Monday 7 September 2015

Coming to terms with physicians wanting me to be transsexual

A few weeks ago I got the following message from this physician in Frankfurt I have been in contact with over the past months regarding my intersex condition:

"Today our radiologists showed us the MRI-pictures which you sent us before. It looks like there is a remnant of the vagina over a length of 10 cm between bladder and rectum. As my secretary asked you before, we should really have a  karyotype characterisation of any intersex abnormality, before we talk about operative procedures."


That message filled me with the hope that maybe this time it would work out. Then today I got the following message:

"after proofing all the results and findings of your patient history, I cannot find a clear sign of intersexuality in your history. The histology of the removed testicles proofed a typical pattern of testicle histology under hormonal therapy. Genetic analysis could not find any sign of intersexuality, MRI-findings could not identify clear signs of intersexuality neither. You probably suffer from a gender identity disorder, which should be defined by a specialist psychiatrist excluding any other form of psychiatric disorders. Operative measures are only indicated if two independent letters of recommendations from these specialists are identifying the disorder and giving the indication for hormonal and surgical treatment.  Both these letters of recommendation and petition can be given to your medical insurance for confirming to take over the costs of a regular sex change operation."

After working through the immediate trauma and thinking about it for a while, I sent the following response:

"Liar.

"Today our radiologists showed us the MRI-pictures which you sent us
before. It looks like there is a remnant of the vagina over a length of
10 cm between bladder and rectum."

You are denying your own findings and those made during the exploratory
surgery in 2011. If I am on some kind of blacklist so that I won't ever
get medical help, just be honest and tell me already.

For more than ten years now I have been trying to find the truth. I know
I am not transsexual. I know I do not have the body of a male. I know
that I suffer from menstruation symptoms. I know that this linea nigra
on my abdomen is real.

You are a liar and a traitor to the medical profession.

I hope your conscience will torture you for the rest of your life for
causing so much suffering to intersex individuals."


---

Suffice it to say that I'm feeling rather... destroyed in an emotional sense. I honestly do not understand anything of it any more. In particular why I have to go through this same pattern with physicians time after time. Sure, the surgeon who operated on me back in 2011 just did his job, as did the radiologists of the first two German clinics who analysed the MRI scans. Beyond that...

I have suffered from monthly cramps since I was 11 years old. I am going through what appears to be a pregnancy, with the linea nigra line on the abdomen, swollen breasts and everything. As I went through puberty I had fewer and fewer people see me as a boy, even when I still thought I was one.

The dismissal of the genetic results is inane, as it was performed only on the white blood cells and the report itself admitted that more detailed research would be needed. The MRI findings... even this physician saw the vagina before he then turned around and vehemently denied it. It's as if I am truly on such a blacklist and the moment a physician sees this they have to deny me further care as an intersex person.

It's amazing to me that they would try to make me believe that I am transgender/transsexual. I have never felt anything in common with such people, or have had any feelings or thoughts in that direction. The past decade I grew up from a child into an adult, slowly learning about this body of mine. I have never seen this body of mine as being male, nor has my environment. I also loathe the thought of becoming just a regular female. To me being a hermaphrodite is normal, as that's simply who and what I am. It defines me as a person, together with everything else.

But I guess this tired anger I feel at this point is just kind of wasted. I will not get medical help. Even if I did get the acknowledgement that I am intersex and a hermaphrodite through that exploratory surgery in 2011 and the subsequent gender change based upon that result, it's not enough for other physicians. I must be a transsexual. I simply must be. Clearly I have and still merely imagine all of these symptoms I have suffered for decades now. I am a transsexual. Definitely. It's the same pattern they have put me through over and over again for the past decade. They obviously know what they're talking about.

I guess it all moves things into this part of the medical community which frightens the heck out of me. It's the part where they want to classify things as a 'disorder'. They no longer call it 'intersex' there, but a 'disorder'. Even if it's not a medical problem, it's still wrong, because it's not normal. And thus we need to cut and slice and tear things out until it's all back to normal. That's maybe why they want me to be a transsexual so badly: because it'd give them an excuse to tear out any trace of me being intersex while turning me into an obedient little transsexual.

*sigh*

No matter how much I rant here, it's all futile. There clearly is nothing more I can do, nothing I can accomplish. All I can do is self-medicate and keep an eye on these symptoms and pains. See where they develop from here. I do hope my boss doesn't get all too frustrated with me likely calling in sick more and more often if these symptoms worsen. Chronical pain is a horrible thing to live with.

Be it endometriosis, other growths, cancer, or something else entirely, it's up to myself to manage it as well as I can, because no doctor will ever believe or help me. I have tried to prove myself wrong for over a decade and even fled my country of birth to what I hoped would be a brighter future, all to no avail.

I still do not blame my body. I do not regret having been born. They are things which just happen. But physicians... they are where everything went wrong. They are the core of the entire problem: the cause of and solution to everything that is wrong. Yet they don't seem to have a shred of empathy. No humanity. Nothing which would hint at them having taken the Hippocratic Oath. I cannot and will never trust them again. They do not have my best interests in mind, just their own twisted, dark agendas. They caused the PTSD I suffer from. They made me indirectly hate my body and myself.

We'll see how long this body of mine holds out, or whether it kills me psychologically before that, I guess.

Welcome to the end of the road...


Maya

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