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Judy in college
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My Life as an Intersexual
Part 2 | Back to part 1
But I also carried another truth, a terrible corollary to the first secret: I
cannot be with women. For being with a woman revealed what I wasn't—"finished," a girl, normal—and (so much worse) revealed what I was—a
freak, a monster, an anomaly.
While my single male partner had been relatively nonplussed about my manmade
parts, my single female partner couldn't help but notice and comment on the
fact that I was different. I used these ridiculously inadequate sample sizes to
draw the painfully obvious, jaded, bitter conclusion: Men wouldn't care or
comment on my scars; focused only on having someplace to "stick it," they would
barely notice any difference between me and other women they might have had sex
with, since they simply wouldn't be paying that kind of attention. Women, on
the other hand, would notice immediately the dreadful gulf between normal and
me and run the other way.
Not surprisingly, I tried to kill myself.
In the days before Prozac and HMOs, recovery from a suicide attempt meant three
months in a community mental health center, time I used to resign myself to a
meaningless life with a man I couldn't love. Once released, I continued to take
my self-loathing to therapy, bedding down with (and eventually marrying) the
next guy to come along.
Judy (right) and Tamara in Philadelphia,
October 1994
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At this time, during a routine check of my immunization records for a job I was
applying for at a hospital, I obtained some old medical records and learned
things my parents and doctors had never intended me to know. Desperately
confused, my therapist and I had sent for and received the neonatal surgical
records that outlined the medical history described above. What had been an
embarrassingly large clitoris was suddenly revealed to have been a hideously
deformed penis, and the possibility of ever being with a woman became even more
remote; the wondrous, wonderful identity that had lasted all of a plane flight
from LAX to JFK—lesbian—was robbed again, seemingly forever.
Now fully convinced I was a monster, I stayed with my husband, certain no one
else could ever love or want me. Until, thankfully, I met Tamara. With all the
force and subtlety of a tsunami, she flooded my senses, roared through my heart
and my bed. I found myself swept into divorce, scandal, debt, and—such
unimagined bliss—her.
Coming out as a lesbian was the single most powerful act I had ever undertaken.
Despite social and family pressures, despite a mountain of shame surrounding my
queered genitals, I did it, and my liberation—I thought—was complete. I
wasn't an "unfinished girl"—I was butch!
But a proud butch identity and a powerful femme at my side weren't enough;
Frankenstein's monster would not be propitiated. After the "honeymoon" period
of our relationship, the old self-loathing returned, self-loathing and
self-destructiveness. How could I be a butch if I was "really" a man? How could
I call myself "lesbian" when I wasn't even a woman? I felt like an imposter, a
fraud, and now more than ever, a freak.
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Max in 1997
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Another hospitalization for depression—a shorter stay this time, thanks to
the advent of antidepressants and HMOs. A dark chrysalis period, focused on
another, deeper coming out: coming out as intersexed.
Tomboy, unfinished girl, walking head, Frankenstein, butch—these were all
just so many wonderful/terrible, sharp/ill-fitting suits; the body wearing them
was and is transgendered, hermaphroditic, queer. And an important, even
essential element of that queerness was the trauma that accompanied it, the
medicalization, the scars, the secrecy, the shame. I was born a tiny, helpless
almost-boy, but the way my world responded to me is what made and makes me
intersexed.
In March of 1998, after over a decade of therapy, I decided to switch to
testosterone and transition to male. Since 1996, I had been an active part of
the intersex community, and by deciding to transition, I thought I was copping
out. I felt like a deserter, a coward, fleeing the frontlines of the gender
war. As a politically aware intersexual, I felt it was my duty to be as
brazenly androgynous, as visibly hermaphroditic as possible. But to return to
the body/suit metaphor, I was starting to feel very naked and very cold. My
"naked" body was scaring little old ladies out of public restrooms, making
seemingly simple tasks, such as shopping, surprisingly difficult:
"Is this your mother's credit card, young man?"
So I've found a new suit—a different name, the "other" hormone, a different
letter on my driver's license—that fits better, that's tailored to
me.
Max and Tamara on their wedding day, February
12, 2000
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Tamara and I have been together for seven years now, despite my—now "our"—continued struggle with my issues of shame and anger, my muddled, muddied,
fuzzy gender. We married in February 2000 and now have a baby girl, Alder, whom
we conceived using Tamara's egg and a donor's sperm. We both still identify as
lesbians, so "becoming" heterosexual is not without its challenges. Tamara
constantly feels she is masquerading and must explain and challenge those
assumptions. In fact, my change of clothes has forced her to re-examine her
entire wardrobe—both literally and figuratively.
Looking in the mirror every morning, I am reminded of just how outward outward
appearances are. Moving through the world, I'm just a guy: a husband, a father,
a computer geek, a manager, looking forward to becoming a grandfather and a
sage. Does the Y chromosome in (only) some of my cells and the facial hair I'm
growing make me any less a girl, a tomboy, a lesbian, a butch, a woman? I have
worn all of these identities, so surely they are mine, even if they no longer
fit, even if they were never my birthright, never mine to wear. I cannot undo
my history, and I am sick to death of regretting it, so those hard-won
honorifics will have to stand. When I look in a mirror, I see all of
them.
Max with Alder |
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Max Beck is a self-described computer wonk who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with
his wife and baby daughter, and strives to stay true to his curving path in a
linear world. |
Photos: Courtesy of Max Beck
My Life as an Intersexual |
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Two Sexes Are Not Enough
The Intersex Spectrum |
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