Invictus of Karla Dawn

1.)  My being born 'Intersexed' does not and has never served me well.  It is not my fault. I do not need anyone's permission to be as such nor do I need anyone's blessing to remain as such. This is not a moral failure. It's a biological and medically proven physical abnormality that affects to different degrees up to one in two thousand infants, choice has nothing to do with it.

2.)  God is not against me. Are You? You are tolerant?, but God is not ?  Contempt prior to investigation is a serious character defect that impairs not a few people's behavior and judgments.

3.) This is not or has not been happening to you; it's happened and been happening to me. I am not convinced family, friends or others in society come first.  That thinking is what got me into this mess of waiting too late to make the necessary and medically sound physical corrections in the first place, before all these serious medical/intersex complications set up to the extent they have.

4.)  Mental therapy, religious dogmas, pastoral directives and theology, disciplinary programs of adherence, and/or prescription wonder drugs will not 'cure' me - - nor will getting a boy friend if I identify as female or a girl friend if I identify as male, or getting married, or adopting children, that's just going along with someone else's program or complying with yet another example of rigid conservative/religious party doctrines that is always biased, by design, against people whom happen to be 'too different' from others in society....resulting in my being labeled as 'deviant', 'decadent', 'queer', 'sinful', etc.

5.)  My having been born 'Intersexed' is not about having 'sex'. Since I've been this way since childhood, it certainly has nothing to do with 'having sex'.

6.)  I know for a fact that people will hide their real emotions from me, they have and do all the time. I keep in mind that what they say to my face may not always be what is said about me over by the water cooler or in the break room. Attitudes and prejudices can and usually do harden in polite silence.

7.)  I have been required to give up virtually everything I hold most dear as a result of my having to medically treat this physical condition later in life, having lost most of my family, my friends, even my homes in the mid-section of the United States...from Texas to Kansas...I continue to grieve to great extent, and yet I have found relief.  I've gotten both...in spades.

8.)  Its certain there will be future disappointments and setbacks. My life cannot be made blissful based on one, albeit dramatic set of events.

9.)  I've had to learn virtually everything without teachers.  Most of the day-to-day advice I get is just plain bad. This is where those of us, people like me recovering from corrective surgeries, etc. undergo our greatest peril, so I DO have a contingency for at least one if not more restarts that do not include where I live and work now.

10.)  I've had to learn new roles and ways of expressing myself as keen as tying my shoes or riding a bike. I am actually myself now as I ought to have been from the very start of life and not my biological male parents or subsequent adopting step-parent's image they built to hide behind, being ashamed of how I was born and how this would or could socially affect them....without consideration as to how I personally might feel about this after I'd been given enough time to grow up a little, than, be allowed to express my own preference as to which sex I truly am.

11.)  I've been shocked to the extreme. A woman's life and choices are more limited than I ever thought, no matter how much I prepared for entering the world of women. I am not out to retool the world or straighten other women out on what their lot in life is. They are the ones who will show me "how it’s done," not the other way around.

12.)  I retain a ruthlessness. The world is a very tough place. A halfhearted attempt on my part always backfires. "A camel is a horse designed by a committee." There are no compromises. I go for the 'brass ring', it's who I am.  My immortal soul is not up for negotiation. If I won't sell it to the devil, than, don't even think I'll sell it to anything, any cause or anyone else .

Karla D Golay

The Complexity of Defining Marriage in this Country.

We can all debate whether marriage for gays and lesbians should or should not happen, but those of us in the intersex community dread someone defining marriage. I have Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS) and never knew until I was 35. Though I look female, I have XY chromosomes and was born with testes.

It would be incorrect to describe me as biologically male or female -- I am biologically intersexed. As an intersexed person, who do my politicians think I am supposed to marry? How can they define for me marriage as one man-one woman?

I believe it will be impossible for the courts to achieve any functioning definition of "man" and "woman". Some estimates today show that 1 baby out of 100 is born intersexed in some manner. What combination of factors will our legislators or courts use to determine whether I am male or female to defend marriage? Chromosomes? Gonads? Appearance of genitals? Gender identity? Something else?

Those who support the gay marriage ban argue that the rights of gays and lesbians are not abridged because they are permitted to marry, just not to the partner of their choice. The same right exists for intersex individuals, yet without any explanation of how their sex is to be determined. I would submit that my biological reality wins over any fixed definition.

Marriage is, of course, a fundamental right. As such, every individual should be entitled to enter into marriage. Any legislation introduced seeking to bar marriage for gays and lesbians will hurt those of who are intersexed.