Letting Go of My Religion

Dear God, I have changed my mind. After being baptized and brought up Lutheran, I have decided as an adult to stop attending church and leave you behind. When I was young, I made active choices to be more involved with my church since my parents did not attend church regularly. I participated in youth group activities such as confirmation, retreats, camps and big youth gatherings. I attended a Lutheran college, and sang in choir in my church as an adult. I had mostly positive influences in my life because of my church. So the big question would be why would I leave all of that behind, especially the promise of an afterlife?

I mentally took the plunge into atheism a couple of years after I married my husband who is an atheist.  Looking back, I am not sure if I truly believed all of the teachings and followings of the church I was brought up in. When I was young my life wasn’t all that easy. For starters, I grew up with an alcoholic father. My dad was a good man when he wasn’t drinking, but it seemed like the parents who attended my church with the kids my age knew what family was about and loved their kids the way I wanted to be loved. I was envious of their connection of both family and the Holy Spirit. Then came my cancer diagnosis.

It’s amazing how alone and distraught you can feel when you are diagnosed with cancer. My church was about the only place I could go and not feel so isolated.  The people there made it known they were thinking of me and were there to support me and also pray for me. It was heartwarming when most other areas of my life I was surrounded by kids who didn’t understand and adults who didn’t talk to me because they didn’t know what to say. But since I had such a life changing experience so early in life, it allowed me to consider the meanings of life, death and religions, and I took classes on the subjects in high school and college whenever I could.

My biggest tipping point against religion would be coming to terms with being born intersexed (a female with male chromosomes). Despite learning from an early age that I would not be getting my period and not be able to have children of my own, I didn’t have a full understanding of what my diagnosis was until my mid-twenties. Coping with the diagnosis was very isolating, but it was also confusing as to how being born intersexed fell into religion and the eyes of God.

I would say I had never been 100% convinced about religion. I felt awkward when I prayed on my own. Unless I was reciting a poetic group prayer, the thoughts and words never flowed as eloquently as I thought they should. I have so many unanswered questions when it comes to religion. I was always confused about how there could be so many religions in the world, and questioned which one was right. Were the millions of other people who followed their religion and God/gods wrong and going to hell for their beliefs?  I wondered how God could have created the world, and yet there was the theory of evolution. There were inconsistencies I personally felt in my own religion, that women could be pastors in one synod but not another. I was also angry at God about why innocent children with cancer ended up dying from their disease, and there are also the atrocities of the church such as the catholic priests molesting innocent children.

The personal issues I held with God were a combination of all my life burdens that I often felt were too much to bear at times. But one subject that continued to haunt me were my questions about death. If I do not follow religion, what is going to happen to me if I die? It was a scary thought to consider, but it wasn’t enough for me to continue to stay in my religion. I started to consider that death was a big issue for many people who are religious, and God and eternal salvation was a perfect solution to their problem. Death continues to be a terrible and sad issue for us as humans, but at least religion promises an afterlife, even a way to meet up with long-gone relatives. With all things considered, I couldn’t see how gambling on a promise of an afterlife would be enough for me to continue to believe in God and stay with the church.

The church I once held in high esteem started to fall in shambles because of my questions. But I wasn’t so quick to let go of the years of dedication and service to God I had put in. How does one just let go of a promise of eternal love and a spot in heaven? Not to mention the Christian faith has it set up that if you are not working with them, you are against them. You are working as the hands of the devil and going to hell, and no Christian wants that! I promise you that you can still be a good person without religious guidance. I continue to have the same morals I have as a human being, even without divine guidance.

It wasn’t until I met my husband who is an atheist who showed me that it was OK to continue to question the existence of God and the validity of religions. It can be a slow process to leave your religion as you are often connected and intertwined into your thinking, beliefs, and social interactions. There are many people out there just like me who have found more questions than answers when it comes to religion and faith in a higher power. But above all, you must have faith in yourself and your knowledge and instincts that you can live your life without it, and you are going to be OK.

Insignt Into the Lives of the Intersexed

There are some things about being intersexed straight gendered people wouldn’t fully understand because they will never have these particular combinations of experiences themselves. I am going to provide a little insight into our world, to give some understanding of what intersexed people experience including some internal feelings and the interactions with the people in our lives. Although there are several intersexed disorders of sexual development that affect people, my perspective in this article is coming from an intersexed female born with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

Frequently we start our journey feeling alone and scared.  If we were diagnosed intersexed as a young child, many of us are unaware of our diagnosis until our families’ feel we needed to know.  Most of us learn of our diagnosis around the time we were supposed to start puberty because we were not going to get our period. Some of us were not diagnosed until after our friends reached puberty because we did not get our period like our peers did, and went to the doctor to find out why. Learning this information about yourself is shocking, because you automatically find out you are different and assume this difference is a negative thing. The information about our diagnosis is something we keep a secret as a way to protect ourselves. We don’t even talk about it, even with our loved ones and closest friends, because if this information gets into the wrong hands we can be ostracized for something we have no control over.

An identity crisis can arise because the person you once were is now all up for questioning, even if you were confident in yourself before. If they dreamed about getting married and getting pregnant with a partner, this dream may be shattered once they learn they have no uterus. Not to mention the perplexities of finding yourself outside of the gender norm.  Each individual person has to decide for themselves what being intersex means to them.  Do I feel male or female, or want to be categorized in between?  Am I gay or straight?  If I have male chromosomes and I am in love with a male, does that make me gay?  These are all valid questions that can be resolved over time.

Counseling would be helpful to work through issues such as these, but it isn’t always offered directly. We find out quickly we have to advocate for ourselves and we also have to advocate for ourselves in working with our doctors. Many doctors are not specialist in working with intersexed. Some do their best with examinations and hormone replacement therapy, but some doctors are still uninformed and quite ignorant in our care. We are often put in a place of outing ourselves to nurses and residents every time we step into a doctor’s office when we are asked “when was the last time you had your period?”

As years go by we get reminded time and again about our differences. Sometimes it’s the small daily reminders like when we wake up and take our estrogen pill. Other times we get reminded when friends or roommates commiserate about getting their period, invites to baby showers or attempting to start intimate relationships. Dating is hard enough for straight gendered people so imagine if you felt you had a secret to divulge, hoping the person you liked would stick around after you tell them. Some of us never overcome this obstacle because it’s scary as hell. Many of us have delayed dating until we gained confidence in ourselves again.  But what if we had this confidence at an earlier age?

We also have to become educated about our diagnosis so when we do need discuss it with other people we know what we are talking about. It is a learning process, and a lot of people in the general public do not understand right away what you are talking about, so we also have to be prepared to give them resources to go back to later. Thanks to the internet, recent generations of intersexed people were able to educate themselves about their diagnosis online and more frequently become attached to resources and support because of it.

Connecting with a support group can be a turning point for us. Instead of feeling isolated and scared, we can now reach out to each other and recognize we are not the only ones we know who were born this way. The dreams that were once shattered after the diagnosis can now slowly get pieced back together again.  We can see other intersexed people have maintained loving relationships, even built families through adoption. What once was our secretive story to agonize over is repeated again by other intersexed people as their experience until it becomes normalized and life becomes more hopeful. The most exciting and overwhelming experience can come when you actually meet another person who was born just like you!

With all of these supports in mind, we would like to partner with the doctors, social workers, psychologists, who are treating the newly diagnosed and their families so we can offer them the education and support they need right away. We shouldn’t expect them to have sought out these resources on their own because it only assumes families will take action to find resources and not fall through the cracks. Some doctors may be reluctant to having us there as a resource for families, but we know from personal experience that early support and intervention is key for the intersexed person to getting to a happy place in their life. Not everyone is born into a supportive network, and our community believes if we have an early intervention and the opportunity to support the intersexed person and their family, it can resolve some of the negative aspects of the diagnosis earlier.

Life as an intersexed person isn’t always easy, but with the right support we can live full lives and flourish. Many of us are well educated, have supportive families, and have started families of our own through adoption. If you happen to personally know one of us, you may even forget about our diagnosis and just treat us like regular people, because that is exactly what we are- human beings.  We are human beings who have overcome remarkable hurdles just because we were born outside the gender norm.

http://skepchick.org/2014/09/guest-post-insight-into-the-lives-of-the-intersexed/

Invisible Intersex

Do you know someone who is intersexed? Would you be able to notice a person is intersexed by looking at them? The answer to that question is no. It is estimated that 1 out of 2,000 babies are born with a difference of sexual development (DSD), so it’s more common than most people would think. So where are all of the intersexed people? We are here and slowly gaining the courage to open up about it.

I, myself, was born with an intersexed condition called Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS). I have male (XY) chromosomes, but during prenatal development did not respond to androgens (male hormones) and instead developed female genitalia. I look like a normal woman, but do not have a uterus or ovaries. My parents found out I was intersexed because I had a hernia when I was about a month old from underdeveloped testicular tissue or gonads. The doctor repaired my hernia and left the gonads in place until my teen years.

My parents were as supportive as they could be under the circumstances. They tried to prepare me for what was to come, and told me that before my friends were going into puberty that I was not going to get my period or be able to have children of my own, but I would also have to have a surgery. I had the surgery to remove my gonads when I was 12 years old and started to take estrogen hormone replacement therapy to ensure development as a woman would successful. There was no education or counseling session with professionals to tell me what was going on or why the surgery needed to take place.  I remember someone telling me in high school I had XY chromosomes, but that did not make sense to me at that time. fter the surgery was over, I spent several years knowing I was different than the other girls, but not understanding why or questioning it.

Fear and anxiety about my difference built up over the years because no one talked openly to me about it. I continued to see an endocrinologist on a regular basis for check-ups and hormone replacement therapy, but it wasn’t until my mid-twenties when my curiosity got the best of me. I went online and searched for the diagnosis I saw in my medical charts “Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome”. I saw terms like “male chromosomes”, “testicular feminization”, “hermaphrodite”, and rumored celebrities who were also born that way. It was a huge shock to say the least! A positive thing about searching the internet for CAIS was coming across a support group, where I learned I wasn’t alone and eventually met other people born intersexed. I also started to have open conversations with my parents about being born intersexed and how it has affected my life.

Around my 30^th birthday, I was reaching more than one milestone. I had a feeling I was coasting through life not being my whole self. I wanted to be more open and honest with my family and friends about whom I was as a person. This secret also kept me from having a fulfilling dating and sex life. I started to open up to my closest friends, educating them about how I was born. I disclosed to my best friend over email, because I was too anxious to do it over the phone. All of my friends responded positively, and wished they would have known earlier so they could be there for me.

With this confidence, I decided to put myself out there in the dating world with the help of online dating. I met this younger, athletic, smart guy who then became my boyfriend. We spent several months getting to know each other and I confided to him I wasn’t able to have children, and he accepted that.  Then one spectacular day, while on vacation in LA, he proposed! After happily accepting his proposal, there was a dread that crept up. I hadn’t disclosed to him about being intersexed yet! A month went by before I told him the truth. He ingested the information, and stuck around to say “I do”, and one day we will build our family together through adoption.

Instead of feeling guilty about not telling my husband I am intersexed before he proposed, I later realized I wasn’t ready to tell him and am glad he accepted me for who I was after I did. Most people who are intersexed have a fear of being rejected for telling the truth about who we really are. The fear stems from the secrecy of our diagnosis, surgeries, and sometimes even gender assignments! We are told that you can continue to live your life as a “woman” with this condition if you have this surgery and take these hormones, but you just won’t have your period or be able to have your own babies. Like life will just play out that way and be fine?

But life is not that simple. As we have seen with the gay rights movement, we cannot hide who we are because it will eventually come to the surface. But our society wants to categorize gender into “male” or “female” and not deal with the “other” category that already exists. Intersex is a paradox some people have attempted to hide under the rug, and it has worked so far. As a human being we deserve the right to live life as we are- without being ashamed if we do not fit into the typical roles of society. The real truth is if we have truth, compassion, support, and love in our lives we can feel pretty damn good about ourselves.

My story is similar to many others who were born with Complete Androgen Insensitive Syndrome. There also are several other diagnoses besides CAIS that qualify as Intersex. And we have not always been treated well in the past, especially from the medical community. I have heard personal testimonies of people who were photographed nude, coaxed into surgeries, and assigned a gender that did not fit who they were. Years past, the medical community wanted to provide a quick fix and keep our lives under wraps, which is where our invisibility began. Although it is progressively getting better, some of these injustices are still occurring.

The future of the intersexed community is gaining strength, and with that strength the confidence to be open with the world around us. I have been blessed to join a network of support who is working on education, advocacy, research, and awareness to the general public and medical community. The AIS-DSD support group is focused on being a positive resource for intersexed people, their families, and a broker with those who want to work with us on research studies. We have made positive strides, but we still need to work on prejudices such as people who are afraid of our differences, unconformity, and even religious discussions about human evolution and how we fit into religion.

http://skepchick.org/2014/08/guest-post-invisible-intersex/