MeerderWörter’s Comments (group member since Jan 08, 2016)

MeerderWörter’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Holly wrote: "Wow, this entire discussion has made me so thankful that I participate in a sport where the competitors have never been separated.......we all compete with one another with no consideration to gend..."

May I ask which sport that is? Because I've never heard of it before.

The Female Eunuch sounds like a book really worth reading, it got mixed reviews, but they seem to be more positive than negative.

I agree with you, Emma is the face of feminism now, I mean, that doesn't mean we don't have any other well-known feminists (Gloria Steinem), but she's definitely up there.
We need champions of change, especially in feminism, which is so often so deeply misunderstood.

Benarji wrote: "It would be an unfair advantage to allow transgender to play against women. Physically, men are better built than women. There have been a few battle of the sexes in tennis. The one that i know of ..."

The question is if they have had a gonadectomy. If they had the testosterone levels (among other hormone levels) are going to decline. Therefore, if they have to wait for a certain amount of time, everything else changes accordingly, muscle mass included.

Transitioning is a process, not something that happens over night.

It comes down to one thing, whether we look at it from an intersex or trans perspective:

testosterone is not enough to determine whether someone can start in the women's or the men's competition. Human, that isn't even the only androgen, it really is short-sighted to use it.

It is 14:03, I stand in front of the Ströck in the Karlsplatzpassage. I'm a few minutes late and look for her: Charlie. I don't know what Charlie looks like, but she knows me from my blog and will find me. Suddenly she stands before me: an absolutely lovely, attractive woman with long blond hair, a great build, she is as small as I am, only more petite.

We sit in in the cafe and Charlie is visibly nervous, her eyes glassy, I'd really want to give her a hug, because she's so brave and speaks with me about something, about which she speaks only with few people. Flashback.

1990 Charlie is born. She spends a total normal childhood, except that she's a bit wilder than other girls. She climbs at trees, plays football, hurts her knee while cycling and cuts off the hair of her sister's barbie. In the meantime Charlie behaves like a typical girl tho, or at least how society expects it from girls. For the school photo with 7 she insists on the pink dress.

Five years later: Charlie is 12 and recognises that something is different. Most girls in her class buy their first bras, pubic hair begins to sprout, they get their period. "You're a late developer, that runs in the family", her mother tried to reassure her. Internally tho, Charlie knows already that that isn't the case. She knows that she's different. Charlie insists on a medical exam, finally lands in the Common Viennese Hospital, a few blood tests and ultra sounds later the diagnosis: Charlie is intersex.

Charlie is only 12 when she learns that she doesn't have ovaries or a uterus and therefore will never be able to have children. Instead Charlie has gonads in her abdomen. Also called testes. Two letters change Charlie's life: XY. Her chromosomes say, she would be male.

Now there are countless forms of intersexuality, Charlie's form is called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome, short cAIS. This means that Charlie is chromosomally a man, her body tho is resistent against male hormones. Charlie's gonads in the abdomen didn't descend, and at the same time produced male hormones which her body couldn't absorb tho and therefore changed it to estrogen. Thus she developed female external sex organs.

Charlie is twelve. She learns that her vagina is only 5 cm long and therefore too short to have heterosexual vaginal sex without problems. Her doctor offers the surgical removal of the gonads, an extension of the vagina would be possible too. Charlie is 12, she just wants to be as fast as normal as possible. Now. Immediately.
Since the gonads in the abdomen are warm, her doctors fear the risk of a tumour. Today one knows that the risk is by far not as high as one believed. The family and Charlie decide for the removal of the gonads. Charlie therefore, like many other XY-women, depends on lifelong hormone replacement therapy, since the gonads in the abdomen were responsible for the hormone production. A forced castration, which leads to insufficient hormone production one could say. In many intersex humans this surgery is performed in infancy, without the child having any say if it even wants a life with hormone replacement therapy.
Instead of the extension of the vagina her doctor advises her a phantom, a piece of plastic, which shall widen and extend her vagina. Her whole youth Charlie has to insert bigger and bigger phantoms in her vagina, always before going to sleep.

"Imagine you're on educational excursion and you have to, when all others are in bed already, get up to insert a piece of plastic in order to widen your vagina. And you are the one getting up before everyone to get it out again."

Many female classified intersex humans get neovaginas, they are made "being penetrable", so to say. Micropenises are cut off, sexual parts removed, humans sterilised forever. Infants are being operated on if their urethra doesn't end in the glans but the shaft, so that they can pee while standing and don't have to sit down. Because a real man, he has to be able to pee while standing. We want to form humans like we imagine this, without understanding that this borders on torture.

"It was very difficult psychologically to process this as a youth. Especially in this time you just want to belong. I think most girls hate their body in this time, but if you are then told that you shouldn't have been a girl, then it is likely that you hate yourself way more."

An external sex organ that is smaller than 0,7cm is accepted as a clitoris. Everything that is bigger than 2,5 cm a penis. And between? The Between we so long move, cut and clip until we made it to man or woman, no matter the costs. As if it would be a bloody bonsai tree. But we don't speak of a marginal group, we speak of 1,7 per cent of the population. 20-25 children in Austria per year, failed completely. There are about as many intersex humans, as there are red-heads. The odds that we know some intersex humans, that don't dare to out themselves, is therefore very high.

Whether intersex humans want it or not: They have to categorize themselves, because in our world we don't have a place for grey zones. Man or woman, black or white. It were 170 surgeries on female classified children under the age of 5 in 2014 in Germany. These children are withdrawn of one thing: the human right to an unscathed body.

"It is difficult to not fit into a pattern if the whole society works after this pattern. This gives me a lot to fight with. Also, I cannot cope with the prejudice "hermaphrodite". I just don't like the word." We have to make decisions every day that are rather easy: the lady's or the men's bathroom. Whether we tick "male" or "female". And Charlie? Is she now male or female? Charlie is Charlie. Period.

In our society are hardly any chances to escape from sex dichotomy. Not even on a medical level it is possible for intersex humans to take a breath. When in the passport there's "woman", but one needs a prostate examination because one simply has one, then the health insurance company doesn't cover the costs. When Charlie has to go to hospital, she has to go to the transsexual unit, although she isn't transsexual. The nurse asks: "So you are transsexual?" and Charlie is totally humiliated and has to explain to a person she doesn't know, and has no trusting relationship, that she's intersex and what this really means. She's exposed to such situations her whole life long.
After the removal of the gonads as a young teenager she's being referred to a psychologist, the first question:" How do you cope with your period?"

"Man and woman are only end points on a line, why do we not accept more what is between them? Why do I HAVE to decide?"

Charlie is very anxious about being involuntarily outed. "There is no place in this society for me. There is no ""third option" that I can choose. If there would be a place for intersex humans, if other knew what that really is and we wouldn't have to identify with the two categories, it would be easier." She isn't psychologically ready yet to accept herself how she is. She knows it's going to be hard, very exhausting and emotionally wearing. Earlier she wanted to be as quick as possible to be as "normal" as possible. Today she just wants to be herself and be able to accept this.

We stand in front of the bathrooms at the University of Technology, at the left door are the outlines of a human with a dress, opposite the outlines of a human with trousers, between them a wall. "Strictly speaking, I'd have to run into this wall now. Platform 9 and 3/4 so to say." We both laugh. Sometimes it only goes with humour.

But in the end of the day I cannot laugh about it. Because it makes me furious that we stereotype normalize everyone and everything. It makes me angry that a feeling of shame is forced upon intersex humans, because they are given the feeling, that they don't meet the expectations. Although there isn't even an expectation, because in the end of the day, we aren't male or female, but human.

Why can't we humans let be humans? Why does "male" or "female" have to decide over what we should be? "You run like a girl". The female cliche is round, the male edgy. And Charlie? Charlie is a triangle. A very beautiful, complete triangle.

"Why not change minds instead of bodies?" Alice Domurat Dreger

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Source:
http://dariadaria.com/2016/08/charlie...

I just hope she can continue to fight her demons, because she's in a state where total normal things are very hurtful. Stay strong, Charlie!

"Feminism is for everyone"

A graffiti on one of the walls at my university.

I'm definitely for including Wilma Mankiller of the Cherokee Nation.

Sascha wrote: ""Lo unico que necesitas para iniciar una revolucion feminista es una amiga y otra y otra y otra..."

"The only thing you need to kick off a feminist revolution is a girlfriend and another one and a..."

It is a very powerful quote, as a mass we are unstoppable.

So, since Keith mentioned Caster Semenya a little earlier and here are my thoughts about the whole issue.

First, sex and gender are not the same. We should remind ourselves of that.

Caster Semenya, for those who don't her yet, is an athlete competing in 800m runs. When she won her first medal in 2009 rumours were spread quickly whether she's a real woman or rather a man. Well, that's a bit of a difficult question to answer:

What I gathered so far is that she has hyperandrogenism, but who cares about her karyoype, I mean, is it that bad to have a Y chromosome as a woman? There are women who have Y chromosomes, there are some who masculinize and some who don't, to varying degrees. So, if she has male sex organs, that doesn't mean she's a man either. Some have testes and totally look like women. When it comes to phenotype, it is more complicated than just having a Y chromosome or not.

How she was treated by the press is unbelievable, everyone has a right to patient's confidentiality, but this doesn't seem to be the case with intersex persons. It's common that the individual knows less about themselves than some doctors, who maybe have seen them only for a few minutes. Who cares if Caster is a male pseudohermaphrodite, a female pseudohermaphrodite or a true hermaphrodite? The age of the gonads is over, one cannot tell a gender by looking at someone's gonads.

We need to respect her physical integrity, and fully informed consent is the highest command, it makes me sad to write about this, but it needs to be written about. It really needs to.
Intersex people have been accused of many things - being frauds and imposters included - and this needs to change. The human rights need to be respected - regardless of the individual's sex characteristics.

What they did to her, demanding she has to start HRT and all that nonsense is so hurtful to see. Why can't we just let humans be humans? Why do we need to put them into either of the two boxes, when the boxes themselves are made up?
They need to be respected, seen and not erased. Intersex erasure is, to this very day, happening in the Western world, and it apalls me how everyone is so offended by FGM( and should be, in my opinion) but no one knows that the same happens to intersex people too - IGM sucks.

We need to cherish Caster, because she is still untouched, she is not altered, she is her true self. She was spared of the Prader scale, she was spared of surgery, and I am so shocked that they actually said she has to take hormone blockers and HRT to decrease her male hormone levels. It's just so short-sighted, the effects of this would impact her for the rest of her life, and the results aren't that pretty normally. Risk of osteopenia, then osteoporosis, and to know that you have to take medication for the rest of your life if you had a gonadectomy, that somebody else forced on you.

"Why not change minds instead of bodies?" ~Alice Domurat Dreger

We should either have at least three different bathrooms, or just one unisex bathroom. Since to have one is easier, I opt for this option. Then no deciding would have to be made by people who do not identify/fall into the gender/sex binary.

Laure wrote: "Ashna wrote: "Only if boys were taught that they shouldn't make women cry rather than being taught that men don't cry.Only if girls were taught that education can make you rich rather than marrying..."

That doesn't sound good at all.

Btw, September is Hermione's birthday, how awesome to have this feminist day a few days before her birthday (September 19th)

Since it is 20% in Austria and even if one considers all the factors that justify a higher pay, then we're still up to 12%. It's just ridiculous here, really.

I still have the sheets about the gender pay gap from a university lecture, and they just make me sad.

200.000, who would have thought that?

It's so great to see OURSharedShelf grow like this. It means very much to me.

Wow, 200.000, I need to wrap my head around it.

Keith wrote: "A partial win for gender pay parity in the world of tech

https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...

Question - if t..."

Ah, they'll get them, don't worry, jurisdiction has a long breath.

Keith wrote: "James wrote: "I can assure you (at least in my case) it is not for flirting. Opening doors for both men and women is just good manners in how i was brought up since i was young. I surely don't get ..."

A "thank you" is good manners. But they are going down the creek anyways, me thinks.

Robert wrote: "This movie does the same to me. I guess it is how you relate to it's content and characters. I saw a lot of my experiences in high school in Charlie's. I could relate to some situations and feeling..."

Charlie is me. and I am Charlie. I'm so glad my middle-school time is over. High School was actually better than middle school...

And there definitely are advantages of being a wallflower:
We in Austria have a saying:
calm waters are deep.

Meaning those who don't talk much recognise a lot.

That sounds like a really good initiative.

And thanks for reminding me when elections are held, I thought they were in October.

The one scene where they have to intervene always gets me. The whole movie is loaded with messages that show us just how fragile we are, and how important friendship is.

Keith wrote: "To try and get the thread back on track ( yes, I have caused some of the de-rail; sorry ) I have been scouring the web for news items on one of the world's most famous male feminists; Justin Trudea..."

I'd like to throw in here something that has to do with Kanata;)
http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/9580432...

I can't say much about how the media treated Justin Trudeau, because it wasn't really on my mind. But I'd say, in general, they have been quite gentle, I agree with you Keith!