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.

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/article/995112–parents-keep-child-s-gender-secret

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?

“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.”

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.

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.