Intersex

When author Jeffrey Eugenides appeared on the Oprah show to promote his then-new book "Middlesex", I was shocked by the medical stats explained by a doctor also on the show; that 1 in 20 people are born with either ambiguous genitalia, or internal sex organs related to both sexes. A young woman in the next segment had Androgen Insensitive Disorder, meaning that she was diagnosed in puberty with a set of undescended gonads that had secreted enough testosterone during puberty to stop her female maturation process. After having the tissue removed, she easily decided to proceed with hormone injections that would give her female breasts, since she had always identified as a woman, but for other Intersex patients, it's not so easy.  

Her adolescence had given her the height of a man and slenderness of a boy that made her a natural fit for working as a runway model, as she readily admitted on the show that most of the models she worked with were also Intersex. Her reasoning was excellent, too. Think about it: a 6-foot tall girl with a square jaw and no hips?! Gives "Victoria's Secret" a whole new connotation, doesn't it? But for all the intersex people who have clearer choices between genders, many do not. The young model went on to explain that her male hormones had destroyed her ovarian tissue, and she was born without a uterus, so she can never have children. And that's the less complicated version.

For intersex people from older generations, babies born with ambiguous genitalia were often assigned a gender at birth while still in the delivery room, based on the leanings of the attending physician, without consulting the parents or allowing the child to develop into puberty, armed with information that would assist them in making a choice later in life. One man didn't learn that he had a complete set of fully functioning ovaries and a uterus until an MRI technician told him while he was an enlistee in the army who'd just broken his back, because he also had fully functioning male genitalia and the total outward appearance of a man.

He isn't alone in his gender assumptions, either. Several years ago, a very well-known Olympic runner was newly diagnosed as intersex after her first full medical exam during the Olympic trials was performed on her, because she came from a poor, remote African village that was far from the readily available medical communities of a big city. Her grandmother explained that she'd raised her as a girl, because she looked like one (!), even though she'd never had her menses, which is often common for extreme athletes. The runner was embarrassed beyond belief to have her unusual condition plastered across the evening news, especially since it also cast a shadow over her athletic performance. She'd originally tested positive for the elevated testosterone levels that are typically linked to the usage of performance-enhancing drugs (like steroids) that are banned from legitimate competition.

I'm happy to report that she was finally accepted into Olympic competition for the women's team years ago, and again more recently as a competitor in the summer Olympic Games, proud to represent her African country unblemished with questions about her performance and her gender. For her, the story ends with a successful entry into womanhood, though for many intersex individuals, such is not the case. New York finally granted its first documented designation of intersex gender status THIS YEAR to a driver's license applicant, which tells you about the lack of acceptance and recognition within a LGBTQI community that places a "Q" for "questioning" before the biological reality that is Intersex. Even further progress has been made medically-speaking, with the standard of allowing intersex children to self-identify later in life without surgical intervention. For them, there are no questions about being intersex, because they already are. 
How's that for an "I"?

Apple and Oranges

Even though I knew that "The Fates" held a destiny for me much bigger than a small-sized classroom, I've always loved teachers and education, so much so, I followed my best friend and her older brother to one of the best teaching schools in the country for working class New York kids on a strict budget, which is the exact niche my friends and I fit into. Why pay out interest rates on jacked-up student loans designed to suck from our meager incomes for years, when the starting salary for a teacher in New York State was $26,000 in the 90s (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d99/d99t080.asp)?

Suffice to say, I learned a lot about my friends and their curriculum by listening and talking with them. It served me well during my apprenticeship in publishing, which has the strongest industry ties to education, by necessity and design. Textbooks, anyone? Who do we serve more than schools? Libraries! That's why I'm typing to you from one today. Makes for an eerie kind of logic, doesn't it? And so we discussed our avid interest in changing the system from within, by shoving out the bored burned-out drones who labored in classrooms like they were slaves from "the bad man" himself, when really they were just bottom-level civil servants made for a life filled with repetition.

But, that's not the actual job of teaching. Running a classroom means you have enough juice and life-force running through your veins that you can actually transmit your passion for learning to other much smaller humans who need you to guide them through your excellently-designed curriculum. We had enough of the ennui that bad teachers hide behind. Get out, if you hate kids that much! It's like dealing with the bitch who runs your doctor's office. Oh, so you hate people? I guess tending to the sick would be at the top of your list, then.

And it wasn't because they were broke or in financial straits like we were. I've worked with plenty of people in publishing who worked because they didn't know what else to do, so they hoped to hide within low-paying jobs alongside some of the most educated people on the planet because....oh, wait. That doesn't work either. Claiming disability became some sort of signal that we "won", because crazy people think that the world is all about some intergalactic pissing contest in lieu of actually living life, like my wonderfully cool grandpapa taught me to do: have fun! Learning is like that.

So, we became focused on accurately transmitting that joyful feeling; not through some dull drama class we did by rote, but the real thing, which unfortunately requires you love what you do for a living, and that can't be faked, no matter the brand of wacky sauce poured on top for seasoning bland personalities. My friends and I felt alive. Are you? We became adept at reading children's real intellectual levels, and that's somehow another layer of threatening for the demented at heart. Here in town, we watched a sick woman smack her ADD son cringing on the floor at our community center in the middle of the day, in front of many witnesses. It was a shockingly familiar sight to anyone from this area: a stick-thin young woman with challenged kids, greasy hair, and a shitty attitude (she has a Down Syndrome girl, too) freaks out whenever she feels stress, which is all-day every day.

The gossip that circulated through us followed suit in a typically dysfunctional pattern we grew up with, too. She was in the middle of a ferocious battle with the teachers at the elementary school next door to our library/community center, because she refused to acknowledge what any two-year-old already knew: she's sick, and so are her kids. Duh. Of course he's "Special Needs"! But just like every rabid bitch we hated as kids, here she was again, haunting the very places we hold dear, like some nightmare merry-go-round in Hell. Hadn't we killed, er, pushed out all these bitches already? Birth control is practically free!

Much like a pseudo-debate over healthcare, it's not really about her kid and his needs, because we've already designed circles around it as an issue, when she finally decides to pull her head out of her own stick-figure ass. Who can tell? She pretended to almost run me over when I crossed at a corner near town, to give me the creeps (just in case I failed at her five million other warning signs that are as obvious as daylight at noontime), by pretending to search for something in her car. We have that on satellite photo, BTW. Look for it! Anywho, like any self-loathing drama queen, her weirdo displays are more about her strange lesbo displays someone has to actually notice, like when she comes into the library in her anorexic day-wear, to bend over until one of the gay women working here notices her bending over to put books into the return slot that should normally take a few seconds. Ugh...great. That's motherhood?!

Body fat is also a no-no among many "sports dykes" and the women who love/hate them. Also, you shouldn't date a closeted women who tricked some poor guy (perhaps deeply closeted, as well) into mating with her poorly, but you should know that from our lessons already, kid. It happens to us everywhere. When I moved into my new residence, I knew within minutes which neighbor was sick with what, and their children, too. It's rather easy to discern, like a physician with a tiny hammer timing your reactions from knocking your knee. The Hispanics upstairs did everything they possibly could, as backwards as possible. They made a kid without marriage, broke up, then he moved in his little girlfriend who preferred shopping to mothering (because they're barely out of their teens! Yay!), which she then telegraphed to everyone in the neighborhood by making his little girl into a pedophiles' sick delight, with outfits cut just a bit too short, so that her boyfriend's ex would suffer from her daughters' molestation that would certainly affect her throughout her life, and that was BEFORE I noticed her obvious developmental issues.

First, it was the girls obvious short attention span (easy: blame los Americanos with their sugar and fast food diet), then blame our high price of living telegraphed by obvious parental neglect (so they could leave their girl vulnerable to the house drunks downstairs by pleading poverty for their cheapo babysitting services, having the large man paw the young girl right in front of me on the houses porch, which I clearly documented), and then finally, I met the girl herself, desperate for a real adult to teach her something about life. She picked me out as a safe person quickly, ringing my bell for healthy food and drinks, which I readily had, like home-popped popcorn and seltzer water with fresh lemon slices. She loved my treats, even asking me for more, which I happily gave her in a plastic container that I never got back, in case I didn't get all the other messages transmitted to me that they could care less about me and her, what with their sulking, pouting, drinking, and active chain-smoking social lives to live.

The poor girl was also a shut-in, not leaving the house except for school, and that attendance seemed tepid and short-lived, too. As soon as the young couple could, they farmed out her daycare to babysitters and a series of shifty-looking "nannies", because that's what junior mechanics and their desk-jockey girlfriends do in this century, besides nursing a serious shoe fetish widely telegraphed in the house garbage cans (because they don't recycle, duh. They're "too busy" for that!), but one call to their friend and a Spanish woman will pick up your bottle returns, because the house drunk told me that. "Oh, yeah! We recycle here! Just let so-and-so upstairs know, and he'll call his friend. She picks through the garbage for bottles. You ain't gotta worry 'bout nuthin'. Put 'em in the two pails in the back with no lids, and they'll see it." Huh. I see. Hiding beer bottles and alcoholism, eh? Neat trick!

Their daughter also never played outside, or went to the little playground with picnic tables that are right here in the center of town, or got ice cream nearby like every kid here does in the summer with their parents, nor did she ride her bike openly in the driveway, or play in the yard like any other girl her age would do. She didn't have friends come over, either. She told me she had a sibling who didn't go out, because he "didn't feel good", so he stay inside a lot. Right! I could tell. As she sat at my kitchen table, I asked her to draw me anything she wanted. She couldn't. I asked her to spell her name for me. Nope! Did she know the letters A, B, or C? No! She fidgeted and bounced around my apartment, flitting from object to object, finally swiping them from my coffee table in anger, and then putting them back when my back was turned for a few seconds, which was the one practiced trick she had up her sleeves. When I asked her age, she told me she was six, but she didn't really know. Ah...

After new neighbors moved in, we had two families in our household with small children, and they couldn't be more different. The first time I met little Eli, he played happily in the yard while I became acquainted with his father, cheerfully picking up different stones and rocks to show me. I kept his little gifts in my hands, until his father noticed and asked him to put them down. As a symbol of recognition about their vast differences intellectually and developmentally (because everything is a big fucking secret, I guess), I lined up little Eli's rocks underneath the railing on "my side" of the porch (I don't actually own the house, which makes territorial markings doubly weird!), the same side of the house his parents kept their car parked that they drove everyday, so they would at least know that I knew. He'd sorted rocks by their size, shape, type, and color. At two. Yeah. Different. That's it, right?

 http://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/edpicks.jhtml

"I love lamp!"

Jerk-offs have a hard time in society. They already feel "exposed", and so in the quest for attention and popularity, they created their very own special blend called Objectum Sexuality. Sounds exotic, right? In truth, it's masturbation using objects with human attributes assigned to them, through the power of their own fevered imaginings. Have trouble talking to women without stalking them, or fondling them in public spaces like the fuckin' piece of shit that you are? No problem! Dress up your dildo like a mascot and call it "Harry"! No? Oh! You like "boy" objects and "girl" objects, henceforth I must refer to you as a Pansexual Polyamorous Bisexual Objectum Sexual. Seriously. That is exactly what one woman who is a regular on the media show-pony circuit wants you so desperately to believe about her, because she is the "most specialest" kid on the block, helmet not included for outdoor activities: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=7283494.

She, like "Diaper Baby Boy" and "Obsessed Car Guy", have full-on public displays of anti-social affection with their objects of choice based on their imagined sexual relationships that take place mostly in their heads, because all of them were sexually molested and/or violently assaulted as young children, which they will tell you about in great detail as to the many reasons why they cannot ever love disgustingly fleshy human people. They've had many productive meetings with their therapists that allow them to talk openly about their intimacies! As funny as it is to poke fun as some chick who thinks the Berlin Wall is a "hot celebrity" (thus making a committed monogamous relationship with "him" difficult. I know! Even objects have commitment-based issues), she actually gets the German government to give her the keys to an old turret for their overnight "honeymoon", so that they can intimately "exchange energy" as husband and wife, thus publicly validating her feelings. Their lack of a true homospaien sexuality is rooted is utter and complete dysfunction: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/man-who-sex-over-700-4435804

I lost it when she showed everyone in T.V. Land her handmade to:scale version of the Berlin Wall (naturally, she's also an "artist"), sitting upright in her bed at night waiting for her to come home, with a robe and ascot tied jauntily around its "neck". Really? People be desperate to get on t.v., yo. For her, it began as a stress response to media attention while she trained for the Olympics as some special white girl Japanese archer, which was not rare enough to get anyone's attention because Japan ended it's national policy of Isolationism many years ago, hence she rubbed herself with it and named it. Voila! Instant spotlight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_Eiffel

It's not that I don't want her or any other person with Special Needs not to have a sexual identity, nor do I question the integrity of a learned psychologist steering away a possibly psychopathic individual towards masturbation with creativity attached to it, I just have to wonder where it ends for them all. Do they ever get better? Just like the movie-version of Lars and his Real Girl sex toy, it saddens me that the thought of touching another living human being fills them with repugnance, instead of generating the biochemistry necessary for our most intimate relationships. I may really like that lamp I bought from some catalog, but will it ever really love me back? Of course not. You know it won't. 

As much as I may like the charm of your over-indulged story about a new coffee-maker, it's not actually a friendly robot who beeps happily in response to you, like a human might. I know, because I am the type of designer and artist who makes objects: tools are made for humans to use, not love sexually. Just like imbuing "Wall-E" the Mars Rover robot with human characteristics will ultimately fail over time, so we are made to belong to one another. That's what we want for you. Trust me, I know. Keep taking those meds, tho'. We want you to be the best you possible. We want you to be a healthily thriving human.

http://www.objectum-sexuality.org/

In an interesting side note, it occurred to me after I wrote this piece that the English language (unlike modern Romance languages) does not place objects in the same category as humans, by wrongly assigning them as masculine or feminine. We have, simply put, "he", "she", or "it". "It" is assigned to inanimate objects that are made from inorganic material (like rocks), and organic matter that has not developed a consciousness, like plants. Certain objects have great ritual significance (like an old oak tree that has survived for many generations), becoming over time mythological symbols of home and lineage, but without a human to assign a gender to it, there is none present. It with this higher awareness about words, and a greater sense about the world, that we recognize and understand that objects do not have a deeper and/or greater significance than people. 

It should also be noted that the English language is derived from Indo-European traditions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language), predating many of the pagan European societies from which Roman Catholicism sprang from, in a brilliant feat of cultural assimilation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_Paganism), with some cultures placing a much bigger emphasis on objects as part of their worship. It may be part of the reason why some humans have retained an over-dramatic ability to wrongly place emphasis and affection on objects that they can control, as a response to life stresses (like children do with toys), as a lurking remnant of our primitive responses to an environment not yet understood, like continued fear-based responses to weather conditions on our planet. 

In fields like "Cultural Anthropology", certain remote and isolated cultures (like those on the island of New Guinea), still have native peoples who use ritualized homosexuality during their childhood, with elaborate sexual rituals and older initiates who teach them to worship "male" phallic symbols, like the trees in their forest. It is only until the tree gods are placated in their masculinity do boys become young men who lay with women. From then on out, it is understood by both genders that their world is divided neatly into "his" and "her" objects, a confused but ancient response to nature. Obviously, there are plants and animals that reproduce sexually and asexually (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reproduction), but this was something that primitive cultures did not yet understand fully. 

You're welcome, human.