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Organisation Intersex International
OII
INTERGENDER ISSUES
English speaking spokesperson:
Chris Somers xxy
Australia
Chris Somers xxy: Spokesperson for Intergender Issues
Chris has worked for many years on behalf of intersex and intergender human rights. Chris was given the wonderful and awesome opportunity to visit Antarctica in 1995/1996 and together with a pioneering spirit, used this rare chance in a life time, as a catalyst for change in international awareness, attitude and perceptions concerning all those who are intersexed and or androgynous. Chris raised both the specially designed flag denoting the XXY person and the Rainbow Flag and became the first openly and intersexed and androgynous person in the world to do so. Both Flags were flown at the South Pole and within the mountains of Antarctica to represent all those of us whom are intersexed and or androgynous. A powerful affirmation of our legitimate place within the world and universe.
Chris's world renown brother, namely Geoff Somers MBE, who is considered to be amongst the best of the Antarctic and Arctic adventurers, is a world leading polar navigator and a brilliant expedition logistics advisor amongst other extremes he ventures into around the world. Geoff's skills are highly sought after by other adventurers and many leading expeditions. Geoff has always been very supportive of Chris's bid to help enlighten the world to differences concerning sex and gender, specifically intersex and has very kindly offered his patronage to our organisation. We are delighted to have his support.
We are very honoured to have Chris represent OII on behalf of intergender issues. .
Photo: Dusan Stojanovich
Chris Somers xxy: personal account concerning gender and “medical” intervention
Concerning gender
When I was young, I looked like a 'normal' boy but did not feel like one. It wasn't until I was around 7 years old that I was fully conscious that I was quite different from my peers. In fact, many of them said: “You are different but we do not know why.” Obviously they had hit on something that was perhaps different in some respects about my character and the way I went about doing things that did not match their perceptions of me. Whereas I know I was more like a girl in many respects I was also like a boy but neither, something I did know, though I never, ever said this to anyone. Years later this proved to be the case in terms of both medical evidence and the recognition I did not identify as either of the assumed sexes, re: what I termed the bi-polar social construct some ten or more years ago and wrote in an unpublished paper.
Concerning “medical” intervention
I did not have any intervention concerning my sex and gender until I was almost seventeen, around sixteen and a half. I had started to develop female breasts at approximately 13 years of age and was in an English boarding school for boys and in the shower rooms used to be mercilessly teased for looking like a girl and getting rugby boots on occasions thrown at me. Whereas I was not ashamed of who I was personally, I was dreadfully isolated in this respect and although I did have a reasonable number of friends, I was always considered the outsider. Very different from most people and subsequently suffered dreadfully feeling no-one could possibly understand. Seeing in a book a picture of someone similar to myself naked and underneath the words a ‘freak of nature’ later compounded this dreadful fact that people mocked those who were born different from themselves simply because they did not conform to what was considered acceptable. Whereas I did not see myself as anything less than anyone else at the time that I was living in and in the situation I found myself, there were no support groups, let alone any acceptance of people like me – in fact one could see that some who were born different were displayed as ‘freaks’ in side shows freely available in travelling circuses or similar. Due to the pressure that I was under, I had a reluctant bi-lateral mastectomy for fear of being unable to survive. If I had had the psychological fortitude that I have to-day, I would never have undergone that operation. Further, if the surgeon and other people had asked more deeply what I had felt they would have understood and learnt far earlier about just who I was and how I really felt but did not know where to turn. I don’t hold a grudge towards them, but I do ask that people with the current knowledge of the terrible suffering of people such as I and others different again from me to never be put though this again and be accepted for who we/they are, while making absolutely sure that any operation carried out is under the full consent of the individuals concerned after they fully understand the implications of such treatment.
It should be noted I was in fact very proud of my breasts and felt no shame in who I was – it was society which could not accept me as I was and the pressures were far too great upon me in the situation I found myself within.
There are a number of people within the transgendered (TG) and transsexual (TS) communities who have appropriated the word ‘intersex’ and use it to gain political advantage. This is doing a major disservice to those who have been born both physically and or genetically different to the mainstream, thereby undermining their differences and their value as people. It assumes that a gender dysphoric person is the same as an intersexed person. The incorrect usage of intersex has been used primarily to gain a powerful validation of TG and TS peoples who have found difficulty in being accepted; both within the community and within themselves..
When a group of peoples uses other people’s realities in order to reinforce and validate their own at the expense of those whom they misappropriate, they become the oppressor and suppresser of those they exploit unwittingly or by design. In so doing, they deny the reality of those whom they have disadvantaged, in this case the intersexed communities whose realities are then in danger of being subsumed by focusing undue attention on themselves.
This denial of the intersexed communities’ intrinsic differences by a number of people within the TG and TS communities is debilitating to say the least; for it denies the personhood of a peoples who have been severely disadvantaged for centuries and in particular in recent modern history. This I believe is because those who are TG and TS have a real need to find acceptance within the general communities. A number of them have as a result searched for an interpretation that they feel they could use to validate their acceptance, which is understandable. In so doing they recognised the reality of the intersexed persons physical and or genetic actuality as an extremely powerful tool for political change. As a result those that do appropriate the word intersex for their own, use it for their own political agendas. And in so doing deny those who are intersexed by devaluing their existence by commandeering their reality for their own use or cause.
The intersexed person is not normally gender dysphoric and recognise they are both physically and or genetically different to the majority of sexes.
The problem arises then, that the intersexed community who have been successfully hushed up for centuries, become further subsumed by those wishing to acquire aspects of their reality, and consequently the intersexed are in danger of being either severely compromised or totally negated as people. Those members within the TG TS and other communities who are appropriating intersex as their reality are negating those of us who have for years been hidden form view. This misinterpretation and acquisition of the intersexed terminology by an increasing number within the TG/TS and other gendered communities is quite disturbing and is without doubt being used as a political strategy. The tragedy here is that the genuinely intersexed person is again negated by the whole of society, which becomes further confused by this misappropriation and with it the ignorance within the community is further reinforced.
Whereas there are some parallels between the intersexed and the TG and TS communities, it is important for us all to recognise each other’s differences without undermining any one group of peoples to reinforce the existence of another.
I am certain that we can all help each other, but in doing so must recognise that we all have certain actualities that are intrinsic to ourselves and should not be exploited in a detrimental way where we are in danger of being undermined by another. We must find the common ground and where we can help without balking at the difficulties we should, if we are to make substantial changes in legislation and within the whole of society and in the way in which we are accepted. So in conclusion let us work together where we can while recognising our differences without inadvertently undermining or exploiting each other without mutual consent…
Copyright by Chris Somers 2002
