Daily Archives: July 6, 2015

Guest Post! This week’s article at LQTU is written by Celeste Orr.

Why is “intersex” an afterthought in our community?

While many queer and allied folks have been celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage, many others rightly question whether this time is indeed a time for celebration.

How can we celebrate as our fellow queers, specifically trans people of colour, face homelessness, un/underemployment, housing discrimination, staggering suicide and murder rates, and police and prison violence?

Recently many articles address this matter and note that trans issues are the “next fight” or the “next step” in fighting for LGBTQ equity, freedom, and liberation. But framing trans issues as “next steps” neglect that fact that, for trans folks and many other queer people, same-sex marriage was never the first step.

For many queer folks same-sex marriage was never the first step because we think that marriage is a fundamentally flawed institution. Marriage has deep sexist, anti-poly, and queerphobic roots. Many queer people are not homonormative and marriage, therefore, does not reflect their lives. For many other queer people same-sex marriage was never the first step because evading being killed was and remains the perpetual, all too often unachievable first step.

For queer and trans people who do not have white privilege, class privilege, homonormative privilege, and/or non-trans privilege, mere survival is always (and already) the first step.

Framing trans issues as “next steps” erases the (continued) activism and work it took for transphobia to be recognized as not just as the “next step” but a “step” at all.

Even if well-intentioned, framing transphobia as the “next step” also inadvertently re-creates a hierarchy of queer lives, identities, acts, and of (life-threatening) queer issues. Many trans activists, queer people of colour, and queer poly people have criticized this very hierarchy. Queer and allied folks should be wary of reproducing this hierarchy with “next step” discourses.

In thinking through the ways in which certain queer folks, even within queer and feminist communities, are marginalized, regulated to the bottom of the hierarchy, or are the proverbial “next step” I am not too surprised that, in the midst of this supposed queer watershed moment of same-sex marriage, the “I” in LGBTQI has been dropped, forgotten.

All of the articles I have come across in mainstream and feminist forums that address marriage “equality” and the “next steps” queer folks are “going to fight for” (or more accurately have been fighting for) exclude the “I.” Why is the “I” not a “next step” in mainstream discourse?

Building from the Organisation Intersex International’s (OII) definition of intersex, “intersex” is a general term “applied to human beings whose biological sex cannot be classified as clearly” or exclusively “male or female. An intersex person may have the biological attributes of both,” typically Western, culturally recognized, legitimized, and institutionalized “sexes or lack some of the biological attributes considered necessary to be defined as one or the other sex.”

Put differently, “intersex” refers to numerous kinds of embodiments that deviate from the (hetero)norm or, what Abby Wilkerson refers to as, “normate sex.” In other words, intersex embodiments illustrate that the cis-trans binary is insufficient.

Intersexism – the structural and systemic oppression of intersex folks – is real and palpable. Despite the fact that intersex embodiments, specifically those with variant genitals, typically pose no health risk, intersex infants and children are often subjected to state-sanctioned, non-consensual, genital mutilation at the hands of medical professionals.

This mutilation is paternalistically done in the name of fixing, curing, or managing the queerly disordered intersex body. In the United States alone, Emi Koyama reminds, “five children are being mutilated everyday.” That means approximately 1,825 children will have their genitals non-consensually cut on and de/reconstructed this year in the US by “benevolent” medical professionals.

In addition to this unspeakable violence with various long- and short-term physical and psychological effects, many intersex folks face systemic shaming, gender policing, queerphobia, and discrimination at school, work, and home.

Historically, many medical professionals have kept intersex folks’ medical records secret even when asked to view them. Some intersex people struggle with fitting into sexed and gendered spaces, like bathrooms. Some intersex folks also struggle with filling out governmental (or otherwise) forms that force one to pick a sex or gender.

In fact, these spaces and institutionalized sexing practices utterly erase the very existence of intersex people.

So I ask, why is the “I” forgotten; why is the “I” not the “next step” in the emerging LGBTQ next step discourse? Answering this question many seem easy, albeit devastating: the “I” is rarely taken into account or represented. In 1999, near the beginning of the Intersex Rights Movement, Robert Crouch referred to this absence as the “structural invisibility” of intersex people and the systemic violence they face. That invisibility still persists today.

It is true to state that the “I” has probably been forgotten because historically, intersex rights – like trans rights, disability rights, and the rights of people of colour – are invisible to the majority of people. But, I want to complicate this narrative because sometimes the “I” (like the “T,” “B,” and POC) is tactfully excluded at the expense of homonormative or (white) women’s rights. Or, if intersex rights are visible or added to the queer feminist conversation, they are added superficially.

That is, the “I” is present in “LGBTQI” but it is never meaningfully addressed. With this in mind I cannot reduce the absent “I” to thoughtless negligence. Even if the absence is thoughtless, it is political.

I suggest that the “I” is forgotten or is being tactfully excluded because intersex embodiments, by definition, illustrate and remind us that the way in which we understand sex as dichotomous is a farce. And, in turn, we are reminded that the institution of marriage, an institution based on the dichotomous understanding of sex, is insufficient. If we remembered the “I” we would have to address the fact that the same-/different-sex marriage model erases intersex bodies, experiences, and people.

At this moment of the same-sex marriage “win,” many people probably do not want to be reminded that the institution excludes a part of our queer community, intersex and genderqueer people alike.

But it is imperative to acknowledge that same-sex marriage is not really a queer “win” or it is not a win for all queer or differently bodied people. Same-sex marriage is not really a “win” because an entire community cannot fit into the sex binary. Same-sex marriage is not really a “win” if we recognize that intersex infants and children are literally being cut on so they can fit into the sex binary the institution of marriage and our culture is based on.

It is true that for some people with intersex embodiments, specifically those who do not identify as intersex and/or identify as exclusively male or female, the legalization of same-sex marriage is a win if they want to marry their partners. For other intersex people it may be non-consequential.

Ultimately, though, it is another instance of erasure and marginalization. It is another law, another moment that further entrenches the idea that sex is binaristic, that intersex bodies are “wrong.”

If we remember the “I” and advocate for intersex rights, as I call all queer and allied people to do, we cannot make the same mistake and narrate the “I” as a “next step.” We cannot continue to reproduce the violent hierarchy of queer lives and issues. Like trans people, particularly trans people of colour, the crises intersex infants, children, adolescents, and adults face is immediate and dangerous.

These issues are not “next” – they are now and always.

 —

Celeste Orr is a Ph.D Candidate at University of Ottawa in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies.

Had a church friend come to me yesterday and say he wanted to sit down and talk to me about his son and the possibility that he might be exhibiting bipolar symptoms.  I explored it a bit with him and his wife and they are concerned about his moods.  They said he had exaggerated reactions to events, many characteristics they felt were OCD, and were worried about his stability in that he broke up with his longtime girlfriend without warning  They were both vague about what they were seeing, so I gave them my blog and told them to read up on my story and see if they could see any similarities or parallels to their son’s life.  Both said that since he was a doctor, he likely wouldn’t admit to anything in talking to them, but they didn’t know much to do besides try to talk him into seeing a counselor or a psychiatrist.

All I know to do is refer people to professionals and if they ask, tell them about my experiences.  I don’t claim to be an expert, just a survivor of my diagnosis. I’m glad I’ve been open about my experience so that I can point people in the correct direction.  THat’s what I want to do with the blog and any work I might publish about it–point people towards help and hope that they can get through the symptoms and diagnosis and still live a fulfilling life within the parameters their illness gives them.

Trips are so much fun, no I don’t mean the hallucinatory ones, I mean the real ones. Real life is suspended, you are exploring new sights, eating new food, your interest is peaked, perhaps you are on a beach, swimming in the sea, the therapeutic sea. Thalassotherapy. On this trip to Turkey, I did have some anxiety and panic the first day I was there, which was highly unusual for me, it did subside very quickly and then I had a wonderful time. No responsibilities, no deadlines, just fun, food, family and friends. Getting dressed up, going out to dinner, a wedding reception, sightseeing. Freedom! Freedom from anxiety, from depression. Sometimes a feeling of wellbeing for no reason at all. Can I keep it all now that I’m home? I’m going to try. Obviously life is not suspended anymore, have play rehearsals every night for 3-4 hours to get ready for our July 16 opening night! Appointments, meetings, sessions, all waiting for me. Oh and unpacking, my least favorite activity in the world. But I suppose if I didn’t unpack, I wouldn’t be able to pack for my next trip, which I am planning even as I write this lol. Anyway, here are some pictures, memories, from my trip.

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People who are complacent and happy and fulfilled are not the ones who accomplish great things. It is people who are driven, who have a “fire in their belly”. who are dissatisfied with their life, the state of the world, who feel this urge, hear the siren’s call, these are the people who do something great in the world.

I have been thinking, which am I? Certainly not the complacent kind. I am anxious almost all the time, yet I also have moments of blissful peace. Is it enough to be anxious? No. It has to be a directed anxiety, a goal oriented anxiety, the anxiety one feels has to be directed into achieving something. Just like energy, energy exists everywhere, but only when it is directed into an electrical cable can it light up the world.

I think education was to have taught me this directing capability, but I must have been sick at home the day they taught that lesson.

Yet also, another voice speaks to me (no not really, haha, it’s just my thoughts) and it says: Why do you have to strive and wish for greatness, isn’t it enough to just be you? A kind and loving and compassionate you, who can affect people’s and little animals’ lives everyday, not in some grand way, but in a small way? There is freedom in this. I can be kind, loving, compassionate every day without being tethered to an outside goal. I can be me without the need for fanfare and external responsibilities.

I used to think my epitaph should read “She tried as much as she could!” I’ve changed my mind about that, now I think it should read “She was loving, kind and compassionate.” Hopefully that is all true of me so it can be put on my tombstone. Actually I am not going to have a tombstone, I’m going to be cremated.

Anyway, this tug of war between living a small quiet life and the wish to accomplish something great, something stellar, goes on my head sometimes; especially after I see something great like “H{N)Y P N (Y} OSIS.” Something like a one woman show with acting, singing, reading… I don’t know, who knows, we’ll see. I wonder how I can turn something like that into a reality? Certainly not by blogging about it, but by doing it.

Ok, gotta go and rehearse my song and lines for my upcoming play “Buster, The Musical!” Community theatre it is, but still something that screams: Look at me, here I am!