Theos-Talk Archives (December 2002 Message tt00724)

Dear BAG:

I read your post with interest but I am confused. Are you referring 
to Gender Identity Disorder? I studied about that at the university 
but never have met anyone who experienced it. GID is a psychological 
condition which is different from hermaphroditism.

Early pictures of HPB look quite feminine to me, although in voice, 
mannerisms, etc., she might have been more masculine than most women 
of her era. There is no sign in anything she wrote that she dealt 
with GID.

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Bhakti Ananda Goswami 
<bhakti.eohn@v...>" <bhakti.eohn@v...> wrote:
> TYPO CORRECTED AT >> <<
> 
> Now it is clear from photos of HPB that she did not experiance the 
> kind of phyical masculinization that I did. Late virilizing forms 
of 
> either XX or XY intersex are extremely rare. In these conditions, 
the 
> child and adolesent may appear as a normal female. After a rather 
> extreme >>(and possibly very late...in their 20s) 'puberty'<<, in 
> which a 
> phallus grows and secondary male sex characteristics develope, the 
> person can no longer hide their transformation...or 'sex reversal' 
> without great difficulty. This is obviously NOT what happened to 
> HPB, but being feminine in her youth does not mean anything, as the 
> late virilizing forms of intersex HOWEVER MILD OR EXTREME, do not 
> NECESSARILY effect the person's pre- 'puberty' (pre-masculinizing) 
> femininity. 
> 
> GENDER IDENTITY IS DIFFERENT FROM THE ROLES THAT PEOPLE LEARN TO 
PLAY 
> FOR FAMILY AND SOCIAL APPROVAL. Even as a small child, I always 
knew 
> I was a boy, and had started secretly calling myself David by the 
age 
> of 9. At the age of 11 I introduced myself to my closest friend as 
> David. At that time (and for years to come) I still showed no 
> obvious external signs of being intersexed, that my family or 
others 
> could detect. Still I was extremely neurologically fetally 
> androgenized, even to the extent of 'knowing' I was 'really a boy'. 
> So it is entirely possible that HPB had some late-virilizing form 
of 
> intersex and a persistent sense of a masculine self, but developed 
a 
> feminine familial and public persona for survival reasons. 
> 
> --- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Bhakti Ananda Goswami 
> <bhakti.eohn@v...>" <bhakti.eohn@v...> wrote:
> > Dear Paul,