Since starting my transition, I have met other intersexed people.  Upon meeting them, I always said something like, "I can only imagine how it must have been."  And they said some version of the same thing to me.  Not one of them ever thought he or she was "more" transgendered or gender queer, or thought they were authentic and the rest of us were simply trying to avoid dealing with some other issue.   Sometimes I think each of them had another heart, in addition to another set of sexual and reproductive organs, within them.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The problem here is people like you believe in to some fantasy. The Sad fact is, Steve Crecelius is NOT intersex and he's nothing more than a late to the game transsexual with a lifelong crossdresser who is using the intersex excuse to justify his transition to his wife and friends.

Here's more proof
https://twanzphobic.wordpress.com/2012/05/27/faux-intersexism-breaks-out-in-denver/

Justine Valinotti said...

How do you know Steve Crecelius is not intersex?

Anonymous said...

Simple, if someone claims to be intersex and has Fathered or bear children. They are NOT intersex. NO intersex person in human history has been able to father or bear children NATURALLY. Intersex people are sterile from Birth to Death. So either you people got lied to by a transsexual or conned by a transsexual into believing his fantasy and delusions.

Justine Valinotti said...

All right. I didn't realize the definition of "intersex" includes sterility. Mea culpa. (That's Latin for "my bad.")

That said, I must say that you seem to have a lot of animosity toward transsexuals. Would you care to tell me why?

Sophie said...

I think the reason that you hadn't realised that sterility is an integral part of being intersex is...that it isn't.
That's if you go by normal authorities on intersex. There are a number of faux intersex people - 'Nicky' is one of the nastiest - who come out with this sort of nonsense. He hangs around with the usual rad fem types like Dave / Davina squirrel whose website your 'anonymous' is directing you to. And often comes out with basic grammar mistakes like your correspondent.

Justine Valinotti said...

Sophie--Thank you for the clarification. I have been reading some of the blogs and fora of the people you mention. It's amazing the lengths to which some people will go to rationalize their hate!

Lady KaiulaniKai said...

Whom ever "Anonymous" actually is, their understanding of intersexed is severely lacking.

Intersexed individuals can be any number of different presentations. And some can sterility is NOT "always" attached to it. It can range from XX males and XY females at one extreme to genetic mosiacism on the other and ALL SHADES OF GREY inbetween. Intersexed individuals are also, quite often UNDETECTED for long periods. No one knows how often XX male and XY female ACTUALLY presents because one would have no way of knowing without testing everyone everywhere.

Science is NOT a law of what can or cannot be, it is a PROCESS by which we attempt to UNDERSTAND what actually is. It is a process that is always changing and ammending itself. What it knows today, it can redefine next year as being something completely different. We do our best to understand it, but nothing is fully absolute.

For all we know gender dysphoria could be a form of Intersexed, after all the way the brain is wired counts for something.

Science used to say ALL mules were sterile, until some female mule got herself pregnant and had a baby. Its UNCOMMON but it happens occasionally. New understandings were developed based on that.

I am intersexed, I have my own biological children. My expression of being intersexed is chimerism. Like Lydia Fairchild and Karen Keegan chimeras (people who have more than one set of DNA) are also undetected and unaware of their conditions except when some random thing brings it out.

Anyone who says they know all the rules of biology and makes blanket statements like that is sadly misinformed.

What is alarming is the amount of thinly veiled animosity which you also seemed to pick up on.

Anyway as an Intersexed woman myself, I found your blog and your observations refreshing.