Thursday, December 14, 2006

Intersexed: Part IIB

   Part II-B (read immediately after Part II-A

At first I was very distressed because of my intersexed condition.  In addition to picking up the negative vibes from others, I had to ask myself if somehow I had sinned in the womb.  Now, I know for those with no religious sensibilities, this is difficult to comprehend.  But for me, everything revolves around the Will of God, and my cooperation with, or rebellion from it.  The psalm that I have read the most times is Psalm 139 (always trying to come to terms with the restrictive limits placed on me because of my female gender) which emphasizes how God knows us, even in the womb.  So God had to create my embryonic sex as male, so I had to ask myself, “did I purposely reject my God-given male sex in the womb?”  Everything I know about the natural order of fetal development and God’s grace requiring free will tells me that there is no way a fetus can sin. (Of course, if I believed in reincarnation there would be a possibility of  negative karma carried over from another lifetime, but that is too big of a leap against my worldview…)<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

     My other big fear was that I had struggled and prevailed against a fraternal twin and the resulting legacy was AIS (or for that matter mosaical xxyy chromosomes).  This was why I pushed so hard to have a CT scan done of my abdomen.  I wanted to know if there was anything else in there that wasn’t supposed to be there—like the remnants of another embryo/fetus.  But even though nobody tells me anything, my intuition would have letmeknown, and it did not tell me anything, so whatever happened was developmental.  So now my belief is that I am just as God wanted me to be, a third human estate—intersexed.  And because God willed and created it, it is good—not a deformity, tragedy, or even personal sin.  God wanted me to be a hermaphrodite, God wanted me to be autistic, and I accept myself fully just as God made me.

      If there is any sin involved, it is in the rigid dualism of traditional thinking that insists on inflexible binary sex roles when the reality is much different, and I am living physiological proof!  But formed as I am by my culture, and having spent years trying to conform to the hateful, ultra-rigid sex role dichotomy mandated by the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, I experienced a psychological shakeup as I realized the mind-boggling extent of my difference.  After all, for years, I had insisted that while masculine/feminine roles were much more fluid and androgynous than the traditionalists admitted, I never realized the extent of the intrinsic proof that I carry within my own body.  I had to wonder “am I a man or am I a woman?” and then realize that I was neither—I was truly an androgyne, which made me doubt the authenticity of every “feminine” role I had consciously undertaken, which for me is a larger number than the feminine roles that I do unconsciously.

    Doubting my authenticity led to a mini-psychological crisis, so I turned to the writing of my all-time favorite psych—Scott Peck.  I don’t have his best books.  I gave Colleen The Road Less Travelled, and the last time I saw it, the book was in tatters from her multiple rereadings of it.  I think that book is part of the reason why she now is an RN insteadof a underemployed, dysfunctional alcoholic.  I also loaned out People of the Lie, another incredible book that reveals Peck’s profound and true grasp of the dynamics of evil.  For all his medical and psychiatric training, Peck knows that there are evil spirits.  He has led Christian exorcisms.  I wish, for my intellect’s sake, that he would have been able to place the theology more clearly in a definitive psychological framework, but true evil, like grace, originates from the spiritual realm, and thus eludes easy rational explanation.  So I picked up the book I did have: A World Waiting to be Born: Civility Rediscovered.  Immersing myself in the thought and words of a deep and truthful thinker always orients me back to Truth and Self, even though the subject matter may not be apropos.  Sometimes though, fate intervenes and the seemingly ill-suited subject material becomes exactly what the doctor ordered.  That is what happened to me.

   Peck wrote of the need for a restoration of civility in society and relationships.  That was an opportune subject for me because I was agonizing over all the times that I had played the feminine role because civility required it.  Was I a phony since it really wasn’t natural but just a role I consciously adopted?  I especially wondered about allowing myself to be used as an anima catcher of projection by men.  Women project too, but I can accept their projections much more readily.  I don’t know if this is because my primordial psyche is male, or if it is because generally, women are less likely to be so psychologically needy and greedy as men (single men, including celibates and “players” are the worst).  In anycase, I’m always aware of how much willed effort it takes on my part to respond to a man who is projecting heavily onto me.  As a youthful woman I really resented it, and would close off completely.  But as I began to read Jungian psychology, I realized that this was a vital function performed by women on behalf of men.  Peck would say that cooperating with it (within boundary limitations, of course) is civil.  As I became more aware of the civil actions performed by men on behalf of women—providing escorts late at night from the library, holding open doors, and even, on occasion, “coming to the rescue” of women (as happened to me when I was 20 and was attacked by three rottweilers as a pack)—I recognized the need to reciprocate.  So I began to allow anima projections onto me.  But I have never felt entirely comfortable was with that.  So aware of the startling difference of my true sex as hermaphrodite, I started to ask myself, "How inauthentic have I been?" and now that I know, "how can I continue to be so inauthentic by cooperating with these anima projections?"  
    But right while I'm reading Scott Peck's book on the urgent need for a revival of civility in social relationships, I took a bus ride on Central Avenue, the most crowded bus line, right through the heart of the poorest and most predatory part of town.  I was in one of my "observing humanity" moods, and was suffering from pain in my lower back and leg, so I sat down to see what civility might transpire on a packed bus with no seats available.  A young man carrying a toddler got on, and I was gratified to observe another man give up his seat for him.  At the next stop an older woman got on, but a seat was available by then and she took it.  She was clearly a Christian, but it was not the large, antique-looking metal cross that gave her away.  It was the Holy Spirit that animated her, giving her the vigor and alertness of a much younger woman.  At the next stop, a middle-aged man loaded down with bags and a large box got on.  The older Christian woman stood up, giving up her seat.  To his credit, the man demurred, saying, "I don't want to take your seat."  The woman insisted, saying, "It doesn't bother me to stand, and you are carrying much more than me."  So the man gratefully accepted the seat, arranging all his packages and a woman who looked over sixty, but stood as erect and strong as if she were thirty, stood up.  This is civility in reality, not role enactment, and thus it is even more meritorious. Contrast this with an experience related by Henri Nouwen which happened while he was in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Rome.  He was wearing a Roman collar, and when a heavily pregnant woman boarded the bus, he gave her his seat-the civil thing to do.  Another cassocked priest was on board the bus, and Nouwen reports that the Italian priest was furious with him, glaring at him hatefully for giving up his seat to a pregnant woman.  The Italian priest was stuck in his role in which he is "too good" to give up a seat.  These Central Avenue bus riders were not acting out societal roles---with a twentysomething man carrying a preschooler onto a bus, and an older woman giving up her seat to a younger man.  Thank God the United States is not a society of rigid roles and expectations, but civility is just as important, though based on necessity, rather than role expectance.  
    I suppose now that I could justify being emotionally stingy and refuse to accept to play the role of anima to men anymore, since after all, that is not part of my innate psychological makeup.  But I agree with Peck.  There is a crying need for civility and I prefer to be civil, and that means that I extend myself to help others in any way that I can, even if it does not come naturally or feel particularly fulfilling.  I cannot blame a man for projecting onto me (though I can expect them to be mature about it), since after all my gender is clearly female.  After 44 years of living as a woman, I prefer that my gender be female.  As a young child or adolescent, I think I would have preferred to be male, but I have learned to be a woman and accept a woman's role, and while it still doesn't come completely naturally, that is who I prefer to be.  At first I thought about changing my gender because I felt like a freak, and was angry that while the most casual of acquaintances seemed to know the truth, nobody told me anything (and on top of that I was allmessed up on the psychotropic drugs that I was being force-fed).  Then I went through a crisis with my body image.  One day while I was working out in the gym, I looked in the mirror and despaired at my broad shoulders and deep, wide chest that quite clearly was never meant to sport my widely spaced, pop-out boobs.  I realized that I felt more comfortable carrying my body like a man, but while it “felt right,” in the mirror it looked all wrong. It was confusing. So like a gawky teenager dealing with gender identity issues again, I struggled with whether to do what felt right or what looked right.  In the end, practicality won out. My options are to accept my body as it is, or have a complete hysterectomy, undergo expensive and protracted surgeries and become a 5 feet tall man with pear shaped hips and peach fuzz on my face.  I'd look ridiculous.  Not to mention I'd have a tiny little construct of a penis that probably couldn't even pleasure the woman I love, or me, for that matter!  No, thank you.  I have to accept myself as I am, and as a woman there are certain role expectations, and while I believe they are fluid and flexible, they still are important, and I have to acknowledge and endure them. Sometimes they cause me mild psychic discomfort (at the thought that I am being a phony) or great pain and suffering (as when I wished to be a priest in the Roman Catholic tradition), but acknowledging and overcoming guilt and pain is what has made me the sensitive and gifted person that I am, and so I praise God for I am wonderfully made!!!!

 

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