Intersex Awareness Day

I wrote and posted this originally on facebook. But it's close enough to heart and an important enough issue that I'm posting it here as well, despite the fact it has nothing to do with Leather or BDSM. Please forgive my indulgence.

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So, apparently today is Intersex Awareness Day.

So here tis.

I'm intersex. I didn't know this until relatively recently in my life. I only found out while I was trying to medically transition, only to find out that I can't.

I'm a person.

Intersex people are not freaks or hermaphrodites. We are not "one in a million". We are more like one in a thousand, and that's conservatively. It's more likely that we're one in a hundred.

We can be men, women, both, or neither in identity. We can be cis or we can be trans. We can be straight, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual.

We exist.

When, during discussions on gender, sex, and/or intersex, you say things like "oh, but they're so rare, they don't count", you are being a douchebag. We count. There are millions of us. Just because we don't fit into your narrow ideas of how the world works does not mean that we don't count. The irony is that this sort of comment often comes from people who believe they're critical thinkers, logical people who work with evidence and facts rather than ideas or concepts.

We are people, and we are everywhere. You don't know if someone you know is intersex. You don't know if someone you're talking to is intersex. You only know if we tell you - and a lot of us don't come out, because it's a dangerous world out there to come out about being intersex.

So, on intersex awareness day, I'd like you to firstly, be aware of intersex people. We're real. Secondly, I'd like you to not be a douchebag about intersex people, for the rest of your life.

If you can do those two things, you'll make the world a much better place. And you'll be a decent person, which is its own reward.

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And just to clarify, for those who know little to nothing about me otherwise; I'm an intersex man, an intersex trans man to be exact. So the blog title, "Diary of a Leatherman" is entirely true. Just a little less complicated. :)

I'm a consumer whore!

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Dear Future [blank]

Dear future [blank],

I'm not sure what you are, just yet. I don't know your gender, I don't know your kinks, I don't even know your exact relationship to me.

Will you be my slave, my totally owned property? Will you be my sidekick submissive, as I am hero, and we fight the crime of sex negativity together? Will you be my puppy, to be petted and fed and sleep in the cage? Will you be a patient student, wanting to learn what I've learned from those before me? Will you be the submissive of my boy, who wants to be a part of my life as well? Or will you be something else entirely, that I haven't even thought of?

I don't know you yet, [blank]. But I do love you, dearly.

But I'm not ready for you yet.

I don't want you to think that this means I don't want you. I do want you, and in fact I want you terribly. I dream about you, I fantasize about you.

However, I am not ready yet. There are many physical things I must pull together in the coming months... my housing situation, my emotional situation... I have books to read and study to do, and things to organize. I'm not ready for you yet, because I want to be as pulled together as I can get before I meet you.

I hope that's all right.

Of course, if you appear before then, I hope that I have the strength to know it, and to accept you without worrying about the fact that I don't feel ready yet.

I look forward to meeting you, [blank], I think about you almost every day. I hope you can forgive me for not being ready for you yet.