There are not just two sexes

Interview with Curtis Hinkle, founder of the Organisation Intersex International

Dulce María López Vega

For years it was thought that the distinction between sex and gender was a useful tool in achieving equality. It was believed that the world was divided into male bodies and female bodies, because the belief prevailed that there was an essential difference and that this difference was related to sex.  However, what is sex really?  Is gender the only one of these two categories that is a social construct?

Curtis Hinkle is the founder of the Organisation Intersex International. Intersex activists, previously known as hermaphrodites, have much to teach us about the misconceptions surrounding the classical concepts concerning the difference between the sexes.

How does one define intersex?

It is difficult to answer this because we do not have precise definitions for male and female.  Without  the discursive power of modern biomedical technology, intersex would not exist at all, because in past centuries the majority of people who were intersex did not even know it since the modern technology necessary to determine it did not exist.  It is a quest specific to our modern societies, armed with the required technological innovations, that is determined to define the “true” sex of every human being.  Personally, I find this search (or so called “research”) to determine the “true” sex of every individual ridiculous, because it is something that we cannot define. Once we feel we have found the precise definitions for male and female, new technologies emerge which reveal even more variations and exceptions.

The problem which results from this inability to conceive of more than two sexes and all the variations possible is that many infants are subjected to very painful and irreversible treatments.

For many intersex people, their intersexuality is not something that is detected at birth. It appears only later, and for the children that are detected in infancy, there are surgical and hormonal treatments, which are very difficult because they often require numerous interventions to reshape or cut the clitoris or to construct a penis which is more in conformity with what the medical experts feel is appropriate for a male. This is very traumatic and all this is undertaken without the consent of the child and since these interventions are done at such an early stage of the child’s life, they have no way of taking into account the gender identity of the child. And we know that in many cases, the individual is not in agreement with the assigned sex. For this reason, it is very important that parents be told what the most likely gender identity will be and above all that the doctors inform the parents that the child may change opinions later.

In our societies, we constantly have to declare our sex: forms, legal documents, bathrooms…

The most basic problem is the idea that there are only two sexes because that is not true. It is a problem based on binary thinking and categorization, heterosexism and sexism in general.  All three of these are violations of our basic human rights and that is why I am an activist. Presently, it is impossible to get sex designations off birth certificates because it is obligatory: before leaving the hospital it is necessary to have a sex on the birth certificate in almost all countries. Why is it necessary to put the sex on birth certificates? I don’t think it is and that this only serves to perpetuate sexism in our societies.

For example, in the state of Louisiana where I lived before moving to South Carolina, it was necessary to put the race of all persons on birth certificates, but like sex, it is difficult to define the race of everyone because there are people who are neither black nor white and therefore the state of Louisiana had to come up with a whole group of categories and if an individual had only one eighth of “black blood”, the race on legal documents was black. This is now illegal in Louisiana.  This is similar to the same situation now concerning sex on legal documents: it is sexist. It is a way of oppressing intersex people and women. 

Health care professionals, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts need to listen and revise their theories

If there were so much difference between the two sexes, then intersex people could not exist at all. If there is so much difference between males and females, then how is it possible for so many intersex people to present as either or to switch quite easily from living as one to the other? And for many intersex people this can prove rather easy, especially if they have not had too many early treatments.  This would not be possible if there truly were so much difference. No, all this is an invention of modern technology which oppresses many people.  That is what I think.

Original article in Spanish: Click here

Said Tamcarit – Morocco

Translated by Curtis E. Hinkle

 

I am a hermaphrodite and am known here in my Moroccan village as the “half-man”.  When people see me, they wonder if I am a man or a woman.  I am a question mark.

 

When I was born, I had a micropenis and my father never accepted me.  Most Moroccans want their first child to be a boy so that the family name will be carried on.  But I was not what my father wanted and he was very violent with me.  My mother, however, never treated me like a “half-man”.  Still there have been many arguments in our home because of me.

 

My childhood was very difficult.  I was always alone: I didn’t play with the boys or the girls.  I looked at them from a distance.  Neither group accepted me.  With my brothers and sisters (who were born after me), things did not go well either.  They never accepted me.  So, I had no one to talk to.  I was alone in my own world.

 

I was exceptionally gifted in school and received my diploma.  Then, I had to go to the college which was a boarding school 30 kilometers from our home.  But I had a very hard year and I could not continue.  I quit in 1985.  In the dormitory there were 54 boys.  I did not feel comfortable with them.  I could not sleep at night.  I couldn’t take a shower because I was afraid of taking my clothes off in front of them.  I didn’t dare use the toilets there either because I have to sit down and the stalls didn’t have doors.  They made fun of me and the boys would fondle my breasts out of curiosity.  They asked me all kinds of questions that I don’t like to answer.  All kinds of “why’s” and “what’s that?”.

 

I have trouble getting to know and like people because of their glances and questions.  I don’t like to travel.  I don’t like crowds.  I didn’t even attend my sisters’ marriage ceremonies.  I have never moved from our family home.  I live with my mother, and my sisters and brothers.  My father is dead and I was the only one to take care of him when he came down with a serious illness.  When he was near death, he asked me to forgive him and I cried because all my life, he had never been nice to me.  My brothers and sisters still won’t accept me.  One day, one of my nephews asked me to stop coming to get him at school because the other children were making fun of him.  They were saying that he had an “uncle with big breasts and who looked like a woman”.

 

Recently, I wanted to undergo medical treatment to become a “real man”, with a beard and to remove my breasts.  I had never seen a doctor about this and no one had ever given me any treatments or medications.  A year ago, I went to see a gynecologist.  For the first time, someone looked at my genitalia but he did not seem to care about my situation.  I wanted to know if I was a man or a woman but the doctor told me I would have to have a lot of tests, an ultrasound and then go to an endocrinologist.  However, that was far too expensive.  No one could help me.

 

I tell myself that God created me and that I should be proud to be who I am, proud to be a man in a woman’s body and I have given up the whole idea of undergoing any type of medical treatment to change my appearance.  I have to live in the present and forget the past and my future is in God’s hands.  It is He who will guide me and lead me down the right path.  That’s for sure.  Everything has an end and we do too.  We all have an end and I have suffered all my life and I know that the suffering will come to an end.  I know that God will reward me in paradise.

 

Islam proves the existence of hermaphrodites.  However, in France, you can only have males and females – no third sex.  A hermaphrodite from France told me that in your country, they change hermaphrodites at birth so that they will be either male or female, whereas here in Morocco, there are many intersex people like me who have never undergone any surgeries or hormone treatments.  Here we are easily spotted.  It’s not like in France where they are changed: the effects of testosterone cause drastic changes!

 

But being a hermaphrodite is still very hard and it is hard for those close to you, your family and friends.  We are not accepted and we even do not accept ourselves.  I have been looking for friends for six years here and still it is impossible.  I have never been able to find a man or woman to love.  I am afraid of their reactions, especially the people here where I live.  However, I do know that I need to love someone and have someone to share my life with; the sex of the person doesn’t matter.

Said is an artist.  You can view his work on OII's website: Click here

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

René, OII Spokesperson from Belgium, talks about living with Kallman’s

Translated from the French by Curtis E. Hinkle

 

I can say that I became an adult at seven years old.  When I saw that I looked more like my sister who had just been born than my brother who was four years younger than I was!  Before the birth of my sister, when I was naked, I had noticed there was a difference between my brother and me: he was a standard male at birth.  I could see clearly that there was something not quite right.  But when my sister arrived, I saw that I looked more like her than my brother and at that moment, I was an adult. You become an adult when you start coming to terms with being intersex: a micropenis, what I called my “comma”. 

 

When I was fourteen years old, in 1967, they had planned an operation for me in Germany to remove the micropenis and to make me a woman.  But I refused.  I saw my future flash before my eyes, myself as a woman, if they cut off “my comma”.  I already had big feet: I could not see myself in high heels and a skirt!  I knew I was a tomboy, but I did not feel like having my “chassis” fixed. I think that I was not mistaken in making this choice.  When I saw the film XXY, it upset me.  It took me back to when I was 15 years old.  It confirmed my choice.  For me to live as a woman would be like having to be in drag all the time.

 

It wasn’t until 1980 that I started testosterone, i.e. when I was 27, because the year before I had made one my most dangerous suicide attempts by running a car into a stone quarry after taking medication.  During the 70’s I had already attempted suicide around 20 times.  I felt like there was no place for me in society, even if I lived with heterosexual women.  After a major suicide attempt, I was placed in a neuropsychiatric clinic, and there, I could not stand to take showers with adult men.  I did not fit into a clinic for men. I would have fit in better in a clinic for women. Then I was referred to an endocrinologist who urged me to start testosterone therapy and that lasted 20 years, until 2001. I had promised a girl friend that I would undergo this treatment, a girlfriend who was aware of my distress.  So, I kept my promise.

 

What was positive about the treatment was that I was not taken for a “faggot”. Before starting the treatment, I had effeminate mannerisms. I tried to overcompensate for them.  I tried to mimic men in order to stop the abuse of being treated like a “fag”.  I did everything I could so that I would match up with what my ID card said: male.  But masculinity was not that easy for me.  When I was a teenager, my mother would tell me: “But run right, René!”  I ran like a girl.

 

After the treatment, I was virilized and I regretted not having done it sooner.  This possibility had been hidden from me even though I had asked about it when I was a teenager.  Now, I no longer have a high pitched voice (too bad because I did have a pretty voice and it was broken).  And then I started working out and doing a lot of sports and started looking like a “muscle man”.  This changed my appearance in such a manner than I now look like what my ID card says. Without the testosterone, I would have been very androgynous. 

 

I have won my battle!  Even though I do have a certain nostalgia for the time when I had to put up a fight, in the 70’s, for certain positive aspects of my difference, I still am proud to have come through this struggle alone.  I proved all the prognoses wrong.  I was told that I would not make it, that I would not live beyond age 25 because of suicide or some medical problem.  But I won. All that I have gone through was worth it. It was a beautiful experience in the end.

 

Under normal circumstances, I should not have stopped the treatment.  It was for life.  But I was afraid.  I was afraid of coming down with something very serious and I could no longer manage my emotions.  I became very aggressive, directed principally against myself.  I got into street fights and I was afraid of killing someone.  I could not manage this force within me, this anger.  I was afraid of myself.  That was why I stopped.  I was afraid of losing all control, of not having some type of brake.  Today, I have to start all over again because of my metabolism which has been seriously affected.  I become very week and the doctors have told me that I must take the treatment. I am aging very fast.  At 55 I feel like an old man.  To get around is very difficult both physically and mentally.  I am becoming shapeless.  I feel cut off from the system.  And sexually, the flame burnt out.

 

It is because of a lack of understanding: I am not taken seriously. So, I go back into my shell and waste away.  Today, I live a very lonely life and have basically cut myself off from the mainstream. I live the life of a recluse in my apartment and suffer from severe agoraphobia.  I am fighting against a system that did not want me.  It makes you wonder why you are on this planet earth.  I am no one’s father, no one’s mother.  A failure, a big disappointment.  It wasn’t until December 2007 that I knew that I was not the only one in this situation.  If I had not had the internet and OII (the Organisation Intersex International), I think I would have committed suicide.  I was headed in that direction. 

 

I would like to have the right to love, to be loved for who I am.  I have never had that. There has always been this, why this or why that to contend with.  If a woman wants an aggressive, masculine side, I cannot grant that wish.  It does not suit me and I am not gay so I don’t have that as an outlet either.  Even with lesbians, I am uncomfortable.  I have often run away if I thought I was appealing to someone – all this because I am a walled off woman and an incomplete man.  I often say that I am a clock without hands.  I go tick-tock but I don’t tell the time.

The War Within:

CAMH battles notorious reputation of Zucker’s and Blanchard’s gender clinics with scathing report

Investigative report by Lynn Conway

April 30, 2009 [V 4-30-09] [A report in progress]

Abstract: By 2007, CAMH's Ken Zucker had been widely exposed as a trans-reparatist who claimed to be able to cure gender variant children, while CAMH's Ray Blanchard openly ridiculed transsexual women as being men without penises. The resulting outrage all across the transgender community became so intense that CAMH launched a study to consider the complaints. The study led to stinging indictments of CAMH's gender clinics, and made well-reasoned recommendations on how to alleviate the problems. In response, Zucker and Blanchard have if anything intensified their ongoing war on transgenders, and are now apparently engaging in a war within CAMH to sidestep the recommendations of the study.

 

To download the pdf of this report: Click here

To download the html version with active links to references: Click here 

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

Declaration of principles from OII

Let's not hear any more intersex children screaming

performed by Gavan Coleman.

What is Intersex?

By Michelle O’Brien, OII-United Kingdom

I have been asked to provide some material from different sources, but these are requests I find hard to engage with. One is for me to provide a primer on intersex for undergraduate students. The other is to give a personal biography. I have been considering why at this stage of my life and research I am finding it so difficult to comply with these requests. This writing also comes out of a request to OII for material on intersex for a non-academic audience in a medical context.

To read the whole article: Click here to download pdf

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

World First: Intersex Legal Advice Service Opens in Sydney

Inner City Legal Centre is a community legal centre based in Kings Cross. We provide legal advice to people living in the inner city and eastern suburbs of Sydney. We also have a statewide Gay and Lesbian Advice Service and Transgender Advice Service.

We are now starting a legal advice service for Intersex people living in NSW.

To read the complete article: Click here

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International