I am out of the box

By Sophia Siedlberg

In my writings there are two common threads and they are as follows:

• I was surgically messed with as a child and I resent it.
  

• During my late childhood and early teens, I was sexually abused as a "novelty".
  

Now today, even though I have the physical form of a woman, complete with vagina, if I am raped I get no protection. As a child when I was abused I got no protection, because the law in the UK says that as I am an intersexed individual. I am not even allowed to ask for legal protection.

Believe it or not, if I were transsexual I would fare better, not much better, but better all the same. I have had to think a little before writing this. The Gender Recognition Act, let's tell the brutal truth about it, shall we? This was basically the progeny of Press for Change and the UK Government spending hours and hours "discussing" how to allow transsexual people to gain recognition in their post operative sex. Basically they have to provide evidence they have lived for a given period of time in their new sex. This evidence is then reviewed by a board called a "Gender Recognition Panel" and then their name is entered on a "gender register". Whatever those who produced this legislation say, the fact remains that what many transsexual people wanted, full amendment of birth records to reflect their new sex, has not happened. What we have are gender commissars who have the power to give "gender recognition" and little else.

But as an intersexed individual I don't even get that. When the Gender Recognition Bill was passing through parliament, intersex people who did not agree with their initial "sex assignment" had some means of addressing this, but since the GRB was passed, this has changed slightly.  I am about to mention a comment from someone high up in Press for Change that they don't want me to mention.

It seems that the UK government in discussion with Press for Change had decided that intersex conditions such as Klinefelters syndrome and 5 alpha reductase deficiency or "XXY" Chromosomes constituted the child being male, with no access whatsoever to any means of amending the birth documentation. Meanwhile conditions not regarded as intersex (By law) such as having a micropenis do give someone the means to change their birth certificate to their new sex without going via the GRA.

But I have decided to mention it anyway, and that is because it means quite simply that my having 5 alpha reductase deficiency excludes me from any means of getting my "Gender documentation" sorted. This is simply because the gender recognition panels exclude intersex people from using the route set up for transsexual folks. So while I am walking around in a female body, I have about the same legal protection as I did in 1978 when I was abused. The thing is I was not even born anatomically "male". I previously understood that I had to pretend to be transsexual, but no, it is even worse than that as the above statement proves.

But before the legal threats start, I will remind the person quoted that 5 alpha reductase deficiency was not particularly well known or discussed prior to the GRB passing through parliament. It is also worth remembering that the other condition mentioned, Klinefelter's Syndrome, while it does often result in a "male identity", it does not always. Caroline Cossey the "Bond Girl" who had a "sex change" says in her book "My Story" that she was diagnosed as having Klinefelter's Syndrome. This means that were she living in the UK today, she would be no better off than she was 20 years ago when she was campaigning for transsexual folks to get legal recognition. Why? Because she is seen as intersexed. Legally she does not get her birth registration sorted out because she is technically intersexed, not transsexual, in the eyes of the law.

When Stephen Whittle and Julie Bindel held a debate at Manchester University of Law, Whittle started about Julie's "excellent work dealing with violence against women and trafficking". Well in 1978 I deserved to be raped and in 2008 I deserve to be raped, why? Because even though I have a "female anatomy", I am someone with 5 alpha and it is my fault.

What I am saying is that I am stripped of any viable legal rights just as a transsexual person would have been about 20 years ago. And it is not in areas of legal protection against sexual abuse either. It is something as fundamental as the right to speak without facing prejudice.

I will explain how that works. As an example, I write these articles and when I complain about anything, you can guarantee that Whittle will appear: "Err, that is libel. Err, you cannot say that. Err!" However, he can call me mad, bad and dangerous to know. He does so on his blog. You see, if I say anything, it is legally actionable. If Stephen Whittle says anything about me, it appears that what he says is valid.

Do I blame Whittle personally? Actually no. I blame the society he represents, the society that gives him every privilege on the planet and tells me I deserve little more than to be raped. The place I was abused was in Manchester, so I find all this a tad ironic to say the least that the "Feminism vs Transfeminism" debate happened there. Whittle has little or no idea of the problems I have with all this, and to dismiss me or Curtis Hinkle as "Mad" (as he does on his blog) is in my view yet another expression of that oppression. Perhaps I need to explain what "mad" really means. Take being filmed in 1978 while being raped, all because of the way I looked, (and still look) which was "in vogue" at that time. Yes, that's right. I was the mocking stereotype that upset "natural women". Well, actually I was a 13 year old child being sexually abused by a nonce who liked freaks that looked like his fantasy women. But I was still a 13 year old child, nothing else, just a 13 year old child.

This is why in the past 20 years I have been scathing about "Radfems and Phallocrats". I mean, it sort of reads like this to me:

"Gender is a social construct. We are all caring and liberal but it is not as bad as it was, and you still deserve to be raped freak! You were not born perfect!"

I think that a few people need to "clean their act up", not just Julie Bindel. In fact I regard Bindel as a symptom of the two sex system. I don't even hold her responsible for anything. Stephen Whittle, however, knows the issues a little better than Julie Bindel does, and he stood by and saw "Klinefelters and 5 alpha" consigned to the dustbin, where they get abused and that is considered "acceptable". This is my problem. Julie Bindel is someone who has an argument with transsexual people. She does not entirely agree with transsexual people having surgery. My problem is a little different; the law regards me as little more than a circus freak to be abused by vivisexuals, rapists and nonces. And Whittle, whether he likes it or not, was involved with the discussions that led to this vile situation. Will he ever try to make "friends with this enemy"? No, because I am less than human. Julie Bindel is human, but I am not.

You see, I am motivated by resentment and I am honest about it. I resent the way society has dealt with intersex people. In 1978 (I am not forgetting, you will notice), I was violated, again by the two sex system. This time it took the form of sexual abuse. This is what I am about: opposing violence against intersex people, especially intersex children, but then, because the word is "intersex" and not "woman", it does not count.  I am not taking this out on Julie Bindel because in this discussion she said a number of things that are consistent with my own experience and she did not draw the lines of demarcation. For example, she would not want to go to the Michigan Womyn's Festival because she sees that as part of the "Gender binary". (Well, I see it as a part of the two sex system). She regards Barbie Dolls as Lebensborn. It seems we agree on a lot, so much you would think she was quoting me, but of course this cannot happen because I am intersexed and mad. But I wrote the following in October 2008 during the controversy:

"So yes a compromise, it is actually quite simple, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual and Intersex people are all different, not a part of a "Rainbow" but simply different facets of a truth the two sex system does not want to deal with. I do not now what it is like to be a lesbian or a transsexual, I only know what it is like to be born with ambiguous genitalia and be made to suffer because of it, at the hands of the two sex system. Can we not just respect each other's boundaries, like take that Michigan thing, the women's festival, they don't want to admit transsexual women, is that "Transphobic"? Well no, if you see it from their point of view, but yes if you see it from a transsexual woman's point of view. They also "exclude intersex women" as well, I don't care all that much, because I expect that. It is a part of the two sex system. I am not going to try to use them to legitimize something that is really imposed on me by society anyway. Why try to legitimize something I am ambivalent about?"

Sound Familliar?

Having said that, It is not Julie Bindel I have an argument with, but I think she made some points worth mentioning regarding the people I do have an issue with, Press for Change. In the world Whittle was describing with Bindel at the end of the first session, I would not have been surgically messed with as a child. I would not have been sexually abused for five years (The worst of it being in 1978). I would be allowed to walk around with what is now a stereotypical-ish female-ish body and not get accused of mocking norm borns because of it. (After being abused in 1978; remember).

So how come I read that "Klinefelter's and 5 Alpha" are excluded from the big legal party? And this emerging society? I am sort of hoping that Julie Bindel sees the problem here. Personally I don't think that the current legislation in the UK as created in part by Press for Change protects transsexual folks all that well. I am also of the clear opinion that it exposes people like me, intersex people, to greater risks.

I think this happens for a reason. It is called "Kick the cat". Julie Bindel went on in the second session to talk about violence against women, specifically, saying that is her interest and her priority. I have no problem with this. My problem is that the argument was framed (By the debate rather than Bindel personally) as being about men abusing women. My experience is that of being abused by men and women, because I am intersexed, and my priority is fighting against that. That priority is significantly undermined if people say, "It is wrong to abuse women but okay to abuse intersex women by legally calling them what they are not". And the instruments of oppression are a part of the two sex system, the quoting but not acknowledging (The polygenic model being the most painful in my case. That's another story). The "right to be told to shut up and be called mad and not to speak up for myself, and the "right" to be legally denied access to the appropriate "gender documentation" and the "right" to be legally threatened if I so much as ask about this injustice. And finally the "right" to be raped and tortured (At it's worst in 1978) and be told I deserved it.

Julie Bindel was right about priorities. The problem is the system of oppression, that is the two sex system itself (I was born anatomically sexless, remember) still gives, even those who are opposed to the "gender binary", the freedom to make the lives of intersex people sheer hell.

And it is done in so many subtle and nuanced ways. While Stephen was having his little cheese and wine part after that debate, I was looking at the prospect of reading Whittle saying "Some are more equal than others". I think it is time a few others got their act together. Because legally I am still regarded as a "non human" and a "non citizen".

I will clarify one point before ending, and this is about the two conditions mentioned. It seems that someone (Probably "Make 'em all men" ISNA) told the UK Government that both these conditions result in an exclusively male identity. This is not correct. With Klinefelter's there are more that identify as male than female but it is not exclusive. With 5 alpha reductase deficiency, the statistics were an outright fraud. Julienne Imperatio McGinley claimed that people with 5 alpha identify as male "100% of the time". The truth is a little different with a ratio of around 52:48. Pretty much the same as the gender ratio of the population. And people with these conditions who do identify as male do not always fare that well either.

For a list of articles by Sophia Siedlberg: Click here