Earlier this week, someone suggested that my marriage of eighteen years to my husband constitutes a homosexual relationship. His reasoning was that God’s intent for a person’s sex is determined exclusively by the predominant genital shape at birth and is immutable.
#intersex #Revoice18
My bits were, indeed, masculine in shape, but small in size and incapable of penetration. I have Mixed Gonadal Dysgenesis. My body’s a combination of male and Turner Syndrome female. I had ovatestes that resulted in a failed puberty. I was born with the cute—and feminine—pixie face characteristic of Turner Syndrome. My body’s intersex. Not male.
I hadn’t planned on addressing gender again—or my own sexuality—but I’m scheduled to attend the Revoice conference this week.”
The Revoice conference is being hosted by a church in my denomination. It’s purpose is, “Supporting, encouraging, and empowering gay, lesbian, same-sex-attracted, and other LGBT Christians so they can flourish while observing the historic, Christian doctrine of marriage and sexuality.”
The conference has resulted in quite a bit of controversy, on Twitter and elsewhere. A number of people have expressed views on “same-sex attraction” and whether or not being tempted is, by itself, sin.
Though I try to remain clear of the culture wars, I did want to talk a little about attraction from the viewpoint of an intersex woman who was raised for a time as a boy.
As a child, I expected to grow up to be a wife and a mother. I wanted to be pregnant with a baby, but had no idea what that involved beyond marrying a boy some day.
I was tiny and frail as a child, with spatial deficits that prevented me from learning dance or most sports. I have Ehlers Danlos—which meant floppy, hypermobile joints. I was uncoordinated. Most girls threw better than I did.
My father taught me to shoot and to fish and to hand him tools when he worked on the car. He took me riding with me sitting in front of him on the horse’s back. He was gentle with me. And good to me. Even though I wore dresses. And cried when he cut my hair.
Mom taught me to sew and cook and clean. And—as a nurse—kept me away from the doctors. For that I will be forever grateful. Too many intersex kids are traumatized at the hands of the medical profession.
I played softball. Well, sort of. With a brother and sister three years my junior. And the girls in the neighborhood. And, no, I wasn’t better at the game than they were.
When I was nine, I was still small enough to squeeze into my six-year-old sister’s dresses. And did. Often. Though such things clearly saddened my parents, they never punished me for what they considered cross-gender behavior.
In fifth grade, a boy invited me to his house to listen to a group I’d never heard of before—the Beatles. While we sat on his bed, he strummed air guitar and sang love songs to me. “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you…”
I wanted to marry him and have his babies. But it still wasn’t about sex. Nor did I consider myself gay. Jim loved me as a girl. Didn’t he? My father had told me that sometimes men had sex with other men, but it never occurred to me that I might be homosexual. Jim was, after all, a boy. And I wasn’t.
My family moved, so I never saw Jim again. Never got to say goodbye.
Jim flashing a peace sign?
I ran across a photo of him last week. Not in fifth grade, but a junior in high school. Did I tell you he was really cute? All the old longings rushed back. I’m happily married now, but I wondered what it would have been like to date Jim when we were both in high school. But with me an intersex girl.
I had crushes at that age as well. Arms wrapped tight around Ron, I spent hours on the back of his motorcycle. I still dreamed of being a wife and a mother, but holding him was all I dared. I knew I’d never have anything more than that. Because I was incapable of vaginal intercourse. As a male or a female. And who’d marry someone like me?
My sin was desperately wanting something God had not granted me—a body capable of bearing children—a body clearly female. And, no, I could not have fathered a child, either. Nor even penetrated a woman.
Thankfully, my mother and my doctors did eventually figure out that I’d be better off living as a girl. With my face and demeanor. And my lack of masculine sexual development. My endocrinologist said I’d have no trouble being accepted as a girl. Well, yeah.
I’m in my late sixties. I’ve lived my entire adult life as a woman. My puberty came from a bottle. It was years later than is usual—but it was a feminine one. I have hips and breasts. They’re mine. I grew them.
The boys in my classes got muscles and facial hair. And raging sex drives. I didn’t.
Jim was cute. I would probably have let him kiss me. But my feelings for the boy weren’t sexual. Rather, they reflected a longing for my childhood dream of motherhood.
There are no easy answers to #intersex. If you reduce the biological diversity of sex to the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, you can contribute very little of value to the conversation. The same applies to those who reduce sex to any other single parameter—like what’s between the ears.
As a child I was never confused about my gender. I knew that I wasn’t a boy. Or a girl. My body was different. I wanted one like all the other girls had. But I diligently prayed that God would make me a real boy. Because that’s what my parents wanted. And I assumed that, because He didn’t, that it must be because I still harbored the desire to bear children. Was that such a dreadful sin?
I learned to embrace God’s provision for my life. To accept my intersex body. I can’t be a man. And in your binary world, what does that leave?
It isn’t always about sex.
