At the risk of getting screamed at and having the Polizi drag me to Gitmo in defense of their twisted fucking culture, here comes my homage to my vagina for V-Day.
Cross-posted from GentillyGirl :
I came into this world with a vagina. (And I came out of one too) It was part of my being, the plan… Nature. Bio-chemistry and genetics created a very different creature… one that contained all forms of Humanity. I was just a little collection of protoplasm who had a vagina. Had…
They took it away from me. That little part of my body that was mine by birthright, and they took it away. Why did this happen? Well, my being violated a bullshit Societal concept: I didn’t fit the Gender Polarity rules. I had to be “fixed” in order to preserve the status quo. I was a teratology (literally: a monster) that had to be exorcised. Having something resembling a penis and a vagina? Shocking.
So they sewed my vagina shut, and then proceeded to create an extension of my urethra to give me a viable penis. Didn’t matter if I was rendered sterile… I just had to look right and fulfill a role as the first-born male. Maybe I wanted to be a woman, but once again, I didn’t get to make that call.
No one asked me what I wanted to be. I was just a piece of meat to be molded for Society’s shit. Call it a form of Female Genital Mutilation. That little part of me that could allow the creation of new Life was gone. My part in the great Chain of Life was negated. I would never be able to feel myself, my special gift, again. So much Light and love left me.
I couldn’t find my vagina for decades. That which I knew was mine was invisible. I had been “raped” in the most horrible of ways: my “self” was taken away. In time this would prove how close to the edge I felt inside. Trying to live up to expectations brought me to many dangerous situations… all because I had to Be, but my vision was not what others saw. I was looking for my vagina.
After many years of research, I figured I was a Transsexual. Something went wrong hormonally in utero. I had one false start on correcting this, but later would take the plunge into Living. This though was only swapping one role in Life for another. My freakin’ life was nothing but a vast stage, an act, a sham. I was still looking for my vagina.
Look at it this way: I gave up family and friends in order to take this “other path”. That’s what the psyches told us years ago. We had to be created again. We were convinced to start living a lie. It was, supposedly, the only way to find ourselves. We had to kill our pasts. This is a terrible road to walk down… half of my tribe will not live past the age of thirty. It’s a lonely walk.
Been there and done it, but I still couldn’t find my vagina.
Since ’01 I have been living a life that is closer to what I am. I have been vocal about who I am and what I am not. Living a lie would not end the pain I have lived with for an entire life. My life has meaning, and I am that meaning even though I couldn’t find my vagina. To know thyself is everything. Actually, it’s the only important thing in Life. From that point all flows. It’s the epiphany that all of us must come to in our lives. It is the end game.
Even with the above thoughts I was still in turmoil. My vagina was missing and I had no way to create new life. My purpose in this life was stymied. I continued to mourn over my missing vagina. I was not complete, even though I have a wonderful life partner, many fantastic people in my life and own a house in my most beloved New Orleans. I have the American Dream, but something was still “not there”.
Three days after the Federal Flood of New Orleans, I found my vagina, my little friend that was always with me in spirit, but not visible to me. One of my aunts told me the truth: I came into this life as both, everything… I am all, and that was taken away because of Patriarchal fuckmooks and their putrid shit mores. My vagina is still between my thighs. It may be only marked by the scar of my mutilation, my violation, but it’s still there. My vagina talks to me, reminds me of what I’m supposed to be doing in this incarnation.
I can’t cry over the Past anymore. It’s water under the bridge, and I found my little friend and in doing so, I found my life. My life is finally real. There can be no other form of living.
I rub my little friend, my vagina from time to time. I feel her inside of me, right to the centre of my being. Life courses through my body as it was meant to do. The vibrations of these feelings touch every part of my soul. I have come full circle, and it freakin’ feels good.
And in closing this out, though I may not be able to physically give life now, I can do so in other ways. I am a friend, a confidant… the fighter from Hades. I am a “Mother”. Helping folks realize their selves is a form of birth, and I can do that.
But I couldn’t do that without my vagina.
During the writing of this PhDaisy turned me onto a quote from Eudora Welty that sums up so much of what I “feel”:
“Greater than scene…is situation. Greater than situation is implication. Greater than all of these is a single, entire human being, who will never be confined in any frame”
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by an individual whose story was much like yours with the person who had founded the transgender society. Their interview with NPR lasted for about one stunning hour as they told their story.
This person had been born with an outsize clitoris/microphallus, a vestigial vagina with no uterus or ovaries, and recessed testicles.
In the beginning they were raised as a boy. Then at the age of one the urologists got ahold of the individual, surgically removed the clitoris/penis and testicles, pronouncing “her” a woman.
The family was instructed to move far away, break contact with everyone they ever knew, and embark on life as parents of a girl.
Life was a series of horrid doings with doctors, always under the pretense of some minor health problem… examinations, tests, limitless humiliations and above all a sense of being in the wrong body/gender.
At 12 or so, of course normal menstruation was impossible without ovaries, so the “girl” was injected with hormones to force breasts to grow.
Lies lies and more lies from the family, limitless trips to the peering insanity of McSpecialists…
At 21, “she” sued to see her medical records, revealing the full truth of it all. This naturally cost “her” relationship with her family for having submitted her to a life that was all a lie, never having once so much as talked with “her” about the feelings “she” had of actually being a boy.
Fast forward to present adulthood, the person testified that while peacably partnered, they were incapable of orgasm since essentially made into a eunuch with removal of the erectile member.
This was the founder of the transgender society, one key purpose of which was to introduce transgendered persons to one another and create a safe, nurturing environment for them to grow up as they were, then saving whatever surgical choices (if any) for adulthood.
Others spoke on that broadcast, including a top Canadian urologist who said in recent decades the number of babies born with transgendered tendencies had steadily mushroomed. Of that group, 90% could be pretty well identified with one sex, but the remaining 10% fell neatly outside of calling gender one way or another.
In Puerto Rico in particular, the urologist claimed, an enormous number of people were born transgendered.
Oh how this opened my eyes and heart, to hear this program. And I realized the sharp pain of life every day for those who bear such a burden, but particularly those who must suffer the arrogant society of much of the US rightwing, so defiantly proud of their ignorance.
You have my deepest sympathy for the utter betrayal of medicine and society you have endured. My best to you. Thank you so much for your courage of writing here.
Also infuriating.
Why do I believe the people who made the gender choice for you are horrified that you would reject the chance to be a male?
Thank you for sharing this with us.
I’m so glad you found out. What a terrible thing for you and your family to live through. Other than your Dad, I’m sure the family was all confused about the situation. I’m sorry to say that I think he was an ass.
I’m so happy you are here, and that you can be “you” now. Its also good to see you still have your sense of humor. 🙂
I experience so often GentillyGirl; people who have been through so much, as you have, to put your life together, are a real gift to us all. Thank you!
you’re now comfortable with yourself. At one time, the doctors thought that it was better to “pick one” than allow the child to be a “freak”–but hasn’t that changed somewhat in recent years?
Seems to me that it would be better to postpone surgery until the child hits puberty than to just guess…and thought I read/saw somewhere that the docs were more inclined to do so now…probably as a result of efforts by transgender groups.