Intersex Awareness Day- October 26th

Little Amy, cowgirl phase

When I was a child I loved unicorns. In my room I had unicorn statues, a snow globe, posters, and bedspread. Something drew me to those mythical creatures and their unknown worlds of imagination. As a child I knew unicorns were not real, but as an adult I learned what it felt like to be some what mythical. In the year 2003, I was in my early 20's when I decided to further investigate my medical records and did an internet search for Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. It was a shocking realization to learn I was born intersex, which technically means although my body is female I also had male chromosomes. During fetal development, instead of progressing into male development, I was resistant to androgens (testosterone) and reversed development into female. I had never heard of this diagnosis or anyone else like me. It was a rather lonely feeling. Up to that point, I had only heard about hermaphrodites and seen the episode of Friends, where they joked about Rachel being one.

Fast forward to today. I now belong to a fantastic support network of intersex individuals and know a lot of people with the exact intersex condition I was born with. That is the most awesome feeling in the world and makes being born with this difference more bearable! Having these connections through the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome- Differences of Sexual Development (AIS-DSD) support group had increased my confidence to overcome the obstacles of dating, being childless, and insecurities of being born different.

aisdsd.org

October 26th is Intersex Awareness Day, and some major obstacles the intersex community faces are many people do not know we exist or that we have had our rights infringed on throughout the years. There is a long history of the medical community encouraging our shame by providing gender correction or assigning surgeries to very young children, removing gonadal tissue before a person is old enough to make those decisions and starting kids on hormone replacement therapy so they can develop normally and fit in to what gender they are supposed to be. Today our community is speaking out against these outdated medical practices. There are practitioners who are willing to listen and walk with us to make changes for the future, but this type of change is slow and we hope for positive changes for future generations.

For us to take control of our lives, we need to be apart of the decisions of our medical care. Because we have not been apart of the discussion, it has fed into the shame and secrecy of being intersex and different. But the more intersex people I have met, the more I realized how frequent and it was. We are conditioned in society to think in terms of male and female, pink and blue. But that is not always the case! We are typical human beings, dealt a lousy biological card for something that happened to us during prenatal development. We want to move to move forward from this past of shame and secrecy into a future of being comfortable in our skin and living openly about who we are! 

I know I cannot change my past in terms of what surgeries I had and what information was given to me and when about being Intersex. But I have the power from now on to choose how I want to live my life. I have been blessed to find a partner who married me and loves me for who I am. I have found a rewarding career in social work. I have been blessed to become a leader in my intersex community and assist in planning our support group conference and the youth. Working with the youth had given me much hope for the future, seeing their strength and courage to be who they are at a much earlier age without hesitations.

Meeting actress Bailey De Young who plays intersex character,
Lauren on MTV's show 'Faking It"

Intersex is strange and different for people who don't understand it. But most people do not understand it because we are afraid to be open and public about who we are due to negative push back. But the more aware the general public becomes about our existence, they learn we are not unicorns but real human beings. Also, we want to be respected in our medical decisions and have involvement in the research process- not be studied! We want to live life free from shame and secrecy and to not be afraid of being who we are and true to ourselves.

Support group members, family members, and allies at attending the 2015
conference. So happy to be together, supporting each other!
Courtesy of aisdsd.org 

Creating a secular adoption

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabi_menashe/218574269/sizes/o/

After I was diagnosed with stomach cancer in may 2016, our hopes for adoption have been put on hold. You have to be cancer free to quality for domestic infant adoption.

Adoption is used as a way to build families for a variety of reasons. But what happens if you are a secular and looking to adopt? When you do an online search for adoption for secular families or atheists you may as well see a blank screen. Since many adoption agencies arose out of religious institutions, there are not a lot of obvious resources in the adoption realm for secular families. Don't let this discourage! If adoption is something you are considering as a secular family or individual, it is possible. There may be a few extra things to think about before going into the process.

A couple of months ago, my husband and I completed our home study process through our adoption agency. We are now waiting to be matched with a birth mother with our adoption agency. When we started the process, we chose domestic infant adoption and found a local agency that has a faith based background but also works with secular families and we would feel comfortable would not discriminate against our non-religious status. I have read online stories of people who were encouraged to hide their secular views and pretend they were involved in a the church in order to adopt. Our experience was such that we did not have to hide our secular views and we were able to be ourselves.

When I was working on our profile book for birth mothers to look at with our agency I went online to look at examples of other couples. There was some diversity out there, but I was starting to feel like a minority! Many other couples expressed faith and a belief in God as well as offering "christian values" as a benefit to handing over a child to them. I know not all birth mothers are looking for a family that has faith based in religion to raise their child-they are looking for a family who will love the child in their absence. I know what our family has a lot to offer a child without religion, including a loving home, good education and by golly some critical thinking skills. We did not disclose in our profile book we are a secular family or atheists, but the lack of acknowledging faith and religion makes it obvious.

When you are starting the process it can be difficult to find specific answers to questions about adoption because it all depends on where you live, what type of adoption you are doing, and what regulations and procedures they have. I am an educated social worker, and it was very confusing to me!  Initially I found a website for our state that guided me to our agency we chose. From that point, our social worker is the main person we have a working relationship in the process. We have had an excellent relationship with our social worker, but this person can make or break your success in the home study. The social worker is bound to ethical standards and organizational policies, but they are also human beings.

The overall process for adoption can be a lengthy one. For our choice of domestic infant adoption one of the qualifications in our state is that we are married for at least three years. After we met that qualification, we were then put on a waiting list. Once we got to the top of the waiting list we started the "home study" that includes, an application, reference letters, physicals, a letter from my oncologist stating I was healthy (because I am a childhood cancer survivor), a mental health exam, FBI fingerprints, meetings with the social worker, a home visit, payments, and a profile book. This took about another year and a half from being on the first waiting list until finally being approved. Once we were approved to adopt, we continue to wait until the agency matches us with a birth mother through our agency.

Adoption is a long process that can have restrictions,
but being secular doesn't have to be one!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/44444/294711029/sizes/l

If you are considering adoption and are secular/atheist there are a few things you can think about before starting the process:

1) It is important to know what type of adoption you are open to (domestic, international, open, closed, with an agency or private). This will help guide who you will be working with. This includes knowing what attributes you would consider for a child you are looking to build your family with (gender, age range, race). The agency you work with will ask you these questions- ours did!

3) Consider foster care. The foster care system has fewer restrictions (age, marriage and thus more open to a variety of family backgrounds. This is a great opportunity to become a forever family for older children as well.

4) Reach out for support locally and online. I joined a Facebook group for secular foster and adoptive parents, which was comforting to know I could ask questions or vent if needed. It is nice to know there is a group of people out there if needed.

5) Continue with your life as usual. A lot of adoption is waiting. Please do yourself a favor and continue with your work and hobbies as usual. We went on long bike rides across our state, competed in triathlons, even left the country knowing very well we could have gotten a phone call from the social worker saying they had a baby for us. We know what room we would have for a nursery, but haven't set one up yet. If you spend all of your time focused and thinking about adoption and the process, that may lead to sadness and depression when the process can take a while.

Obviously since our adoption story is not complete, I cannot say we have had a successful secular adoption. But I am confident it is only a matter of time before we are matched with a birth mother, and when we do, we can be confident we were true to ourselves and our story. Thankfully, we live in an area that had good resources to meet our needs. I know that not everyone will have the same opportunities we have had, and this is where networking and social media can help. You can cast a wide net by making an online profile and searching for a private adoption, you can even go across state lines if needed. Overall, the adoption plans start with the wishes from the couple or individual who are seeking to adopt, and but it is helpful to know that adoption for secular families has become increasing attainable!

Intersex In The Media

Last summer at CONvergence/SkepchickCon, I attended a break out session called “Not Men or Women: Everyone Else in Fiction.” The panel members explored the gender binary and ways to incorporate these types of characters mostly into fiction writing. Being intersexed, I was enthused to attend this panel to learn more about the subject. What I found was a room full of people interested in using characters in their writing that fell out to the gender norm and they wanted to do it right. Little did I know that in the months to come there would be more use and awareness of intersexed characters in the media.
The first major news was that the MTV network introduced one of the characters in their teen drama Faking It as being born with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS). The exciting thing for the intersexed community was that MTV approached Kimberly Zieselman for consultation on the show, who is the executive director of Advocates for Informed Choice (AIC)—a legal advocacy group for those with differences of sexual development. They also collaborated with some of the youth who work with AIC to do educational pieces in social media to explain what Intersex was after started introducing it on the show. The producers of Faking It wanted to develop this part of the character right. They collaborated with Kimberly to learn what it was actually like to be born with CAIS, and how it affects our lives.
I have been watching Faking It (mostly on Hulu, as I get behind on my shows) and would highly recommend it. This is the second season of the show, so I was a bit unsure about hopping into a teen drama on MTV, since, obviously, I am not the target demographic. The premise of the show is that two teen girls (Karma and Amy, who are best friends), went along with an assumption they were a lesbian couple because it helped them gain popularity and social status in their school. It wasn’t long before the truth came out, but Amy ended up questioning her sexuality and remained in love with her best friend, Karma. The more I watched it, the more I gave them credit for putting gender issues out there, despite some of the dramatic quirks in the plot.

Bailey De Young, Plays Intersex character, Lauren, on MTV’s show Faking It (source)

Early this fall, I was able to get an advanced copy of a book called Male, Female, or None of the Above, written by I.W. Gregorio, who is a practicing surgeon in urology. During her residency, she encountered a young woman who was intersexed. This encounter inspired Gregorio to write her book and become a part of a movement to create more diverse books.
The main character in the book is an 18-year-old high school student named Kristen who learned she was intersexed after attempting to have sex with her boyfriend. Her life unraveled in the worst way after she confided her diagnosis to her closest friends, something many of us who are intersexed fear would happen after outing ourselves. She as bullied by peers at school, her boyfriend dumped her, and it was clear most people in her life didn’t understand what being intersex was. She makes some rash decisions about social situations and medical care, which she has to learn to cope with.

Used with permission from the author (source)

When I was learning about my diagnosis, I would have loved to have a book like this to read to help normalize my feelings and situation even if I did not encounter the same situations. One of the recurring themes in the book was that Kristen would always describe herself as a hermaphrodite when she was trying to describe her condition to her peers. But for many in the intersex community, the term “hermaphrodite” has a negative connotation and we are attempting to move away from it. Despite that part, I still think the book has a great message, especially if you are curious what life is like for some people with intersexed conditions. It will be available to the general public in April 2015.
The last exposure of intersex in the media occurred when Taylor Lianne Chandler publically announced her alleged relationship with Olympic gold medalist, Michael Phelps. Taylor also made it known she was born intersexed. She had her fair share of supporters, but she fell under attack because of the lack of proof of her relationship with Michael Phelps and the sensationalization behind her story. There was major skepticism about whether Taylor was actually telling the truth about having a relationship with Phelps or if she was doing it to increase a media buzz for herself, but then people also tied that skepticism about her relationship to believing that she was not intersex but rather transgendered. Since there is still ignorance in our society of what intersex means, Taylor was subjected to a harsh backlash directed to her because of how she was born.

There have been no photographs released of Chandler and Phelps together (source)

Taylor’s publicity made many people in the intersex community uncomfortable because of her approach. But it also started a conversation about how the intersex and transgender communities need to increase support of each other since we are both dealing with sensitive and common issues. Sometimes people confuse the two because being born biologically between the sexes, and being born male or female and desire to transition to the opposite sex.
These three occurrences of intersex in the media in 2014 demonstrate how there has been an increase of awareness of intersex conditions in our society. In many ways it is great to have the general public know more about intersex conditions, but not without some growing pains. The media presence, especially the story about Taylor Chandler, made some people in our community uncomfortable because of how it was demonstrated or sensationalized. We cannot control all aspects of the media, but we can control our actions to it and use it for opportunities to increase education for what intersex really means. If you are also one of those authors who are considering integrating intersex characters into your writing, I would encourage you to do so. I would also encourage you to first do your homework to understand what it means to identify as intersex.