Intersex: Frustration with Normal
Doctors and psychologists get it wrong again.
Freedom from frustration is best treatment.
Geoffrey Hamilton
February 7, 2006
A British Channel 4 documentary called Secret Intersex
on hermaphrodites, (now to be called intersex people),
has given a fairly neutral portrait of the various kinds of people with this situation.
What was significant in the program was the evidence given from the individual life stories.
This was true especially in regard to the psychological factors involved in the physiological
and genetic dispositions . And this is true of all people, not just intersex people. This evidence also showed
how wrong the professionals, doctors and psychologists are when advising clients -- parents, and their own
flinching minds, seem to be the professionals' real clients.
The worst tactic employed by these professionals on their intersex clients is the
normal card. They consistently base all advise on the theory that a person wants to be
normal. (Perhaps their theory is the reason being called 'special' by all social service professionals
is so patronizing.) Normal can best be summed up as the stick figure, meaning the
professionals have no idea what normal is and they have little imagination. What's worse is they have no follow up results to
back up any claims. Imagination, or lack of it, is crucial to these professionals, because
they are only guessing at their job and they need imagination, as small as it is.
The stick figure imagined is happy and has all its fingers and toes. That concept
serves as a template when someone comes in the professional's door.
One doctor, Patrick Malone is quoted as saying intersex people find it, "...almost impossible to
be reared in a happy family environment..." ...without intervention as babies. Doctors rarely doubt
how to proceed. Cut it, tuck it, make it look like something, anything, 'normal'.
But of course normal to them means normal to a viewers eyes not to the client's own disposition.
It turns out professionals are essentially trying
to make a being that helps the viewer feel that the world is normal, and so closer to
our pathetic imagination of normal. In other words, they want the stick figure. And parents, usually, are trying
to protect their eyes from what is grotesque about their kids.
Most of the cases from the documentary
were subjects of the chop shop. One girl, Louise, had around thirty unsuccessful operations since
infancy. She was not told of her situation and was forced to be a girl, all on doctor's orders. Both are
miserable and the mother now wishes Louise was raised as a boy and Louise wishes they did nothing at all until she could
choose for herself.
Now there is the very different case of Ilisana. At sixteen she has testicles where her ovaries might have been.
Her parents, against doctors orders, did several things. For one, they told their daughter
about her situation as soon as they were able and so made her proud of it. They
considered it interesting and all wanted
to learn from it.
Doctors had said Ilisana's testes should be removed due to a purported increased
risk of cancer. Her parents left it up to her to decide and she reasoned well against it.
Increased risk is the most absurd care in the world. Having a bath gives an
increased risk of death, so does surgery - Ilisana knows better. When her sister was born
with the same physical attributes everyone was happy about
it, except the doctor who had suggested it be aborted.
Both Ilisana and her sister, Xenia, are vastly more
'normal' than Louise. They are happy, active socially, well adjusted, open about their situation,
and not obsessed by anything regarding being intersex. The mother says her daughters' can instruct
the world at large that there is a neutral gender if they want to. Their father says they have the
best of both worlds. He then asked Xenia if she felt ill and she said no.
What else do you want out of life?
In one final recent case, baby Bianca was forced into the chop shop, so, as her mother
said, she wouldn't be different. Now Bianca will need drug treatment for the rest of her life.
Obviously Bianca is not only still different, but much worse off.
What this all comes down to is a complete miscomprehension of the issue of freedom. When
politicians and patriots tout freedom they usually portray it as about having no restrictions in life. Not only
has there never been that kind of freedom and never will be, but these same people blindly call
for all kinds of restrictions, usually in the same breath. What emotion they tap into when they make that
cry for freedom is the feeling that you're doing what you are supposed to do -- what you are disposed to
do in life.
Intersex people have a disposition that must not be interfered with or
they will live lives of frustration and unhappiness. Louise is the one that had her disposition
frustrated by the professionals' and parents' stick figure image for normal. Ilisana and Xenia had their
normal dispositions allowed to exist in the directions they were designed to go. Their exceptional parents saw
this, and subsequently they all became curious about where the girls' dispositions would take them. This
is all that is needed and it is what actual freedom is all about.
GRH
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