Intersex people number amongst some of the most abused people ever on this planet.
The abuses perpetrated against us include the sexual, psychological, physical, and nowhere on Earth do we have full human, civil or medical rights.
We are situated so low on the tree of humanity that we are regarded as subhuman in many places.
Some of us in Australia are treated with a casual brutality our non-intersex fellow Australians simply cannot bring themselves to believe.
That has certainly been my experience as I have endured a lifetime of abuse that continues even now, in different forms, in my personal and professional life.
It seems that once the cycle of abuse begins, at birth, the abused, and especially abused intersex people are easily detected by habitual abusers throughout the rest of their lives.
That we can often look different to non-intersex people is a sign to abusers, and they latch on to us, whether they consciously know they are doing it or not.
Whether they even understand that they are being abusive, or not.
We may also behave differently to non-intersex people, another red flag waving itself to abusers – a lifetime of abuse damages us, physically, psychologically.
When one is so abused, it is hard to trust… anyone.
When trust hard-won is betrayed, it may never be given again.
And rightly so.
Sometimes the abused become abusers, and even invite other known abusers in to assist them in their work.
Look at the damage that ISNA, and its founders, and the organisation it morphed into have done to intersex people all over the world.
Their actions have rippled throughout the intersex world.
Trust in another intersex person is much harder to win back than winning it in the first place.
We must treat each other better than non-intersex do, and far, far better than our abusers ever will.
Otherwise we will lose everything that we have ever gained, and will have nothing, absolutely nothing, and will continue to have nothing, as before.
Activism on behalf of intersex can extract a heavy price.
Not being active on our own behalf can also extract a cost.
Which one do we choose?
