To read scanned article above: Jim Costich 2005 Esquire Article By Jim Costich This article was written at a very heady time in my life. I had joined the gay men's naturist club and running around naked in the woods with other naked men who could all see at a glance that I don't… Continue reading Jim Costich: An Intersex Man Before His Time in Esquire Magazine 2005
The surgeries for Hypospadias are sold like kool-aid or a Pepsi commercial by some clinics and hospitals. The new latest and greatest technique being competed for by surgeons. The life of the child in the balance. Is it a girl? Is it a boy? Never to ask if the child should get to decide… Continue reading A survivor of Intersex Genital Mutilation: Is Hypospadias Intersex?
A Memoir from Jim Costich, 2003 I was 44 before I found out what my body contains and what being intersex might mean as I age. I was born with ambiguous genitals in 1957 and I had no surgery. I've been on hormones since I was a teen because I have… Continue reading ……But Now I Have to Scream
I have an intersex cousin who was born about ten years after me. They allowed a surgeon to cut off their child's phallus for no good reason. They allowed themselves to be talked into the utterly crazy belief that all there is to be a woman is to be missing a penis. Worse, this surgeon… Continue reading Being rejected by my family because of what I represent when I speak up for my intersex cousin who was mutilated.
Nature created diversity and variety. Nature did not create the male, female binary. Nature's variations create our genitals, reproductive systems, chromosomes and hormones. Not everyone is sexually born typical, and "typical" is not "normal". There are just more typical people in this world, and needless to say typical people made the rules about "normalcy".… Continue reading Five ways I show that the Male/Female Binary is a Myth, and a Social Construct. Nature has always Created Sexual Variety and Diversity.
Few realize this simple scientific fact: In the developing fetus, the same spot that develops into a typical (endosex) clitoris or penis is called the Genital Tubercle. In embryology this spot has also been called the “primordial phallus.” As you can see below, the genitals are very much the same in appearance from 9 to 11… Continue reading Eight Names for the SAME thing: Penis, Phallus, Clitoris, Phalloclitoris, Micropenis, Microphalus, Clitoromegaly and Pseudo-Penis.
This diagram, above, shows some of the varieties of genital appearance that can occur in some forms of intersex. Often, when a baby is born appearing like one of these varieties of human, it is considered a "psychosocial emergency"; and doctors want to make the child appear as typical as possible as soon as possible. The… Continue reading It is time to stop the “normalizing” genital surgery on intersex infants!
As a person born intersex, October 2014, I desperately needed to reclaim my true gender. It was for health, mental and spiritual reasons. It had become life or death for me at this point. To get help, I had to seek out a transgender doctor, because no other doctor would go against my assigned gender… Continue reading Why was I diagnosed with GENDER DYSPHORIA?
Mx. Anunnaki Ray Marquez 