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re: re: re: I am my biggest critic.... Mar. 6th, 2007 1:40am
I am 18, I have SWCAH, and recently I 'experimented' with what it would be like to 'come out' about the severity of gender issues for myself - and other females with CAH; and of all places at school. That is why you may have seen me post on the main forum.
I decided to do my project (an appropration of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night) in a detached way so that I could resist hooking into my peer's remarks, I removed the name of the condition so that I could not be identified as the main character in the plot - hence, a character that is not 'accepted' because of our social reliance to base gender stereotypes on our phenotype. It was a learning curve, it was rather liberating and it allowed me to voice an 'unheard' opinion about the cruel nature of our society. However, it was shocking to see the way that people reacted to what I had to say. I agree that 'intersexuality' , 'psuedohermaphroditism' or 'conditions of sexual development' - call it what you will, are strictly taboo within our current context. These conditions are being completely misinterpreted by our naive peers, and it is from this that we (CAHers) are at the crux of unfair social judgment. From the words "masculinized female" many interpreted it as "born with a penis". Yet, this was not the message I intended to convey - it was just something that people could not comprehend (that there is a huge difference between being born with an enlarged clitoris, and being born with a penis). My uneducated audience even had nerve to compare 'conditions of sexual development' to 'transexualism'...which is far from being true (FULLSTOP).
So this experience was good in allowing me to consider how others perceive CAH and similar conditions, without letting myself being at the crux of the outbursts or the teasing, for I know that it does exist.
I suppose that I may be considered lucky - in terms of virilization, but most of the time that comes from the comparison of one set of symptoms to another. I was diagnosed at 6 weeks; and only by chance, because at birth there was no signs of severe ambiguity. But by categorizing my condition as CAH - there are obvious stigmas atttached. I have the stigma of being born weird, of having something to hide - not because I don't trust my parents, but because we are forever comparing ourselves to one another, and the 'norm'. I have had corrective surgery; so I have to question whether or not I really needed it, or if it was just another sick way of putting me in a box - the box of womanhood; of the barbie doll, the housewife and the mother. So being born less 'virilized' - when you actually have CAH, is not really a matter that goes through my mind. I have still had surgery, all the examinations and the fear of being 'judged' or perceived as 'man-like' because of the stereotype of being a CAH female. It has in now way limited my experience of having CAH - sure I may not have noticeable symptoms, ones that would let me be teased. But it is the sufferer who is their biggest critic. It is their fear of being unnatural, of not being able to 'fit in', or being misinterpreted by the people around them; it is the language that connotes this 'difference' that is of high relevance in my own judgmental mind. It is all a matter of mentality, of conditioning ourselves that we are, or we aren't normal, that affects most, if not all sufferers of CAH - yet this mentality is forged within how the rest of the world perceives us.
I completely understand the emotional torment raging through your daughters mind/s. The feeling of being 'different', of having something to hide, of being scared about what others will think - it is literally enough to send you mad. But I have to admit, I don't believe that actually having the surgery (at 18 months) has changed my perceptions of myself. I still feel as though I have something to hide, as though there is something is wrong (yet I don't know what it is, because its not like i have anything I can judge what I look like, to the apparent normal way of looking) - for all I know is that I am normal - that I have been fixed, but that is not something that enters my mind...Because at the end of the day I have CAH; and CAH will ALWAYS have the horrible stigmas attached to it that forshaddow how I am treated by doctors (and probably the rest of the world, if they knew).
