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The Intersex Connection
Written by Chloe on Friday, November 28, 2008
It may appear that being a hermaphrodite (intersexed) is entirely unrelated to BIID. My psychotherapist has pointed out that psychology is complicated, and almost everything is connected with almost everything else. He and I have discussed my intersex-BIID connections at great length. After all, intersex psychology is one of his specialties. We found four distinct ways in which being a hermaphrodite has substantially affected the development of my BIID.
I’ll address the four intersex-BIID connections chronologically. The first of these is the association of paralysis with femininity. This applies to both myself and other women. I have already covered this in "My Aunt", so I’ll leave it at that.
My intersex crisis at age seven not only created the association between paralysis and femininity, but also seemed to precipitate other things. I started to wet the bed. This was not a deliberate act. I had already stopped doing this at a normal age, but then it kept up from seven until around thirteen. I remember having the feeling that I was "supposed" to be incontinent, and that I was very comfortable with that. I think this somehow originated with the intersex crisis, because of the timing of it, but I can’t rule out that it came directly from BIID.
At age seven I began to hate my genitalia. I wanted to have nothing at all between my legs. That didn’t seem realistic though, so I thought it would be good to have no feeling there instead.
When I was young I thought that paraplegia simply involved paralysis and lack of feeling in the legs. I was pretty happy with that idea. It seemed right. At some point in childhood (I am unable to figure out an age) I found out that paraplegia could also result in incontinence and lack of feeling in the genitalia. I was absolutely ecstatic about this discovery. Connection number two was made. Paraplegia seemed to be tailor made for everything I needed!
I have had four major intersex crises. The first one at age seven was on finding out about being a hermaphrodite. The second one was at age thirteen due to the lack of puberty. The third one was when my boyfriend of eighteen months left me when I was twenty four. He was always a gentleman to me, and never complained about the impossibility of vaginal intercourse. He didn’t really give a reason for leaving, but I always assumed that was why. I was very upset about having such screwed up genitalia, and gave a lot of thought to having things surgically fixed. However, I decided against it and stopped dating men when I was twenty five. I have only dated women since then as it seemed emotionally easier on me.
The fourth intersex crisis started in January 2002. I started reading a book on intersex conditions. I wasn’t even half way through the table of contents before I began crying uncontrollably for an hour or so. After some psychotherapy I understood that I had come to the end of the road of being able to tolerate feeling like a circus freak any more. I had my genitalia surgically fixed so that it is now unambiguously female. I was, and am, ecstatic about this. End of intersex problems!!
The third connection with BIID is simply that from age thirteen until 2002, I was preoccupied with trying to deal with being a hermaphrodite. Consequently, although BIID was constantly present throughout this time period, for the most part it took second place in my mind to the intersex issues. The result is that I am now facing up to BIID at an older age than many of you, and at an older age than had it not for being a hermaphrodite.
There is a corollary going back to connection number two. One might reasonably imagine that, now having genitalia that I like and no longer have hatred for, the desire for lack of genital sensation would disappear. This did not happen at all. In fact I knew this ahead of time. It crossed my mind many times to ask the surgeon to cut a few nerves while he was down there. I didn’t dare to ask though, in case he might think I was nuts and refuse to do the surgery. He did mention that one of the possible risks of the surgery was lack of genital sensation. No such luck!!
The fourth BIID connection also relates to surgery. I was seeing a psychotherapist prior to my genital surgery. I told her that I was scared about it. She asked me what I had done previously in my life, when I was scared about something that I knew I had to do. I told her that I just went ahead and did it anyway. This is how I feel about paraplegia. I AM scared about becoming paraplegic, but that’s not going to stop me. I am confident that it is the way I am supposed to be.
The only thing I regret about my genital surgery is that I didn’t have it done when I had thought about it decades earlier. I am not going to make the same mistake with paraplegia. I am not going to wait for twenty years. I shall make it happen… or…
Tags: BIID, Genitalia, Incontinence, Paralysis, Paraplegia, Sensation, Surgery
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7 Comments
I definitely had a desire to be paralysed by the time I was four years old. I don’t remember thinking otherwise in fact. I didn’t find out about being intersexed until I was seven, so there was no cause and effect here.
However, I do think that psychology can get very complicated and different aspects of one’s life can interact. On the other hand I don’t know any hermaphrodites besides myself who developed incontinence, or a desire for it, or a desire for lack of genital sensation. Some do in fact have a lack of genital sensation due to unwanted crappy surgery when they were kids.
But then, I also don’t remember reading about other people on this site who have a specific desire for lack of genital sensation. So maybe it was the intersex-BIID combination that caused this? Just thinking out loud.
Actually I’ve had three genital surgeries. The last two were done under local anesthetic. The first of those two was fairly complicated, lasting three and a half hours, and I got to watch a good deal of it; quite entertaining! The best part was the anesthetic. Both times I experienced complete lack of genital sensation for the rest of the day. I absolutely loved it! It seemed completely right.
As for the association of paralysis and femininity, well I’m not the only one here.
Did I answer the question? I’m still trying to figure stuff out for myself.
A lot of people in Utah have been experiencing flooding this year, including ourselves. Today I brought a box of papers, which had dried out, up from the basement to check for damage. It was stuff my mother had collected from my childhood.
It has been a heck of a long time since I’ve seen any of these things, so they brought back a lot of memories. I just pulled out something that immediately made me burst into tears. It is the birthday card from my parents when I was two years old. It depicts four girls playing, all wearing pretty dresses. It is clearly a birthday card for a girl.
When I wrote this post in 2008 I had yet to appreciate the benefits of complete brutal honest vulnerable self disclosure. There is something I left out because I was ashamed and embarrassed about it. The precipitating event for my emotional crisis at age seven was that my parents sent me to a boys’ school. I disclosed this to Sean a long time ago, but not here, not publicly.
How or why my parents changed their minds about my gender between ages two and seven I shall never know. But it was not their decision to make. Parents! Do not tell your children who they are or who they should be. If they do not already know, then finding out is their own quest.
People of the world! Do not tell anyone else on the planet who they are or who they should be. If they do not already know, then finding out is their own quest.
I should be paraplegic. NO ONE has the moral authority to contradict this.
This has gotta be the best post I have ever seen. Brilliant – absolutely brilliant!
“Parents! Do not tell your children who they are or who they should be. If they do not already know, then finding out is their own quest.
People of the world! Do not tell anyone else on the planet who they are or who they should be. If they do not already know, then finding out is their own quest.
I should be paraplegic. NO ONE has the moral authority to contradict this.”
Like Peter said, you are dead on. Sigmund Freud said that “a man does not become a man until his father died.”
This is something I have struggled with. I have often felt that my father’s conservative ideals have held me back from becoming myself and realizing my true potential. Of course, Freud is a quack, but I wonder what he would have had to say about BIID?
Chloe, you’re going to love this article I just came across…
You are quite correct, Xavier, I absolutely LOVE this. It is so inspirational as to what CAN be when people have the courage to behave in an ethical manner. I am very glad that I had the decency to ask my kids what gender they are. I am also honored to have some enlightened friends who avoid obvious gender cues for their children. For example, when pregnant, they will explicitly tell people NOT to buy anything pink or blue for their baby. If a pregnant friend announces to me, after an ultrasound, that they are going to have a girl, I gently remind them that the technology does not yet exist to make such a determination. They will have to wait until their child is old enough to tell them what gender they are. By the way, I feel fortunate to have a close friend who is male identified and pregnant.
I’d better stop. It is extremely easy for me to go off into an impassioned rant about this subject. I am obviously very biased. The most long lasting and deep seated emotional damage I have experienced is a result of what happened when I was seven years old, without my consent. It is the root cause of my lack of self esteem, depression, social anxiety disorder, etc. Incidentally, in that same box of stuff where I found the birthday card were also my school reports. It is emotionally wrenching to read what my teachers wrote, and understand what was going on psycholgically. For example, throughout my teen years it was consistently noted that I was completely silent in class and wouldn’t say anything. This was due to extreme social anxiety disorder.
The upside is that I have a totally unquenchable passion for peoples’ self determination, which spills over to include BIID.
Thank you for this, Xavier.
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1 On 28 November, 2008, Sean said:
In some ways it almost sounds like you’re saying the issues surrounding being intersexed caused your Desire to be paralysed. Am I reading this right?