PFLAG Transgender Insights

I went to a PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) meeting last night because there were going to be three FTM (female to male) transgender representatives speaking and I wanted to hear their life journeys. (You can read mine–although I have never transitioned surgically or chemically via hormones–in WOMB MAN: HOW I SURVIVED GROWING UP IN A BOOBY-TRAPPED WORLD.)

 

As soon as the first fellow (a Scottish man) started talking, I found my eyes watering with tears. The second fellow’s story added to the same feeling. I felt so completely at one with kindred spirits!

 

Both of these fellows had lovely beards; no one who didn’t know their stories would ever believe that they were born (or assigned) female at birth. (More on assigning gender a little later.) I found them more empathetic and sympathetic than most  of the men I know, but there are sufficient cisgender men who are similarly empathetic and sympathetic, so this feature of their personalities wouldn’t make anyone think, “Gee, these don’t seem to be typical men.” (Their preferred pronouns are he and him.) These were guys!  I had no doubt!

 

The third speaker (whose preferred pronouns are their, they and them ) is just beginning the transition, so their  story is still very raw and tentative. Their nervousness showed how huge a step it is at first to “name it and proclaim it” when the culture they were born into (Bible Belt southeast) wanted them to shut up and adapt to the “reality” of living life in female form.  (After being thrown out of the house for having a girlfriend and refusing to relinquish the relationship–and being told they were going to hell for it–they joined the Army and were stationed here at Fort Lewis.) (Funny, DeForest Kelley was told by his Baptist preacher father that he was going to hell for deciding to become an actor. How times have changed–but the threat of eternal damnation for refusing to  honor or obey parental or ancient Middle Eastern customs/wisdom authority has not!) (Yes, dear, the Holy Bible is a Middle Eastern document written by Middle Eastern men a long, long time ago! Get over it or reconsider it, please…)

 

After all of these individuals spoke, the audience asked questions. After that and a brief break, audience and speakers divided into three groups so the audience could ask additional questions of any of the speakers they chose to sit with.

 

I chose the second speaker, more or less at random. (I had already spent the break speaking to the third speaker and exchanging insights.)

 

In our group, the topic of intersex children came up.  I already knew that many intersex babies (babies born with ambiguous genitalia–approximately one in every 100 births is intersex) were altered at birth as a matter of course up until relatively recently in this nation, but H. told us something I wasn’t aware of. He said that in many (most?) cases in the past, not even the parents of intersex infants were told about their babies’ intersex condition, and that most of those not advised were handed mutilated infants–that is, they were altered surgically at birth to fit a gender binary (usually female because removing penis and gonads is easier and involves just one minor surgery at that age, whereas altering to male would require telling the parents that they had an intersex child who might seek additional surgeries when their secondary sex characteristics kicked in at puberty–breasts, ovaries, womb, etc.) instead of leaving them alone to grow and mature long enough to let them decide which gender their brains aligned with.  (Is that why in-hospital maternity stays were so lengthy back in the day before this custom of quietly mutilating intersex infants was finally abandoned? Hmmm…)

 

So that’s a surprising wrinkle that didn’t make it into my book. Up until last night, I thought that bygone days’ altering of  intersex infants was done by joint agreement between parents and doctors, not in a unilateral decision foisted off on unwitting parents and their children. Did surgeons think that nurture alone would ensure that the child/teenager/adult would feel like a cisgender woman?  (Brain science is so new that I’m not surprised, really.)

 

What this means is that if I was born intersex (something I have suspected for a long time), not even my parents may have known. But certainly they got clued in fast enough (had they known about intersex and transgenderism) by the way I acted: I hated and fought wearing dresses, always fantasized being a man (Roy Rogers, Stoney Burke, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, etc.) , and never in a million years considered myself a lady or a woman.. ever… not even after puberty! I eschewed makeup, dating men, the whole nine yards! In fact, I was appalled at the changes my body made as I navigated puberty back in the 1960’s.  I have never made peace with my form; I have merely surrendered to it, the way a beaten man surrenders to his conqueror (to avoid being killed by the oppressor).

 

This also tells me that a lot of lesbians aren’t lesbians–and don’t even know it! They are surgically-altered intersex beings whose gender identity was halved in an operating room and whose legitimate future was denied them at birth.

 

THAT pisses me off.

 

Of course, there are cisgender lesbians–women who feel completely like women and have romantic/sexual proclivities toward other cisgender women. But I wonder how many others have labeled themselves lesbians without knowing their gender origins. I will never know and they may never know…

 

These days surgeons are letting parents know and recommending waiting on surgeries until the child has lived long enough to know and own their sexual and gender orientations. (Sexual and gender orientations are two separate things. Sexual orientation determines who you want to go to bed with; gender orientation determines who you go to bed as.) In some countries infant intersex “correction surgery” is illegal unless the specific individuals’ conditions won’t permit the infants to survive. In the U.S., parents and doctors can still decide to alter an infant to fit into a gender binary (again, usually female).  I think that should be outlawed.  No one else has the right to decide another person’s gender.

 

I am thrilled that PFLAG and other LGBTQI groups are helping inform and educate the community about these issues. The more word gets out about the gender spectrum and how normal is it to exist outside the gender binary of male and female, the more accepting and healthier our society will become.

 

Human beings are human beings, with equal rights to be celebrated, not just tolerated.