#psychiatric survivor pride day

[starblaster]

October 9th is Psychiatric Survivor Pride Day

“The problems of the ex-patient are more subtle but no less pressing. Many ex-patients try to cope with what has happened to them by pretending that the experience never occurred. However, because the experience of having once been a mental patient teaches you to think of yourself as less than human, this is not a satisfactory solution. People feel emotions. They are justifiably happy or sad, angry, calm, elated, and so forth. As patients, however, we were taught to think of ourselves as permanently crippled, and we tend to react to the normal ups and downs of life as affirmations of our secret deformity. In addition, society imposes penalties upon ex-patients which affect you whether or not you acknowledge your identity. For the rest of your life, you will lie on applications for jobs, schools, and driver's licenses, and worry about being found out. Your friends and acquaintances will be divided into two groups, those who know and those who don't, and it will always be necessary to watch what you say to the latter. Ex-patients are full of anger at what has been done to them, but alone and unorganized this anger is not expressed and is often turned inward against oneself. Our anger is the fuel of our movement, and when we come together, acknowledging our identity to ourselves and to each other, we will have made the first and largest step in striking back at our oppressors.”

— "Mental Patients' Liberation: Why?  How?", originally distributed in the early 1970s by Mental Patients'  Resistance of Brooklyn, New York

[image ID] Seven photographs from antipsychiatry demonstrations. They are described below, in order of appearance: 1. a picture taken at the National Association for Rights Protection & Advocacy (NARPA) Conference on November 10, 2000 in Sacramento, California. Fifty to sixty people stand around a red sign with white text that reads: NO FORCED TREATMENT EVER. 2. a picture taken on October 9th, 1999 in Toronto, Ontario during a march for Psychiatric Survivor Pride Day. Several people march in a line, including one man at the start of the march playing bagpipes. Behind him is a hand-painted sign being held up that reads: Psychiatric Survivor Pride Day. 3. pictures taken at a demonstration outside the California State Capitol building in Sacramento on February 28th, 2000. The signs in each of these pictures say: Psychiatric drugs can kill! 4. a picture taken at a demonstration outside the American Psychiatric Association's 156th annual meeting in San Fransisco, California. The activist's sign says: PSYCHIATRY IS NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSION: IT IS A TOOL OF OPPRESSION. 5. a picture taken at a demonstration outside the Jacob Javits Center, hosting the American Psychiatric Association's 167th annual meeting in New York City on May 4th, 2014. The picture features an activist wearing a printed t-shirt and is cropped so as not to feature the face of the wearer. The t-shirt says: TO HELL WITH THEIR PROFITS, STOP FORCED DRUGGING OF PSYCHIATRIC INMATES! 6 and 7. pictures taken at a demonstration outside the California State Capitol building in Sacramento on February 28th, 2000. The signs in each of these pictures say: Psychiatric drugs can kill!, STOP expansion of forced treatment, Mental illness is NOT a CRIME, and FORCED MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT IS INHUMANE. 8. a picture taken at an antipsychiatry demonstration on May 2nd, 1998 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C. Two people hold a hand-painted banner-sign that says: BET YOUR ASS WE'RE PARANOID. 9. taken at an antipsychiatry demonstration hosted by the Mental Patients Liberation Alliance during Mad Pride Week in 2000, between July 13th and 16th on the lawn in front of the New York State Capitol Building in Albany. [end of ID]

[trans-axolotl]

hey, found your blog while searching for madpunk stuff and i'm really into it so far. might seem random to ask but i was wondering if there are any madpunk slogans or affirmations people use and if so, can you tell me what they are? like how other communities have activist chants, but if there's nothing that's collectively used, would you be okay with sharing some of your own ones, please? i like writing and art as forms of coping and self-expression and like to incorporate quotes in my art. i don't sell it or post it anywhere, it would just be for my own personal use/coping. thanks if you can help out

hey!

that makes a lot of sense to me that you would want to find some chants!

I can absolutely share some of my favorite historical and current slogans from the mad liberation and psych survivor movements. tbh i don't really know that much about the madpunk space here on tumblr so let me know if you're looking for something different, but absolutely happy to share what i have.

i'd recommend checking out campaign for psychiatric abolition--they're one of my favorite groups doing mad liberation direct action right now, and they run a fabulous mad art club. they're @cpabolition on instagram. here's some slogans from their work:

"Abolish psychiatry--mad people fight back!"

"Mad and glad"

"Crazy about psych abolition"

"Fags, dykes, we all hate psychs!"

this post has some pictures of some older signs and protests during psychiatric survivor day.

i love this post with some vintage buttons with some mad pride slogans on it.

also would recommend checking out the history and art section of my psych survivor resource guide--it has a lot of awesome current and older stuff that highlights mad pride history, stuff like insane liberation front, madness network news, etc. there's so much fabulous creativity in our community!! and a long history of protest, and i think it's so important for us to be aware of all the amazing work people have done before us.

let me know if you're looking for something different!

[hellcab]

Roth’s event, God of Teeth, will be arriving in October. During which, I connect with anyone wanting to participate in the event. This is the first event for Roth’s blog, so I’m in some unfamiliar territory. Regardless, there’s fun to be had.

On this post, I shall give some background. The event in question has been building for some time. Here's a timeline of sorts.

In 1992, Roth happened upon a chance meeting with Vincent Andras, a practitioner of Chaos Magic. Gradually, Roth was pulled into Vincent’s magical fellowship, Ultima Discordia. The organization was based outside Pride City, inside a small estate owned by Vincent Andras. The estate was Ultima Discordia’s first temple.  

Under his tutelage, Roth started learning magic. True magic.

The more he learned, the more power Vincent had over Roth. The group was becoming a cult, with Vincent at the center of reverence and fear.

In 1995, Vincent and Roth managed to acquire an ancient Tibetan scroll. The scroll, ཨ་ཀོ་ཧ་ཐི་ཡི་སྒོ་མོ། , or Doors of Agharti, contained thirty intricate Mandalas. Vincent explained it as “the key”. Together, with other members of Ultima Discordia, researched and mediated upon the scroll.

On September 7th, 1998, the group retreated to the temple estate. Here, the trails to open the gates to Agharti began. A grueling process, of hunger and hallucinations, bordering upon madness was suffered. On October 25th, they reached the final Mandala. The final barrier between them, reality and Agharti.

The ritual failed.

The exact events on that night are unknown. But, all rules of reality, were simply made void. During the confusion, insanity and ravenous violence, Roth and Vincent managed to escape. Despite their fear and weakened mental states, they returned to close the door. To destroy the scroll and to prevent something from entering.

Morning came, leaving Roth and Vincent the sole survivors. Both parted ways, blaming each other for the slaughter and failure. Several days later, Roth suffered an acute nervous breakdown. It was reported that Roth was screaming, “Thousands and Thousands of Teeth”. With help, he was admitted to psychiatric help. Vincent Andras became reclusive from Hellish society.

In 2023, Vincent Andras attempts the ritual once more. This time, with new and eager followers. He returns to the old mansion house, to resume the ritual.

He opens the door once more and summons something through. This form arrives in familiar skin. Wearing the face of Roth Kruger, it murdered Andras and his followers. It now sets out to spread the madness of Agharti to all of reality.

[rose---child]

a joke about sailormoon bringing openness to queers lead me to this thanks wikipedia

1903 – In New York City on 21 February 1903, New York police conducted the first United States recorded raid on a gay bathhouse, the Ariston Hotel Baths. 34 men were arrested and 12 brought to trial on sodomy charges; 7 men received sentences ranging from 4 to 20 years in prison.

1906 – Potentially the first openly gay American novel with a happy ending, Imre, is published

1910 – Emma Goldman first begins speaking publicly in favor of homosexual rights. Magnus Hirschfeld later wrote "she was the first and only woman, indeed the first and only American, to take up the defense of homosexual love before the general public.

1912 – The first explicit reference to lesbianism in a Mormon magazine occurred when the "Young Woman's Journal" paid tribute to "Sappho of Lesbos[7] "; the Scientific Humanitarian Committee of the Netherlands (NWHK), the first Dutch organization to campaign against anti-homosexual discrimination, is established by Dr. Jacob Schorer.

1913 – The word faggot is first used in print in reference to gays in a vocabulary of criminal slang published in Portland, Oregon: "All the faggots [sic] (sissies) will be dressed in drag at the ball tonight".

1917 – The October Revolution in Russia repeals the previous criminal code in its entirety—including Article 995.[8][9] Bolshevik leaders reportedly say that "homosexual relationships and heterosexual relationships are treated exactly the same by the law."

1919 – In Berlin, Germany, Doctor Magnus Hirschfeld co-founds the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sex Research), a pioneering private research institute and counseling office. Its library of thousands of books was destroyed by Nazis in May 1933

1921 – In England an attempt to make lesbianism illegal for the first time in Britain's history fails

1922 – A new criminal code comes into force in the USSR officially decriminalizing homosexual acts. 

1923 – The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit."

1923 – Lesbian Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On A Grey Thread."

1923 – The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit." 1923 – Lesbian Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On A Grey Thread." 1923 – The word fag is first used in print in reference to gays in Nels Anderson's The Hobo: "Fairies or Fags are men or boys who exploit sex for profit."1923 – Lesbian Elsa Gidlow, born in England, published the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry in the United States, titled "On A Grey Thread."

1937 – The first use of the pink triangle for gay men in Nazi concentration camps.

1938 – The word Gay is used for the first time on film in reference to homosexuality

1941 – Transsexuality was first used in reference to homosexuality and bisexuality.

1945 – The Holocaust ends and it is estimated that between about 3,000 to about 9,000 homosexuals died in Nazi concentration and death camps, while it is estimated that between about 2,000 to about 6,000 homosexual survivors in Nazi concentration and death camps were required to serve out the full term of their sentences under Paragraph 175 in prison. The first gay bar in post-World War II Berlin opened in the summer of 1945, and the first drag ball took place in American sector of West Berlin in the fall of 1945.[26] Four honourably discharged gay veterans form the Veterans Benevolent Association, the first LGBT veterans' group.[27] Gay bar Yanagi opened in Japan

1946 – Plastic surgeon Harold Gillies carries out sex reassignment surgery on Michael Dillon in Britain.

1951 – Greece decriminalizes homosexuality.

1956 – Thailand decriminalizes homosexual acts.

1957 – The word "Transsexual" is coined by U.S. physician Harry Benjamin; The Wolfenden Committee's report recommends decriminalizing consensual homosexual behaviour between adults in the United Kingdom; Psychologist Evelyn Hooker publishes a study showing that homosexual men are as well adjusted as non-homosexual men, which becomes a major factor in the American Psychiatric Association removing homosexuality from its handbook of disorders in 1973. Homoerotic artist Tom of Finland first published on the cover of Physique Pictorial magazine from Los Angeles.[36]

1965 – Vanguard, an organization of LGBT youth in the low-income Tenderloin district, was created in 1965. It is considered the first Gay Liberation organization in the U.S

1967 – The Advocate was first published in September as "The Los Angeles Advocate," a local newsletter alerting gay men to police raids in Los Angeles gay bars

1970 – The first Gay Liberation Day March is held in New York City; The first LGBT Pride Parade is held in New York; The first "Gay-in" held in San Francisco; Carl Wittman writes A Gay Manifesto;[56][57] CAMP (Campaign Against Moral Persecution) is formed in Australia;[58][59] The Task Force on Gay Liberation formed within the American Library Association. Now known as the GLBT Round Table, this organization is the oldest LGBTQ professional organization in the United States.[60] In November, the first gay rights march occurs in the UK at Highbury Fields following the arrest of an activist from the Young Liberals for importuning.

1974 – Chile allows a trans person to legally change her name and gender on the birth certificate after undergoing sex reassignment surgery, becoming the second country in the world to do so.[86] Kathy Kozachenko becomes the first openly gay American elected to public office when she wins a seat on the Ann Arbor, Michigan city council; In New York City Dr. Fritz Klein founds the Bisexual Forum, the first support group for the Bisexual Community; Elaine Noble becomes the second openly gay American elected to public office when she wins a seat in the Massachusetts State House; Inspired by Noble, Minnesota state legislator Allan Spear comes out in a newspaper interview; Ohio repeals sodomy laws. Robert Grant founds American Christian Cause to oppose the "gay agenda", the beginning of modern Christian politics in America. In London, the first openly LGBT telephone help line opens, followed one year later by the Brighton Lesbian and Gay Switchboard;[citation needed] the Brunswick Four are arrested on 5 January 1974, in Toronto, Ontario. This incident of Lesbophobia galvanizes the Toronto Lesbian and Gay community;[87] the National Socialist League (The Gay Nazi Party) is founded in Los Angeles, California.[citation needed] The first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected to any political office in America was Kathy Kozachenko, who was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council in April 1974.[88] Also in 1974, the Lesbian Herstory Archives opened to the public in the New York apartment of lesbian couple Joan Nestle and Deborah Edel; it has the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians and their communities.[89] Also in 1974, Angela Morley became the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Academy Award, when she was nominated for one in the category of Best Music, Original Song Score/Adaptation for The Little Prince (1974), a nomination shared with Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and Douglas Gamley. The world's first gay softball league was formed in San Francisco in 1974 as the Community Softball League, which eventually included both women's and men's teams. The teams, usually sponsored by gay bars, competed against each other and against the San Francisco Police softball team

1977 – Harvey Milk is elected city-county supervisor in San Francisco, becoming the first openly gay or lesbian candidate elected to political office in California, the seventh openly gay/lesbian elected official nationally, and the third man to be openly gay at time of his election. Dade County, Florida enacts a Human Rights Ordinance; it is repealed the same year after a militant anti-homosexual-rights campaign led by Anita Bryant. Quebec becomes the first jurisdiction larger than a city or county in the world to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the public and private sectors; Croatia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Vojvodina legalise homosexuality.[citation needed] Welsh author Jeffrey Weeks publishes Coming Out;[99] Original eight-color version of the LGBT pride flagPublication of the first issue of Gaysweek, NYC's first mainstream gay weekly. Police raided a house outside of Boston outraging the gay community. In response the Boston-Boise Committee was formed.[100] Anne Holmes became the first openly lesbian minister ordained by the United Church of Christ;[101] Ellen Barrett became the first openly lesbian priest ordained by the Episcopal Church of the United States (serving the Diocese of New York).[102][103] The first lesbian mystery novel in America was published; it was Angel Dance, by Mary F. Beal.[104][105] The National Center for Lesbian Rights was founded. Shakuntala Devi published the first[106] study of homosexuality in India.[107][108] Platonica Club and Front Runners were founded in Japan.[95] San Francisco hosted the world's first gay film festival in 1977.[109] Peter Adair, Nancy Adair and other members of the Mariposa Film Group premiered the groundbreaking documentary on coming out, Word Is Out: Stories of Some of Our Lives, at the Castro Theater in 1977. The film was the first feature-length documentary on gay identity by gay and lesbian filmmakers.[110][111] Beth Chayim Chadashim became the first LGBT synagogue to own its own building.[78] On March 26, 1977, Frank Kameny and a dozen other members of the gay and lesbian community, under the leadership of the then-National Gay Task Force, briefed then-Public Liaison Midge Costanza on much-needed changes in federal laws and policies. This was the first time that gay rights were officially discussed at the White House 

1980 – The United States Democratic Party becomes the first major political party in the U.S. to endorse a homosexual rights platform plank; Scotland decriminalizes homosexuality; The Human Rights Campaign Fund is founded by Steve Endean; The Human Rights Campaign is America's largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.[120] Lionel Blue becomes the first British rabbi to come out as gay;[121] "Becoming Visible: The First Black Lesbian Conference" is held at the Women's Building, from October 17 to 19, 1980. It has been credited as the first conference for African-American lesbian women.[122] The Socialist Party USA nominates an openly gay man, David McReynolds, as its (and America's) first openly gay presidential candidate in 1980.[123]

1987 – AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power(ACT-UP) founded in the US in response to the US government's slow response in dealing with the AIDS crisis.[142] ACT UP stages its first major demonstration, seventeen protesters are arrested; U.S. Congressman Barney Frank comes out. Boulder, Colorado citizens pass the first referendum to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.[143][144] In New York City a group of Bisexual LGBT rights activist including Brenda Howard found the New York Area Bisexual Network (NYABN); Homomonument, a memorial to persecuted homosexuals, opens in Amsterdam. David Norris is the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the Republic of Ireland. A group of 75 bisexuals marched in the 1987 March On Washington For Gay and Lesbian Rights, which was the first nationwide bisexual gathering. The article "The Bisexual Movement: Are We Visible Yet?", by Lani Ka'ahumanu, appeared in the official Civil Disobedience Handbook for the March. It was the first article about bisexuals and the emerging bisexual movement to be published in a national lesbian or gay publication.[145] Canadian province of Manitoba and territory Yukon ban sexual orientation discrimination.

1990

Equalization of age of consent: Czechoslovakia (see Czech Republic, Slovakia)

Decriminalisation of homosexuality: UK Crown Dependency of Jersey and the Australian state of Queensland

LGBT Organizations founded: BiNet USA (USA), OutRage! (UK) and Queer Nation (USA)

Homosexuality no longer an illness: The World Health Organization

Other: Justin Fashanu is the first professional footballer to come out in the press.

Reform Judaism decided to allow openly lesbian and gay rabbis and cantors.[148]

Dale McCormick became the first open lesbian elected to a state Senate (she was elected to the Maine Senate).[149]

In 1990, the Union for Reform Judaism announced a national policy declaring lesbian and gay Jews to be full and equal members of the religious community. Its principal body, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR), officially endorsed a report of their committee on homosexuality and rabbis. They concluded that "all rabbis, regardless of sexual orientation, be accorded the opportunity to fulfill the sacred vocation that they have chosen" and that "all Jews are religiously equal regardless of their sexual orientation."

The oldest national bisexuality organization in the United States, BiNet USA, was founded in 1990. It was originally called the North American Multicultural Bisexual Network (NAMBN), and had its first meeting at the first National Bisexual Conference in America.[150][150][151] This first conference was held in San Francisco in 1990, and sponsored by BiPOL. Over 450 people attended from 20 states and 5 countries, and the mayor of San Francisco sent a proclamation "commending the bisexual rights community for its leadership in the cause of social justice," and declaring June 23, 1990 Bisexual Pride Day.

The first Eagle Creek Saloon, that opened on the 1800 block of Market Street in San Francisco in 1990 and closed in 1993, was the first black-owned gay bar in the city.

1993Civil Union/Registered Partnership laws:Repeal of Sodomy laws: Australian Territory of Norfolk IslandDecriminalisation of homosexuality: Belarus, UK Crown Dependency of Gibraltar, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia (with the exception of the Chechen Republic);Anti-discrimination legislation:End to ban on gay people in the military: New ZealandSignificant LGBT Murders: Brandon TeenaMelissa Etheridge came out as a lesbian.The Triangle Ball was held; it was the first inaugural ball in America to ever be held in honor of gays and lesbians.The first Dyke March (a march for lesbians and their straight female allies, planned by the Lesbian Avengers) was held, with 20,000 women marching.[156][157]Roberta Achtenberg became the first openly gay or lesbian person to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate when she was appointed to the position of Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity by President Bill Clinton.[158]Lea DeLaria was "the first openly gay comic to break the late-night talk-show barrier" with her 1993 appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show.[159]In December 1993 Lea DeLaria hosted Comedy Central's Out There, the first all-gay stand-up comedy special.[159]Before the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted in 1993, lesbians and bisexual women and gay men and bisexual men were banned from serving in the military.[160] In 1993 the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy was enacted, which mandated that the military could not ask servicemembers about their sexual orientation.[161][162] However, until the policy was ended in 2011 service members were still expelled from the military if they engaged in sexual conduct with a member of the same sex, stated that they were lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and/or married or attempted to marry someone of the same sex.[163]Passed and Came into effect: Norway (without adoption until 2009, replaced with same-sex marriage in 2008/09)US state of Minnesota (gender identity)New Zealand parliament passes the Human Rights Amendment Act which outlaws discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation or HIVCanadian province Saskatchewan (sexual orientation)

1998Anti-discrimination legislation: Ecuador (sexual orientation, constitution), Ireland (sexual orientation) and the Canadian provinces of Prince Edward Island (sexual orientation) and Alberta (court ruling only; legislation amended in 2009)Significant LGBT Murders: Rita Hester, Matthew ShepardDecriminalisation of homosexuality: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa (retroactive to 1994), Southern Cyprus and TajikistanEqualization of age of consent: Croatia and LatviaEnd to ban on gay people in the military: Romania, South AfricaGender identity was added to the mission of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays after a vote at their annual meeting in San Francisco.[182] Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays is the first national LGBT organization to officially adopt a transgender-inclusion policy for its work.[183]Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay or lesbian non-incumbent ever elected to Congress, and the first open lesbian ever elected to Congress, winning Wisconsin's 2nd congressional district seat over Josephine Musser.[184][185]Dana International became the first transsexual to win the Eurovision Song Contest, representing Israel with the song "Diva".[186]Robert Halford comes out as being the first openly gay heavy metal musician.[187]The first bisexual pride flag was unveiled on 5 December 1998.[188]Julie Hesmondhalgh first began to play Hayley Anne Patterson, British TV's first transgender character.[189]BiNet USA hosted the First National Institute on Bisexuality and HIV/AIDS.[190]

sorry its long just these i didnt know half of all this and thought we should all know 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_LGBT_history,_20th_century

[fromthedeskofelizabeththird]

After End

V x MC | Gen | FIXIT FIC | I left in the bits I liked. All two (?) of them.

Also I wanna dedicate this to @jihyunkkim, who loves V more than anyone and has been excellent to rant with

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

MC’s wedding dress was as white as a snowflake and as soft to the touch as a summer breeze. She turned to admire her reflection in the mirror-once and then twice, touching her fingers to her hair.

For the first, and likely only, time in her life, she was wearing a tiara; made of silver and engraved with clear stones. It was cool to the touch but warmed her heart, a reminder that the day was hers.

Half hers, at least. She wondered how Jihyun fared in his room-if he was as excited and nervous as she was. If she closed her eyes, she could practically see him, only partially paying attention to Jumin’s well wishes and advice for the day as he fastened his tie.

She opened her dresser drawer and unfolded the letter within, rereading the vows she had spent months drafting and amending in the run up to the big day. There were so many things she wanted to tell him; so many promises she wanted to make. She knew she would not have the luxury of reciting them all, but narrowing them down was easier said than done.

Someone knocked at the door and she folded the paper again, slipping it back into her drawer without a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t a secret, but it was slightly embarrassing.

“Come in!”

It was Jumin, dressed in a carefully tailored suit and flowers pinned to his lapel. He gave her a soft smile as he entered, so small and subtle that only those who knew him well enough might see the warmth behind it.

“Congratulations,” he said, taking in her dress and curious expression. “I’ve got something for you.”

MC wasn’t sure what else he could possibly have for her. He had already offered up the use of the grandest of his vacation homes for the nuptials.

The item in his hands was perhaps the last thing she might have expected: a single use camera, typical of her childhood, though rather unusual of late. MC turned it over in her hands, remembering the seemingly endless summers of her childhood, snapping photograph after photograph of her friends and family and waiting eagerly to see the results. She held the camera to her chest, considering how typical such a detail was of both her fiance and his best man. Her wedding might last days or even weeks depending on how long it took to gather and develop the film.

The first photo she took was of Jumin standing a few paces from the doorway as the Chois arrived with a handful of bridesmaids. The second was of Seven in his three piece suit, pretending to toss her bouquet over his shoulder, while Saeran watched in horror.

Seven made no secret of the fact that he wanted to be MC’s maid of honour, winking theatrically at the tradition of running away with the best man. Jumin flatly refused the idea and, even though everyone else found the mental image amusing, MC compromised and asked him to walk her down the aisle instead. Both twins, actually, would be giving her away. She laughed and joked that it was to stop her from escaping, but in truth she wanted them close now of all days.

It had been years since her arrival at the Mint Eye castle and everyone had changed, mostly for the better. Seven no longer worked for the agency, instead putting his skills to use at C&R, a gesture of goodwill from Jumin that has provided near constant entertainment since. When Seven wasn’t playing pranks on his boss, he was enabling his love for cat projects, much to Assistant Kang’s ire. MC wasn’t sure which was worse for Jaehee’s health: trying and failing to prevent Seven from filling Jumin’s desk with party poppers or the knowledge that even after everything, his diet was almost entirely chips and soda.

Saeran was hospitalised for almost a full year after the incident, slowly progressing from withdrawal to psychotherapy. No one could say for certain exactly how much elixir had poisoned his body, only that he spent months shivering and sweating, racked by nightmares and sick to his stomach.

The change she was proudest of came from Yoosung. He had grown so much in the past couple of years, barely recognisable as the boy she chatted to all those years ago. He was taller. Happier. He balanced psychiatric studies with volunteer efforts and fundraisers; a regular at counselling groups for the survivors of Mint Eye and their biggest advocate during their integration back into society.

He, as well as Zen, were the ushers at her wedding and both swelled with pride when they saw her approach.

“Ahhh, here comes the bride.”

“Congratulations, MC!”

“Has everything gone to plan so far?”

“Ehh, a few paparazzi here and there. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“Did...he show up yet?”

She didn’t say his name, but everyone knew who she meant.

She and Jihyun spent hours on their wedding invitations, creating each by hand. They attached lace and ribbons in the style of a wedding dress; wrote each name in careful calligraphy-no two identical, but each one perfect.

Neither Jihyun’s father nor his stepmother had responded to their invitation; something Jihyun himself claimed was for the better. Pursuing an art career had left them more distant than ever, leaving only his sister to acknowledge him as family. She replied within a matter of hours, young enough to be more excited about the occasion than any bad feelings.

She was a bridesmaid, in fact; willowy and cheerful in her pale pink gown. MC wanted to include her somehow, in return for her maturity and understanding over the past few years. Her gentle nature, in fact, was the reason MC whispered the question.

“Not yet,” said Zen, with a sympathetic touch to her shoulder. “But there’s time yet!”

MC sighed, conflicted in her emotions; closing her eyes to take in the momentary silence while realisation slowly sank in. This was it. Soon she and Jihyun would no longer be engaged but man and wife.

For the briefest of seconds, she found herself anxious, wondering if she was doing the right thing. Jihyun had been broken in so many different ways...what if she hurt him in several more? What if he fell out of love with her the moment she threw her bouquet?

MC took a deep breath, glancing down at the flowers in her arms: sweet peas, pale pink and shaped like butterflies; lily of the valley, as ornate as a pearl necklace; pink peonies, as soft as kisses. Saeran put them together for her; his love for flowers one of the only constants over the past few years. Last night he stayed in his room to arrange every ribbon.

They were as comforting as a lover’s embrace and MC let out the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, just in time for violin music to ring out from beyond the closed doors.

She watched as Yoosung and Zen pulled them open, revealing a garden illuminated by fairy lights.

“Wow,” she whispered, unsure where exactly to look. There was something new in every corner, from friends and family watching her expectantly to Jumin and V standing under a floral canopy that matched her bouquet. Jihyun had his back to her and stood up so straight that she could tell he was nervous. Jumin stole glances every now and then, smiling and whispering in Jihyun’s ear.

She noticed the record player last of all, as she took her first steps down the aisle. It was Jihyun’s idea to have a band, but Jumin’s to play a recording, speaking aloud the ideas that Jihyun never would. It was not just any musician; not just any song. It was a song by Pachelbel performed by a dead violinist; one who set aside her music books in unfortunate circumstances.

Her seat was in the frontmost row, with two white roses resting against the frame.

A gentle breeze caught MC’s hair as she reached Jihyun, scattering flower petals across the green. Seven and Saeran loosened their grip on her arms and she turned to her fiancé for the first time all day, stomach fluttering in anticipation.

He had flowers on his lapel just like Jumin’s, matching her bouquet and complimenting his light suit. He flushed the same shade of pink when he saw her, never once looking away even as the record player fell silent.

The rest of the ceremony passed by in a blur. Seven shed several tears as they exchanged vows, completely serious for the first time all day. MC stumbled over the words, love seeping into her voice as she professed her feelings in almost unadulterated detail.

His vows were not only original but the words of a poet. He told not only MC but everyone present how long he had searched for love before her; how dark and lonely the years had been. He once believed that true love would be a masterpiece, and in many respects that was true, but he had not been able to not experience it fully until he found his own colours.

MC, he explained, was full of colours. More colours than he would ever know the names of, much less put to paper. His world was monochrome when he met her; she leaves sunsets and soft light wherever she goes. If he was beautiful now it was her doing.

Their hands trembled as he slipped a ring onto her finger; the room falling silent with the exception of camera clicks. MC could not tear her eyes away from their joined hands and never wanted to. She never wanted to let go ever again.

The spell was broken when they were pronounced man and wife; MC returning to reality as if crawling out of a comfortable slumber. No one had to tell Jihyun he could kiss the bride-his lips were on hers the moment he heard the word ‘wife’.

He took her hand as they turned for photos, whispering both sweet words and obscenities in her ear.

She blushed, eyes darting around the garden and finally resting on the unexpected guest standing at a distance, a white envelope in his hand.

He was far away, but recognizable enough for anyone who knew him. V’s sister certainly did, gathering her skirts and rushing to greet him with an enormous smile on her face. She grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the other guests, eager for him get a photo with his brand new daughter in law.

Jihyun clearly wasn’t expecting his father to attend and MC wondered if Chief Kim had ever expected to come. They both looked like ducks out of water as they stood side by side for photographs.

She still wondered about it as she tossed her bouquet, watching it sail through the air and land quite neatly in Jaehee’s arms. It took her a moment to fully register what was happening, but she was swift to elbow Seven in the ribs when she realised he was standing next to her fluttering his eyelashes.

It was a day MC hoped to never forget-from champagne bubbles on her tongue to their first dance as husband and wife.

She does not forget, of course. No one could forget such a perfect day and she has it immortalised in seven different albums, containing each and every photograph from every roll of film. From Zen posing for a selfie at the dinner table to Jumin giving his best man speech to Saeran sitting by the flowerbeds to feed confetti to the birds. Every detail is immortalised, with only one exception.

At the end of the evening, almost every single disposable camera was full, save for mystery camera with exactly one photograph left on the film. At first she was eager to take a photograph of just about anything just to finish off the film, only to change her mind at the realisation that doing so would truly end her wedding day. She was glad of the extra time each roll of film afforded her, but the prospect of being a bride forever was far more attractive than knowing what was on the film.

She positioned that camera pride of place in their front room, underneath her wedding bouquet, which Jihyun pressed and fitted into a frame. It serves as a reminder that every day is her wedding day; each morning is a fresh start and new beginning for their love.

She never intends to develop it, never caves to curiosity and ultimately only reaches for it when several years have passed.

“She’s here!” Jihyun says, running his fingers through his hair and taking one step towards the front door, only to change his mind and double back. “What should I say?”

She hasn’t seen him this nervous since the day she married him.

“Well...you could start with ‘hello’.”

“Good idea!”

MC gives the room a final onceover, listening to his excited, albeit stuttered greeting when he opens up the front door.

“Come in, come in!”

She moves to join him, stepping out into the hallway to greet their guests.

Jihyun is still shaking the social worker’s hand when she gets there, and they look only too relieved when he awkwardly lets go.

The woman is an acquaintance of Yoosung’s, who regularly gives lectures on vulnerable children. The orphanages she works with have benefited from multiple VFA fundraisers, in part because of their tactical approach. They bring an orphaned child to every party, appealing to the sympathies of other guests and very often securing not only funding but permanent homes for abandoned children, just like the one standing in front of them today.

Her name is Lucy, or so MC was told, and has been in and out of foster care from birth. Both Jihyun and MC expressed surprise at such a detail, for Lucy is quite a beautiful child, not unlike a porcelain doll. It all became clear, however, when they actually spoke to her. Lucy did not speak her name-she signed it.

Along with painting, Jihyun had studied sign language, in part because he had never done so to communicate with his mother. MC wasn’t sure who was more excited to speak; Lucy, whose signs bordered on frantic, or Jihyun, who struggled to translate at times because he needed to give her one hundred percent of his attention. He told her terrible jokes; she told him he was handsome. Later they learned that she suffered mumps as an infant, which left her hard of hearing at first and later entirely deaf.

Today MC sits onto her knees and clumsily signs a greeting. She’s not nearly as fluent as Jihyun, but more than willing to try.

My name is MC. I’m going to be your Mother.

She knows for a fact she probably signed it wrong, but Lucy is more than excited, reaching to loop her arms around MC’s neck and pulling her into the warmest of hugs.

It was MC who suggested they adopt her. Having children had always seemed like a far off dream, but Lucy crossed their paths ready made and perfect, leaving MC unable to think of anything else but feeding her ice cream and signing her goodnight.

Once again she is reminded of warm summer childhoods; of excitement and wonder. She can see it in Lucy’s eyes as they sign the final papers, unapologetically examining each and every inch of their home.

No.

Her home.

Before long it is just the three of them; Jihyun showing Lucy to her room, laughing all the while at her excitement over each and every toy they picked up for her. She has a paint set from Jaehee, multiple leather bound encyclopedias from Jumin, a DVD of one of Zen’s performances that Jihyun slipped into a cupboard and never saw the light of day again, an enormous teddy bear from Yoosung.

Of all of the gifts, however, she makes a beeline for the tablet left by her uncle Luciel.

“Ahh, now, Lucy...wouldn’t you rather play with this?”

Jihyun picks up a copy of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Lucy shakes her head.

MC watches them from the doorway, turning that final disposable camera in her hands, just like she did on her wedding day. She lifts the camera to take the final picture, laughing at her husband’s incredible old fashioned-ness and Lucy’s excitement at whatever game Luciel created and installed on the tablet. From the looks of things, it’s a rhythm game, with piano keys and bright lights to show which one to press and when. MC can tell that before long she’ll not only be walking all over Jihyun but the whole of the VFA.

Her husband is barely recognizable from the one that called her upon her entrance to the VFA, voice quivering and spirit broken. She no longer sees herself in the woman who rested her head on his lap while he struggled through poison.

She recalls V’s words on the day of their wedding- that if he is beautiful it is because of her, considering that it is only half true. The three of them are butterflies, bursting out of their chrysalises to bathe in the sunlight.

The camera snaps and MC takes the final photo.

[the-little-crime-writer]

Lake, Leonard, and NG, Charles Chitat

A native of San Francisco, Leonard Lake was born July 20, 1946. His mother sought to teach him pride in the human body by encouraging Lake to photograph nude girls, including his sisters and cousins, but the “pride” soon developed into a precocious obsession with pornography. In adolescence, Lake extorted sexual favours from his sisters, in return for protection from the violent outbursts of a younger brother, Donald. By his teens, Leonard displayed a fascination with the concept of collecting “slaves.” Lake joined the Marine Corps in 1966 and served a non-combatant tour in Vietnam, as a radar operator. He also underwent two years of psychiatric therapy at Camp Pendleton for unspecified mental problems before his ultimate discharge in 1971.

Back in civilian life, Lake moved to San Jose and got married, developing a local reputation as a gun buff, “survivalist,” and sex freak. His favourite high school was filming bondage scenes, including female partners other than his wife, and he was soon divorced. In 1980, Lake was charged with grand theft after looting building materials from a construction site, but he got off easy with one year’s probation. Married a second time in August 1981, he moved with his wife to a communal range at Ukiah, California, where a “Renaissance” lifestyle was practised complete with period costumes and surgical alteration of goats to produce “unicorns.” A few months after his arrival in Ukiah, Lake met Charlie Ng.

Hong Kong born in 1961, Charles Chitat Ng was the son of wealthy Chinese parents. Forever in trouble, Ng was expelled from school in Hong Kong and then from an expensive private school in England, where he was caught stealing from classmates. A subsequent shoplifting arrest drove him to California, where he joined the Marine Corps after a hit and run incident, falsely listing his birthplace as Bloomington, Indiana. An expert martial artist and self-styled “ninja warrior,” Ng talked incessantly of violence to his fellow leathernecks. In October 1979, he led two accomplices in stealing $11,000 worth of automatic weapons from a marine arsenal in Hawaii and found himself under arrest. During psychiatric evaluation, Ng boasted of “assassinating” someone in California, but never got around to naming the victim. He escaped from custody before trial and was listed as a deserter when he answered Lake’s ad om a war gamer’s magazine, in1981.

The two men hit it off at once, om spite of Lake’s racism, which seemed to encompass only African Americans and Hispanics. They began collecting automatic weapons from illegal sources, and a team of federal agents raided the Ukiah ranch in April 1982, arresting Lake and Ng for firearms violations. Released on $6,000 bond, Lake promptly went into hiding, using a variety of pseudonyms as he drifted around norther California. His second wife divorced him after the arrest, but they remained on friendly terms. As a fugitive, Ng was denied bail, and he struck a bargain with a military prosecutor in August, pleading guilty to theft in return for a promise that he would serve no more than three years of a 14-year sentence. Confined to the military stockade at Leavenworth federal prison, Ng was paroled after 18 months, avoiding deportation with a reference to the phoney birthplace shown on his enlistment papers. On release from prison, he returned home and again teamed up with Leonard Lake.

By that time, Lake had settled on two and a half acres of woodland near Wilseyvile in Calavera’s County, enlisting the help of neighbours t construct a fortified bunker beside his cabin, where he stockpiled illegal weapons and stolen video equipment. His every thought was recorded in various diaries, including details of “Operation Miranda,” entailing the collection of sex slaves to serve his needs after the anticipated nuclear holocaust. On the subject of females, Lake wrote “God meant women for cooking, cleaning the house and sex. And when they are not in use, they should be locked up.” An oft-repeated motto in the diaries advised, “If you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down and kill it.” On February 25, 1984, shortly before his reunion with Ng, Lake described his life as “Mostly dull day to day routine, still with death in my pocket and fantasy my major goal.” If authorities are correct the first death In Lake’s pocket may have claimed his brother Donald, reported missing by their mother and never seen again after he went to visit Lake in July 1983.

On June 2, 1985, employees of a lumberyard in South San Francisco called police to report a peculiar shoplifting incident. An Asian man had walked out of a store with a $75 vise, placed it in the trunk of a Honda auto parked outside, and then escaped on foot before they could detain him. The car was still outside, however, and officers found a bearded white man at the wheel. He cheerfully produced a driver’s licence in the name of “Robin Stapley,” but he bore no resemblance to it photograph. A brief examination of the Honda’s trunk turned up the stolen vise, along with a silencer equipped .22 caliber pistol. Booked on theft and weapons charges, “Stapley” evaded questions for several hours, then asked for a drink of water, gulping a cyanide capsule removed from a secret compartment in his belt buckle. He was comatose on arrival at the hospital, where he would linger on life support equipment for the next four days, finally pronounced dead on June 6.

A fingerprint comparison identified “Stapley” as Leonard Lake, but the driver’s licence was not a forgery. Its original owner was the founder of San Diego’s Guardian Angels chapter and he had not been seen at home for several weeks. The Honda’s license late was registered to Lake, but the vehicle was not. Its owner of record, 39-year-old Paul Cosner, was a San Francisco car dealer who had disappeared in November 1984, after leaving home to sell the car to “a weird guy.” Lake’s auto registration led detectives to the property in Wilseyville, where they discovered weapons, torture devices, and Lake’s voluminous diaries. Serial numbers on Lake’s video equipment traced ownership to Harvey Dubs, a San Francisco photographer reported missing from home along with his wife Deborah and infant son Sean on July 25, 1984. As detectives soon learned, the stolen equipment had been used to produce ghoulish “home movies” of young women being stripped and threatened, raped and tortured, at least one of them mutilated so savagely that she must have died as a result. Lake and Ng were the principal stars of the snuff tapes, but one of their “leading ladies” was quickly identified as the missing Deborah Dubs.

Another reluctant “actress” was Brenda O’Connor, who once occupied the cabin adjacent to Lake’s with her husband, Lonnie Bond, and their infant son Lonnie Jr. They had known Lake a “Charles Gunnar,” an alias lifted from the best man at Lake’s second wedding (and another missing person, last seen alive in 1983). O’Connor was afraid of “Gunnar,” telling friends that she had seen him plant a woman’s body in the woods, but rather than inform police, her husband had invited a friend, Guardian Angel Robin Stapley to share their quarters and offer personal protection. All four had disappeared in May 1985. Another snuff tape victim, 18-year-old Kathleen Allen, made the acquaintance of Lake and Ng through her boyfriend, 23-year-old Mike Carroll. Carroll had served time with Ng at Leavenworth and later came west to join him in various shady enterprises. Allen abandoned her job at a supermarket after Lake informed her that Carroll had been shot and wounded “near Lake Tahoe,” offering to show her where he was. Her final paycheck had been mailed to Lake’s address in Wilseyville.

Aside from videocassettes, authorities retrieved numerous still photos from Lake’s bunker, including snapshots of Lake in long “witchy” robes, and photos of 21 young women captured in various stages of undress. Six were finally identified and found alive; the other 15 have remained elusive, despite publication of the photographs, and police suspect that most or all of them were murdered on the death ranch. Gradually, the search moved outward from Lake’s bunker into the surrounding woods. A vehicle abandoned near the cabin was registered to another missing person, Sunnyvale photographer Jeffrey Askern, and Lake’s vanishing acquaintances. On June 8, portions of four human skeletons were unearthed near the bunker, with a fifth victim and numerous charred bone fragments, including infant’s teeth discovered on June 13. Number six was turned up five days later and was the first to be identified. A 34-year-old drifter, Randy Jacobson had last been seen alive in October 1984 wen he left his San Francisco rooming house to visit Lake and sell his van. Two of Jacobson’s neighbours, 26-year-old Cheryl Okoro and 38-year-old Maurice Wok, also on the missing list, were linked to the Wilseyville killers by person contacts and cryptic notes in Lake’s diary.

Three more skeletons were sorted out of scattered fragments on June 26, and authorities declared that Lake and Ng were linked to the disappearance of at least 25 persons. One of those was Mike Carroll, who reportedly agreed to dress in “sissy” clothe and lure gays for Ng to kill, then died himself when Charlie tired of the game. Donald Giuletti, a 36-year-old disc jockey in San Francisco, had offered oral sex through published advertisements, and one of the callers was a young Asian man who shot Giuletti to death in July 1984, critically wounding his roommate at the same time. Lake’s wife recalled that Ng had boasted of shooting two homosexuals, and the survivor readily identified Ng’s mug shot as a likeness of the gunman.

Two other friends of Ng and occasional co-workers at a Bay Area warehouse were also missing. Clifford Parenteau, age 24, had vanished after winning $400 on a Super Bowl bet, telling associates that he was going “to the country” to spend the money with Ng. A short time later, 25-year-old Jeffrey Gerald dropped from sight after he agreed to help Ng move some furniture. Neither men were seen again, and Ng was formally charged with their deaths in two of the 13 first-degree murder counts filed against him. Other victims named in the indictment include Mike Carroll, Kathleen Allen, Lonnie Bond and family, Robin Stapley Don Giuletti, and three members of the Dubs family. (Remains of Stapley and Lonnie were found in a common grave on July 9, bringing the official body count to 12.) Ng was also charged as an accessory to murder in the disappearance of Paul Cosner.

On July 6, 1985, Ng was arrested while shoplifting food from a market in Calgary, Alberta. A security guard was shot in the hand before Ng was subdued. Charges of attempted murder were reduced to aggravated assault, robbery, and illegal use of a weapon, with Ng sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment upon conviction. On November 29, 1988, a Canadian judge ruled that Ng should be extradited to the United States for trial on 19 of the 25 felony counts filed against him. Ng’s appeal of that decision was rejected on August 31, 1989, but further legal manoeuvres stalled his extradition until 1991. Even that was not the end, however, as Charlie Ng pulled out all the stops, using every trick and legal loophole in the book to postpone his trail for another seven years. He fired attorneys, challenged judges, moved for change of venue (granted, to Orange County), lodged complaints about jailhouse conditions, in short, used the cumbersome California legal system to hamstring itself.

In October 1997, Ng’s stubborn refusal to cooperate with his latest court-appointed attorney won yet another delay in his trial, with jury selection pushed back to September 1, 1998. Police in San Francisco, meanwhile, grudgingly admitted “accidentally” destroying vital evidence in one of the 13 murder counts filed against Ng, but 12 more still remained for his trial. In May 1998. Judge John Ryan permitted Ng to fire his lawyers and represent himself with a stern warning that the trail would begin on September 1, whether Charlie liked it or not. On July 15, Ng tried for yet another postponement, claiming that his glasses were “the wrong prescription” and his personal computer was not fully programmed, thus hampering his defence.

Judge Ryan, unmoved, denied the motion and scheduled pretrial hearings to begin on August 21. Ng’s trial was the longest, most expensive criminal proceeding ever in a state notorious for courtroom marathons, finally ending on May 3, 1999, when Ng was convicted and the jury recommended death. He was formally condemned on June 30, 1999.

[nationaldvam]

Intersex people are born with chromosomal, hormonal, gonadal, or genital variations that differ from social expectations of what male and female bodies should be like. Even as we begin or continue to challenge binary understandings of gender and sexuality in the anti-violence movements, many of us have not stopped to question the assumption that there are only two biological sexes – and anything else is not “normal” or acceptable. Social discomfort with this aspect of human diversity has resulted in discrimination and marginalization of intersex people, including medically unnecessary surgeries that they have not consented to.

While there has been a shift away from seeing intersex conditions as a problem to be dealt with medically (a practice that became popular in the medical community in the 1960s), these types of unwanted “corrective” surgeries do continue today. Adults who have experienced these medically unnecessary surgeries, also known as Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM), experience trauma common to many adult survivors of child sexual abuse. The impact of such surgery includes shame, stigmatization, physical harm, and emotional distress. Anti-violence advocates should be prepared to provide trauma-informed care to those who have experienced trauma surrounding IGM.

As you reflect during Pride Month on your efforts to reach out to LGBTQ+ communities, consider ways you can increase your capacity to meet the needs of intersex individuals who may be dealing with trauma related to IGM.

Intersex Community & Inclusion

https://youtu.be/cAUDKEI4QKI

There is great diversity of experience in the intersex community, and diverse ways intersex individuals think about community, activism, needs, and goals. There is also a wide-ranging response to whether or not intersex people should inherently be considered part of the LGBTQ+ communities. One reason that someone might take the position that intersex identity is not part of LGBTQ+ communities may be the opinion that LGBTQ+ movements have, at least in recent history, been primarily concerned with relationship recognition and concerns around identity, and not as much with bodily autonomy.

On the other hand, including intersex as part of LGBTQ+ communities can lead to more visibility of intersex experiences, and can address a common root cause of discrimination: harmful adherence to the gender binary and related gender norms. Writer and intersex advocate Hida Viloria makes this case in the article The Forgotten Vowel: How Intersex Liberation Benefits the Entire LGBTQIA Community:

“When we recognize the rights of intersex people to have their identities recognized, we dismantle the very foundation of the binary sex and gender system which has harmed LGBTQIA people for centuries.”

For more reading on this topic, check out this blog post by Viloria and another intersex activist, Dana Zzyym, which explores many of the diverse ways intersex individuals approach issues of identity.

Note the distinction between being transgender and being intersex. Being transgender has to do with having an internal understanding of one’s gender that is different than what was assigned at birth. This assignment typically has to do with the external anatomy – babies with a vagina are assigned female at birth and babies with a penis are assigned male. A transgender person has a gender identity that is different from that assignment, whether female, male, non-binary, or other genders.

People who have intersex conditions, though, have anatomy that has not been historically considered by societies to be typically male or female. An intersex individual may be transgender, but the majority of intersex individuals do not identify as transgender, and the majority of transgender individuals do not identify as intersex.

Living at the Intersections

Intersex people of color are disproportionately impacted by physical, psychological, and medical violence. Historically, people of color have faced unspeakable atrocities including exploitation at the hands of the medical industrial complex. Activist Sean Saifa Wall reflected on these intersecting identities in a recent interview with NBC:

"I draw a very distinct parallel between how the medical community has inflicted violence on intersex people by violating their bodily integrity, and how state violence violates the bodily integrity of Black people… My desire for intersex liberation is totally [entwined] with Black liberation. They cannot be teased apart.” (2016)

Additionally, intersex activists and survivors of color are marginalized within the intersex movement itself – facing underrepresentation in leadership roles, lack of visibility and voice in public spaces, and limited opportunity to engage with other intersex people of color.

By honoring and lifting up the unique experiences of intersex people of color, by asking them what they need to feel heard and to feel safer in our collective spaces, we can build a more intersectional, anti-racist, trauma-informed movement. For more information, read the Statement from Intersex People of Color on the 20th Anniversary of Intersex Awareness Day and the Intersex People of Color for Justice Statement for Intersex Awareness Day (IAD) 2017, which emphasizes, "We are a just movement that has our vision set on attaining bodily autonomy for all."

The Experiences of IGM Survivors

To explore what intersex advocates are saying about intersex genital mutilation, check out this video from Teen Vogue in which three intersex advocates address what some forms of IGM specifically entail, and how they’re unnecessary and nonconsensual.

One of the advocates in the video, Pigeon Pagonis, discloses the experience of having the clitoris removed, and later having a vaginoplasty at age 11. Pagonis makes the connection that one of the underlying reasons for these operations was to make the vagina “more accommodating to my future husband’s penis” – underscoring one example of how harmful societal assumptions about what male and female bodies should look like (and how sex should happen between men and women) forms justification for these invasive medical surgeries. One of the other advocates in this video, Hanne Gaby Odiele, helps make the connection to trauma, by claiming, “Those surgeries need to stop because they bring so much more complications and traumas.”

A 2017 report from Human Rights Watch called “I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me”: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US contains information on the history and impact of IGM, including insight into the trauma mentioned by Odiele in the video. In one testimonial from an adult survivor of intersex genital mutilation, Ruth, age 60, shares: “I developed PTSD and dissociative states to protect myself while they treated me like a lab rat, semi-annually putting me in a room full of white-coated male doctors, some of whom took photos of me when I was naked.” The report goes on to illustrate forms of psychological harm and emotional distress that adult survivors of intersex genital mutilation may experience.

When working with a survivor of intersex genital mutilation, consider that control was taken away from the survivor in the nonconsensual, medically unnecessary surgery. These surgeries may receive legitimacy simply because they take place in a medical context, which we tend to view as being associated with consent and authority. But the root of the perceived “need” for this surgery is embedded in social standards about what male and female bodies should look like, not medical need. We need to move away from the notion that there might be an underlying medical justification for this abusive touching (Tosh, 2013).

Shifting Our Culture

Working to end false binaries of sex, gender, and sexuality can be an important first step in preventing IGM and many forms of violence. Developing  an understanding of intersex peoples’ experiences by reading intersex history and listening to intersex people share their stories when offered can deepen your understanding of who is part of our communities and how we can provide trauma-informed care to everyone who needs our services. A first step can be to become familiar with intersex organizations like Intersex Society of North America, interACT, and Intersex Campaign for Equality. Another can be to educate colleagues on trauma related to IGM, and to make efforts to directly engage the community in which your agency wants to provide welcoming and relevant services to intersex people. Shifting our culture to end the shame, secrecy, exploitation, and abuse of intersex people will require broad level systemic change driven by all of us.

What can you do to positively impact the lives of intersex survivors in your community?

References:

Human Rights Watch, interACT. (2017, July). “I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me”: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US. Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/lgbtintersex0717_web_0.pdf

Tosh, J. (2013). The (In)visibility of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Psychiatric Theorizing of Transgenderism and Intersexuality.   Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice. Retrieved from http://journals.library.mun.ca/ojs/index.php/IJ/article/view/739/743

Image from InterACT Advocates for Intersex Youth.

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

Repelling Darkness | Fearless Puppy on American Road

This is a short excerpt from Ejection Eddie, a ten-page chapter in the travel-adventure book Fearless Puppy on American Road. In it, Eddie gets ejected from several places that humans are usually never thrown out of, including the US Army draft board during the Vietnam era, a secured lock-up ward in a psychiatric hospital, and a jail.

BEGINNING OF CHAPTER

    Certain hitchhiking rides have delivered me to realizations as well as physical destinations. Ejection Eddie was one of these.

    “Welcome to my vehicle. I’m Ejection Eddie. Who are you?”

    I felt a funny punchline coming on, but it didn’t seem smart to joke around with a guy who called himself “Ejection” until I knew why he did so.

   I got right to it. “Everyone calls me Ten, but that’s obviously not the name on the birth certificate. Your mom didn’t pick the name Ejection for you, did she? Do they call you that because you have one of those James Bond car seats that eject passengers?”

   Ed answered with a pleasant smile and friendly tone. “Indeed not, my friend. There has never yet been a need to eject anyone from this vehicle—and judging by your relatively pleasant demeanor, my streak of uninterrupted hospitality won’t have to end here. However, my mom did have something to do with both parts of my name. Of course, she was directly responsible for the Eddie part. She was also indirectly responsible for the first of my no doubt record-breaking streak of ejections, from which the Ejection part of my name was born. She put me into a mental hospital at the tender age of seventeen because I smoked pot. The hospital eventually threw me out. I have, in total, been ejected from two mental institutions, the U.S. Army draft board during the height of the Vietnam War, a jail, and several lesser venues that ordinarily pride themselves on maintaining long term possessive relationships with their clientele.”

ENDING OF THE CHAPTER

      The nurse said that she would give my note to the newspapers. Whether she ever did is questionable. Armed guards brought me back to the jail. They deposited me in my own special isolation cell, probably figuring that my next move could be to incite a riot. Within a few hours of my return, the head of the whole county’s jail industry/system came to my private digs. At her request, the guards left us alone in the cell.

       She got right to the point. “You’re making a lot of noise for just one guy. What’s going on?”

       She got the full Eddie account of the problems I had witnessed in her facility, including my little personal problem of being locked up for seven days without access to a lawyer. A lawyer seemed necessary to repair the nonsense responsible for my being in this hellhole. She listened.

       “I’ll see what I can find out,” she said as she left.

        Forty minutes later, the guards came to my cell and escorted me to the front desk. They advised me that I was free to go.

         I asked if they were toying with me. “Hitchhiking is still my only way out of here. Are we going to have to go through all this again down the road?” I asked. Hey, you never know what these guys could be setting you up for.

           The guard answered with such a seriously apologetic tone that he couldn’t have been lying. “All police personnel has been notified about your case, sir. You can, within the legal limits, go to wherever you want to go, using whatever means you want to use to get there and do whatever you want to do within this county. We’re not going to bother you again, sir.”

            I smiled. “Thanks, brother.”

           The guard looked up and smiled back at me. He seemed touched by the fact that after all that had happened, perhaps the most difficult prisoner of his career would be calling him brother.

          He spoke to me in a gentle tone. “I am going to think about some of the things you said while you were here. A lot of it was right, I think.” The guard returned my shoelaces and belt as he offered his free hand for me to shake.

          I shook his hand. “Thank Bobby Sands, my friend. He’s the one who gave me the hunger strike idea.”

         “Who’s Bobby Sands? We don’t have any Bobby Sands locked up in here. Where’s he from?” asked the puzzled guard.

           As he opened the last set of doors between the jail and my freedom, the guard promised to read up on the man considered a saint by many Irish folks (although he is certainly not as popular with others).

          About a hundred yards after my release, a police car pulled over. From its open window, the officer asked, “Which way are you going, Ed?”

         “Headed into town, officer. Same place as eight days ago.” The officer nodded. “Hop in. You’ve got a ride.”        And that, my friend, is the story of how Ejection Eddie got thrown out of the military draft, two mental hospitals, and jail—and how he earned his name.

          I was struck by his stories and told him so. “Ed, no one I’ve ever met has even gotten into that much trouble, much less been able to get out of it!”

           Ejection Eddie’s simple response impressed me as much as his stories had. “It’s not magic, buddy. Of course, you have to keep your eyes open for life’s little snares. You can avoid most trouble just by doing that! But sometimes a situation can blindside you, even when you have had your eyes open! Like a moth caught on the edge of a spider web, you have to keep flapping those wings until you escape. You can’t panic—and you definitely can’t get discouraged and give up. If you rationally, energetically, and consistently (but patiently) keep moving toward your freedom, you can escape from almost any trap. Creative confidence and dogged perseverance can make you free. Lack of faith in your own ability, surrender of your will power to another, or panic replacing logic and common sense will make you into a spider’s lunch.”

Ten - The Author

Doug “Ten” Rose may be the biggest smartass as well as one of the most entertaining survivors of the hitchhiking adventurers that used to cover America’s highways. He is the author of the books Fearless Puppy on American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense, has survived heroin addiction and death, and is a graduate of over a hundred thousand miles of travel without ever driving a car, owning a phone, or having a bank account.

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[starblaster]

i’m deleting the version of my psychiatric survivor pride day post with the addition addressing that pro-psychiatry bootlicker. it’s clear they didn’t read the post and just wanted to highjack and derail for the sake of ranting and picking a fight.

[withasmoothroundstone]

The Lanterman Act is not the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act.  Don’t confuse them.

The Lanterman Act, or the Lanterman Developmental Disabilities Act, is an act governing the rights of and services for people with developmental disabilities in the state of California.  Under the Lanterman Act, people are supposed to be guaranteed the right to live in their own homes regardless of degree of disability.  This doesn’t always play out in practice, but it’s supposed to, and it gives people the leverage to do so.  And that’s just one of many important things it does.

The Lanterman-Petris-Short act is about involuntary commitment for people with psychiatric disabilities in the state of California.  It deals mostly with 72-hour involuntary holds (a.k.a. 5150), 14-day involuntary holds (a.k.a.5250), and temporary conservatorship.

I was once dealing with an... interesting... psych survivor/ex-patient group in California.  The woman who ran it seemed so desperate to find any ally anywhere, and any foothold anywhere, that it didn’t actually matter whether the ally or the foothold made sense.  

For example, she was always carrying around Scientology posters at protests.  Scientology has always regarded psychiatry as competition, which is their original reason for being anti-psychiatry.  Before Scientology was made into a fake religion, the basics of Scientology were touted as an alternative to psychiatry.  Psychiatry was in direct competition with them.  After they became a full-on cult, they turned on psychiatry as systematically as they turned on their detractors, the IRS, and anyone else they hated.  They didn’t care about the human rights abuses of psychiatric patients, they just saw those human rights abuses as a means to make psychiatry look bad.  If the human rights abuses weren’t there, and psychiatry was some kind of miracle wonder science free of any serious ethical problems, they’d have just made something up, just like they randomly try to make their high-profile detractors look like pedophiles.  Scientology does things to its own members that are just as bad as the worst things in psychiatry.  And the likelihood of terrible and even deadly things go up if they basically identify someone as crazy.  Here’s an example of what they call the “Introspection Rundown”, a response to a “psychotic episode” or “complete mental breakdown”:

Declaration of Roxanne Friend, a former Scientologist, declaration given under penalty of perjury, references depositions.  Read that over and tell me how it differs from the general range of fucked-up things involuntary psychiatry will often do to someone they deem to be psychotic or having a mental breakdown. And if you want for some reason to hear about a more nightmarish Introspection Rundown, google Lisa McPherson. (Spoiler: She died as a direct result of the Rundown.)

I’m sorry -- I know politics makes strange bedfellows, but I refuse to be bedfellows with a destructive cult just because it happens to think that a very destructive industry is competition.  And I refuse to believe anything I hear about psychiatry from Scientology unless i’ve heard it from another source that isn’t a Scientology front group.  (The Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights is a Scientology front group.  Just so everyone’s clear.)  

Also to make it perfectly clear:  Scientology has not helped the psychiatric survivor/ex patient/mad pride sort of movements.  All it’s done is make everyone convinced that former psychiatric patients criticizing psychiatry are actually just a bunch of Scientologists and safely ignored.  Pretty much every time I express a view critical of psychiatry as a whole, someone tries to tell me -- or anyone around who will listen -- that I must be a Scientologist.  Between Scientology and the so-called dissident psychiatrists, it’s very hard for actual crazy people to criticize psychiatry and be taken seriously.  Like, it’s bad enough that being crazy is enough to discredit us in a lot of people’s eyes -- I’ve heard psych survivors described collectively, by psychiatrists, as everything from “psychotic people who have unfortunately never let go of their paranoid process” to “borderline personalities who like drama and attention”.  But even if we get past that stage, we’re going to be associated with L. Ron Hubbard, David Miscavige, Peter Breggin, and R. D. Laing, whether we like it or not.  And that’s only the start of the misconceptions about us and what our actual views are.  We pretty much can’t get a word in edgewise because everyone already things they know what we’re thinking.  

And bottom line-- Scientology/the CCHR make this all worse, not better.  They hinder our ability to get human rights abuses exposed and dealt with.  And then they try to recruit people into what’s basically one giant human rights abuse disguised as a religion for a combination of tax-evasion and recruiting purposes.

But to her, they didn’t like psychiatry so she was on board 100% and didn’t care what anyone said about the hellish things that happened in Scientology.  (And yet wanted people to listen to her about the hellish things that happens in psychiatry.)

So on that note...

One day I was grumbling about the governor.  He was threatening to repeal the Lanterman Act to save money.  (It was unclear that this would actually save money, but even if it would, that’s not an acceptable reason to remove people’s right to live in our own homes.)  I was legitimately afraid, because I was getting Supported Living Services through the Regional Center system and all that could fall apart and I could end up in an institution permanently, or on the streets, depending on whether the system chose abuse or neglect as their basic response.

Her response? “The Lanterman Act is what makes involuntary commitment possible.  They should repeal it.”

I was like... “I’ve read the entire thing.  I didn’t see that there.”

She insisted it was, in fact, there.

I do have reading comprehension issues.  I concluded I must’ve missed it.  I told her that removing the Lanterman Act would likely land me in an institution.

She started yelling at me about how I was -- this is almost a direct quote -- “just like the people in the concentration camps who were willing to sell out their fellow inmates because they got a few favors from the Nazis”.  Which... seemed pretty harsh for a brief conversation about a topic we both seemed fuzzy about the details of.  And she decided to support the governor because of his desire to repeal the Lanterman Act.

I later scoured the Lanterman Act and couldn’t find any of the shit she talked about.  I had little enough self-confidence that I assumed I must be totally misunderstanding something major.  

Much later, almost by accident, I learned two things.

One, I was right.  The Lanterman Act is not the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, and the governor had no plans on repealing the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act.

Two, even if it had been the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, I don’t think she was thinking it through.  Because... the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act sucks.  In huge ways.  It allows for things that are quite dangerous to people.  I’ve been 5150ed and 5250ed more times than I can count.  

The local adult psych ward was a death trap I was lucky to escape alive without getting snagged into a hold cycle until something happened I couldn’t get out of (I have a deadly reaction to one of their favorite meds, and both psych professionals and ER professionals are trained to be cynical about anyone who says they react to them, even though my reaction was originally witnessed and documented by a gaggle of professionals).  They routinely drugged people until their throats tightened up enough they had trouble speaking, and then took them to their commitment hearings in that state to be talked about in the third person and made to look as incompetent as possible while unable to talk back.  One thing our group did was visit to keep an eye on patients who didn’t have anyone else looking out for them.  And they did everything in their power, including spontaneously changing visiting hours the moment they saw us, to keep us out of there.

So I’m no fan of California’s involuntary commitment policy or the fact that people could be stuck in places like that particular psych ward.

But repealing the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act would not actually get rid of involuntary commitment, nor would it improve the conditions for people under involuntary commitment.  What people don’t all seem to realize is that the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act was put into place to limit indefinite commitment times and to limit the reasons for involuntary commitment.  It didn’t do enough, obviously.  It didn’t end it.  But before the L-P-S Act, you could commit people indefinitely and for incredibly vague reasons.  So the L-P-S act overall reduced commitment times and made it harder to commit people.  People who want commitment to be easier are always complaining about how hard it’s been made to commit people.  It’s not that hard, in my experience, but it’s still harder than it could be.  Harder than it used to be.  Harder than it would be without it.

If they want to do away with involuntary commitment, that doesn’t take repealing the L-P-S Act, it takes writing new law to govern what would actually happen instead, and then repealing or replacing or amending it or however that kind of thing works.  It would, in fact, probably very similar to parts of the actual Lanterman Act, at least at first.  The Lanterman Act didn’t do away with institutionalization of people with developmental disabilities, but it took huge steps in that direction and made alternatives to institutions part of the new way things were structured.  

And it is really inappropriate to ask someone to risk backsliding into institutions after progress has been made in doing away with those institutions, just because you think it might make it harder to put you in an institution for 3 to 14 days.  And to gratuitously call them a Nazi collaborator if they don’t instantly agree with you -- on a point of view that in this case didn’t even turn out to be based on something real.  So for all I know this lady is still out there trying to get people with developmental disabilities put in institutions permanently so that (as she imagines things) it’s harder to put her on a temporary hold in an institution.  This is why it’s important to actually look up a law and its history as best you can, before throwing resources into changing it.  Because whether she hit the right law or the wrong one, getting it repealed would in either case result in long-term, even indefinite or permanent, involuntary institution stays for a lot of people.

Mistaking Lanterman for Lanterman-Petris-Short makes sense, but it’s a hell of a mistake to make and all the reason to be more careful.  And I wouldn’t put it past some law somewhere to give rights to one group of disabled people and take that same right away from another group of disabled people simultaneously, but you can’t just yank the rights out from under that first group of people without replacing it with something else, or you’re just reversing the situation.

[maria-marsden]

“No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof”. – William James, (1890),The Principles of Psychology.

“I is for Intersex, not Invisible!” – a popular LGBTQIA+ Pride slogan.

I am intersex, but I have not always identified as such. An intersex person is someone who is born with variations in their biological sex characteristics that do not conform to what is biologically or culturally considered typically male or female.

Sex characteristics are genitals, reproductive organs, chromosomes and hormone patterns.

In my case I was born with Mullerian Aplasia (aka MRKH or Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser Syndrome) and unilateral gonadal agenesis. MRKH affects about 1 in 9000 of the world population. Intersex people as a whole number >1.7%. We are more common than autistic people. We are more common than people born with natural red hair.

Like many intersex people, l was born with more than one intersex variation. My uterus was not formed properly, I was born without a cervix and 3/4 of my vagina canal has been absent since birth. I ovulate and have very bad period pains, but have never “started my periods” in the typical understanding of the term.

At birth, I was presumed to be female. I had a vulva that appeared typically female. At puberty, I developed breast tissue, pubic hair ET cetera. However, by the age of 18, l had still not started my periods. I was very thin then and at first, doctors thought this was due to me being underweight.

In 1989, I had a laparoscopy. The female doctor informed me that I was born without a uterus and with a very short vagina [ about 2 centimetres ]. She said that I would never be able to have sex without surgery and also suggested that I might find it very difficult to find a partner who would accept me.

“But there are a few nice men out there,” she said. I was told that I should come back and have surgery when I was about to get married. The surgery would involve cutting skin off my arm and grafting it into a vagina. It’s a lot to take in when you are 18.

I was actually just about turn 18 at the time....traditionally the age of reaching adulthood. I reached a state of something, but I couldn’t articulate what it was. I couldn’t articulate what I was.

Of course, there was a part of me that really wanted to challenge the doctors. I wanted to say things like, “what do you mean I can’t have sex? I can already have orgasms.” I wanted to say, “How do you know that I am heterosexual? I might be a lesbian for all you know.” (I hadn’t answered the question of my sexuality then. This medical trauma always intruded on my attraction to women.) I wanted to shout, “How do you even know that I want to be a female? I might want to have a penis!” [ I didn’t, but l certainly considered this option] I wanted to ask, “but what about anal?” But I didn’t dare. [ I was a shy, withdrawn 18 year old. ]

I did have sex and healthy relationships, including penetrative sex without dilation or surgery. I’m happily married, but for a long time I thought that by having sex without medical treatment, I was doing something wrong. This is one of the perils being diagnosed a malformed female.

Whatever you do misdiagnosed as a malformed female, you're always going to think that you're doing something wrong... that you are wrong or inadequate in some way.

When I tell people that I am intersex, a lot of folk assume that being intersex is a term that medics diagnosed me with. The truth is that since the beginning of gynaecological medicine, doctors and surgeons have hardly ever diagnosed anyone as intersex.

When medics first became interested in what they termed “hermaphroditism” or “people of doubtful sex”, their interest was not in diagnosing intersex, but just the opposite. Medics were then (and still are) only interested in finding intersex patients so that they can diagnose our true sex as female or male and force treatments or surgery that will make us less queer in the minds of those around us. Politically and throughout Western history, this is to maintain white cis heteronormative male privilege.

At the age of nearly 18, I wasn’t diagnosed as being intersex. I was diagnosed as a malformed female who hadn’t formed properly and would never do so without intersex genital mutilation [surgery] or prescribed self harm [ dilation with a glass dildo/test tube].

Medics suggested that as much as possible I keep what little information they have given me about my body to myself. For the most part I did. I spent the next 30 years of my life living in shame and secrecy. This shame and secrecy was compounded when my female friends talked about their periods or sex life. I was different. I didn’t have a language for describing my experiences.

I didn’t have the exact same experiences in terms of rights of passage assumed to be common to all women. I felt included in the category of female, only in as much as I was excluded by a body that didn’t conform and the lack of language for my experiences. I felt invalid as a female and invisible.

I didn’t have intersex genital mutilation. I was almost persuaded to, but I became traumatised by the pre op dilation and the thought of having to continue to do this.

Being diagnosed a malformed female destroyed all sense of my personal and body integrity. The only way that I could keep myself together, was to tear myself apart. I was ending up in A and E every other day with severe self harm. The only way to make myself visible, was to visibly disappear. I became anorexic. I had been starved of the opportunity to grow up knowing other intersex people. I was in my own prison of shame and secrecy and on a hunger strike.

I ended up spending two years as an inpatient in various institutions in the psychiatric system. I was further pathologized and invalidated by the psychiatric system in the UK . In addition to my diagnosis as malformed female, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

BPD is basically the mark of Cain of the DSM. When a BPD diagnosis is put on a person, whole heap of assumptions are made about that persons personality. These assumptions include, manipulative, attention seeking, passive aggressive, incapable of healthy personal relationships, emotionally immature, unable to grow up, promiscuous, reckless, impulsive ET cetera

Indeed a number of studies and critiques have shown that sexual minorities, trans, non binary and gender non conforming people are more likely to be diagnosed with BPD. Some psychologists and mental health professionals even have the audacity to suggest that what psychiatrists now term “gender dysphoria” is caused by having a borderline personality disorder. One psychiatrist had me fill out a questionnaire to see how much my gender conformed to what is considered typical for women. (To this day, l don’t know why).

I certainly did not come out to psychiatrists as being agender/non binary. I did acknowledge identifying as a lesbian and experienced some psychiatrists trying to tell me otherwise. Despite never having had surgery, one psychiatrist felt it necessary to put in my medical notes that l had a vaginoplasty (even though l had no such thing)! He even asked me if l hung around dark alley ways late at night so that l could get raped. (WTF??????)

Not all the psychiatrists l saw agreed that l had “borderline personality disorder”. The psychiatrist whom l did get along with and who was my main psychiatrist diagnosed PTSD and depression. He said that “borderline personality disorder” was just psychiatric speak for “bugger off and die!”

At that time under the 1983 mental health act in the UK, BPD was deemed “untreatable”. This meant that if a psychiatrist diagnosed a patient with BPD and they committed suicide, the psychiatric team would not legally be held accountable. Indeed, in one hospital a psychiatrist who had insisted that l had BPD said that if l were to leave the hospital and jump off a multi storey car park, he wouldn’t try and stop me!

I did not have a borderline personality disorder. If l was guilty of anything, it was a kind of “trauma re-enactment”. Traumatised by medical violence and psychic mutilation at age 18, I turned to mutilating myself and seeking help from the very same people who had traumatised me in the first place, [the medical system].

Self mutilation led to more psychic mutilation at the hands of the psychiatric system. Now, not only was my body and sex malformed, I was told that my personality was malformed too.

With the help of some good friends who were also psychiatric survivors, I eventually managed to recover and distance myself from the psychiatric profession, challenging their assumptions about me. It took me a long time after that to feel brave enough to reach out and find other intersex people like me.

In 2020 during the first Covid 19 lockdown, I reached out to MRKH groups and found others with the same variations in sex characteristics as myself. I wasn’t alone anymore but I was still a female with missing pieces.

I found the missing pieces in Esther Leidolf’s “The Missing Vagina Monologue and Beyond”, the documentary “InterseXion”and Hida Valoria’s book “The Spectrum of Sex”.

I learned that I wasn’t a female with missing pieces, but an intersex person who had been mistreated, misunderstood and misdiagnosed as a malformed female. I found my community, my anger, my grief and I found myself.

I admit, that when l first learned that MRKH is considered an intersex variation by intersex activists, l had a huge fear of reaching out to those communities. In many ways, l was afraid to become the person that l am today. I was afraid of being someone who could talk just as easily about being intersex as l could about being autistic.

I was also afraid that if l were to come out as intersex, people might make assumptions about my genitals. To be honest, l got so much support from the intersex community that l very quickly realised that other people’s assumptions were not my problem.

It’s much easier now that l am comfortable being intersex to chat with my female friends when they talk about their periods or sex life. As an intersex person, l am not incomplete, invalid or inadequate, l am just different from the majority.

The main benefit of connecting mostly with intersex groups (as opposed to MRKH “syndrome”) groups is that l no longer have to focus on what is supposedly “wrong with me”. I don’t have to see myself as broken. I have had trauma certainly, but I am no longer broken.

I still connect with the MRKH community. As an intersex activist, it’s important that l understand the issues faced by those who identify MRKH as a female variation or condition. I certainly would not have found my way to the intersex community had it not have been for some of my MRKH Sisters and Siblings.

I spent the first thirty years after my laparoscopy, diagnosed as a malformed female, forced into a space where I would be alone with my difference, silenced and invisible and unable to grow.

Finally, having found the intersex community, I feel like I have found an environment to nourish me, to enable me to grow my way and become my myself. I am unlearning and learning continuously about myself. I have some new language and l am beginning to create my own words and terms.

I am nearly 50 now and have come to the conclusion that life is too short not to be myself and l don't give a shit about what other people might think or gossip about me.

I use identity first language. The natural variations in my body and mind are not disorders. I am an autistic intersex person, rather than a person born with autism and an intersex variation. I mean how many people say that they were born with maleness or femaleness?

And just because l describe myself this way l am not saying that being intersex and autistic are the only things about me. Yet to me, they are important things about me because l would much rather have been born with a very fertile mind than a fertile reproductive system.

Many intersex people are autistic or neuro diverse. I feel that l am "inter" in many ways other than just biological sex characteristics. I travel between worlds and have had visitations since childhood from other worlds. The indigenous people of America understood this. Intersex autistic people were seen as the "bridges between worlds" and had important roles in the healing of their communities and as peacemakers. Perhaps this is why l have developmental topographical disorientation. (l can read physical maps well, but get lost in familiar places). I am not broken, just different. Where l lack development in one area, l excel and am evolved in others. Nature does not make mistakes.

XOXY

[starblaster]

maybe don’t reblog my fucking post if you have “mixed feelings” about antipsychiatry, then. especially on a post celebrating psychiatric survivor pride day. there was no need for you to tell me you believe this schizophrenic person you know needs or deserves to be forced into an inherently traumatizing environment against his will.