Intersex: what it means to be biologically neither male nor female

Worst feeling? No affiliation
An experience report on intersex

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Anne-Mette was born with both male and female gender characteristics. She now lives as a woman. And wishes that every human being can be what and how he is.

I was born in the 1950s on an island in northern Germany and grew up as a boy. Intersex never played a role in my family or in my village. That also had to do with the fact that the deviation only affects my hormones and the secondary sexual characteristics, such as the fat distribution and the breast. At that time babies were not examined as precisely and thoroughly as they are today, so it was more like: the main thing is healthy. So it was never an issue. Still, I noticed that I was different, later, as a teenager. It then became more important to comply with standards. How I hated physical education. The undressing, the boys things there. Information on what exactly was going on was hard to come by. Back then there was almost nothing in the biology books about homosexuality, transsexuality, or intersex.

Wedding and children like everyone else – but something was different

I met a woman, we got married, had a child. I was able to function normally sexually as a man, and that, too, certainly made it easier for me to put this topic aside. You could also say: I locked it all away very well and firmly, for decades.
My first marriage was divorced, I got married a second time in 1990 and we moved to a small village near Flensburg, where our three children were born. As the children got older, at some point, very slowly, otherness came into my consciousness. Intersex didn’t play a big role in the beginning, I noticed that you also have a feminine side. In the beginning she expressed herself in such a way that I wanted to put on skirts. There was no shock at all, it felt good and right to me. My wife has now accepted it, but it took many years. I understand that, it was no different for me. In the beginning I got hold of all available books on intersex and trans identity and drove to every available event.

Worst feeling? To have no affiliation

It was really bad when I wanted to go to a women’s gym with my wife. We were asked into the office and I was literally interrogated. Would it look the same between my legs as it did with my wife? I then reported that to the anti-discrimination agency.
I can’t understand the aggressive discussions about the third gender. That many feel so attacked. I don’t want to take anything away from people. Today I can say that I am self-confident and completely with myself. I am an intersex person and I don’t have to prove it. I think of a quote from the Austrian intersex artist Gorji Marzban: “The human being is first and foremost spirit and not gender. This spirit can be put into each vessel individually. It is preserved anyway.”

What exactly are gender sciences?
From “unscientific nonsense” to “gender madness”: No subject is as scorned and criticized as gender sciences. “Actually a good sign because it shows how important this topic is in our society,” says Dr. Wolfgang Funk, cultural and literary scholar at the University of Mainz. “However, there is also the risk that it will be hyped up into a purely political issue.” Things that are hotly discussed in public, such as unisex toilets or sexual diversity as a school topic, usually have little to do with academic reality. As a research field, “Gender Studies” is dedicated to the analysis of gender roles and relationships, historical and contemporary. Cultural scholars such as Funk examine, for example, how the world of women and men is represented in literature. In sociology, work is often done empirically, e.g. B. to expose gender differences in wages. There are also gender approaches in medicine and biology. Does this make the world more gender equitable? “That is the job of politics,” says Funk. “But in order to bring about socio-political changes, theoretical knowledge is also necessary.”

Brigitte 11/2018