The T-Male is Proud to Present: Jim Costich
Who Is Jim Costich?
An Intersexed Gay Man and This is His Story.
James Costich
December, 2002
My journey out of shame, fear,
self-loathing, and sexual dysfunction started with the eraser at the end of my
pencil. I
started by erasing “shoulds”. There were
far too many of them stuck on me to do it alone. I had the
help of an excellent sex therapist from within the GLBTI Community. I also had
the help of a loving partner, (9 years), who helped me have the sexual
experiences I needed to build a healthy sexuality, joining me in the adventure
and cheering me on.
Part of my finding and claiming my gender and sexuality as gay and
intersexed helped him find and claim his gender and sexuality as gay and male. That road
had bumps!
I was
sexually crippled by the word "should". Men should
be male, should have penises and testicles, shouldn't have any female organs at
all, should have masculine personalities, shouldn’t be like women but should
be heterosexual.
Should, should, should, the list is huge. My
body, mind, and personality didn't fit all the "shoulds" and had
plenty of "shouldn't's". No matter
how hard I tried to remake myself into the fantasy of what a man should be, the
reality of my own existence persevered. Stop. Go back. Look at that
statement closer.
If you are intersexed, intergendered, transgendered, transsexual,
masculine woman, effeminate man, or any other gender/sex variant person that’s
what you are. You’re
not a malformation of male/masculine/heterosexual or
female/feminine/heterosexual. Our truth doesn’t lie in being something else,
it lies in being exactly what we are, and in learning that it’s a good thing
to be what we are.
Without the "shoulds" in my way I
could finally look at myself in a mirror. Literally. My partner
and I took out a mirror, looked at, explored, and talked about my genitals. I stopped
imagining my body as what it "should" have been and started living in
it as it is. My
partner experienced this change as a barrier being lifted, he finally felt free
to touch me. I
always thought that people held back from touching or being oral with me because
I was malformed.
The truth was that they felt my guards go up and it made me
unapproachable.
My fear of rejection, not the shape of my genitals, caused me to be
rejected.
By finally exploring my body, I discovered I had anatomy I had never
known about. That’s an item for another story. When I gave
myself permission to like my body I could invite other people to enjoy it too. How could I
have been so trapped in thinking that a man with a vagina is a freak, a woman
with a penis is an abomination? Suddenly it
was so easy to be me, and I hadn’t done anything except tell myself, and
others that I am what I am and what I am isn’t quite male or female, it’s
both and neither.
All my life I thought that contrite, saccharine admonition to “Just be
you” actually meant, “Just be yourself as long as it’s heterosexual,
gender conforming and male/female. If you don’t fit those things you’d
better hide.” For the first time, it was a good thing to just be me, a gay
intersexed man.
I used to
think that no matter how much people loved me, how good a friend or lover I was
I could never compensate for my body. It
took a lot of positive sexual experiences for me to finally let go of my old
image of myself as deformed, and let people show me that exotic is exciting. I’m not
hideous I’m exotic!
We invited friends to have sex with us and no one kicked me out of bed. We joined a
gay men’s naturist club and no one gasped when I took my pants off. I started
getting lots of attention wandering around “clothing optional” gay men’s
camps because my friends knew about me and could brag about my sexual prowess as
well as call me a good friend. The more
positive experiences I had the better I felt about my body and myself. Several
times I’ve found myself the center of attention at sex parties (safe, sane,
sober and among friends). I’ve
learned that men with a bi-sexual quotient are most attracted to me. I’ve
learned that cock size really doesn’t matter, no matter how much we brag. I’ve
learned that being intersexed makes my experiences and perspectives on sex, love
and intimacy different in ways that are valuable to me, and others. I’ve
learned that what everyone wants more than anything else is to be held, and
everyone longs for love. I’ve even
learned that there are lots of anatomically male men who are more self-conscious
and inhibited about their bodies than I was.
Jim Costich 2003
I used to think that when men talked about wanting cock that meant they wouldn’t want me. After all, what I have between my legs isn’t the elephant trunk that everyone ooo’s and aahh’s about. Then came the realization that 90% of them didn’t have 10, 16, 24 inches with a 15, 20, 30 inch diameter either. This was followed by my sex therapist’s assertion that we all talk big but when we say we want “cocK” in reality what we want is the whole man. My therapist proved it in a 3 hour seminar attended by over 60 gay men entitled, “Does Size Really Matter?” It doesn’t. All 60 of us thought we were too small to be attractive no matter what we had, and none of us actually cared how big a man’s penis is when it came right down to it. Sometimes we act like we think we’re supposed to instead of as we really feel.
Lea Delaria (lesbian stand up comic) once told a story about a straight
man trying to hit on her with the promise that if she tried his penis she’d
forget all about women. Her reply,
“Oh, you misunderstand. I don’t
hate cock, I LOVE cock! Just not on men.”
The audience roared, of course. We
all know what she meant.
When Tim, (my partner of 10 years) and I discovered I had a
vagina, and after medical help discovered that it would be usable for sex I was
very nervous. I was excited at the
prospect of this new toy, felt like I was now a man PLUS something instead of
MINUS something, was thrilled at the new and fantastic sexual experiences I was
having but, isn’t this the very thing that gay men don’t like? My partner dismissed it with Lea
Delaria panache. “Jim, men love
vaginas. Vaginas feel fantastic, they are all kinds of fun. It’s not vaginas that turn gay men off it’s what’s
attached to them. You are going to be the star of the party, and frankly it’s
scaring me because once you walk into the room they’ll forget everyone else.” Oh, come on!! A hermaphrodite the life of the party? We’re freaks right? Revulsion,
shame, disbelief…… gotta cut it off, cut it out to “normalize” our
appearance, hide our bodies, hide ourselves and pretend we’re actually what we
were “supposed” to be, not what we are, right? Wrong.
The gender police in pediatric urology, gender clinics etc. had no idea what they were talking
about. People are not genitals,
people HAVE genitals. The entire of
manhood and womanhood cannot be summed up in genital shapes, organs, personality
attributes or even neurocognitive functioning. What and who we are is complex. Everyone can be interesting, intriguing
and exciting.
Ok, that’s men. Is it
commutative to women? When women
say they want pussy are they talking about a genital or do they really mean they
want a woman – the whole woman? If
many gay men love a man with a vagina, would there be gay women who love a woman
with a penis?
I’d been scouring the internet and came on an advertisement for a
bisexual sex party taking place in my city.
I’m curious. I know that
my female-ish parts aren’t exactly female just like my male-ish parts aren’t
exactly male. Was I looking for a course in comparative anatomy or a genuine
sexual experience? Yes to both. In
the past I’ve been scared to death of women, but I’m curious. So, we went to the party.
It was a real culture shock. Most
of the people were socially straight. The women were bi and God only knows about the men because
they were so scared they sat there like statues watching the women. I’m discovering that bisexual often
means the women are, but the men are straight and watch/play with the women. You have to work hard to find the kind
of bisexual, multi-partner environment where everyone is actively bisexual. I hoped we might have some sexual
experience with a woman at this party but it didn’t work out that way. Am I disappointed or relieved? That’s another story. After 3 hours, (we got there late), they
were still breaking the ice, were fully clothed except for some of the women who
wore sexy lingerie, and were slugging down a whole lot of booze to muster
courage. If this had been a gay
party it would have been long over by 3 hours, people would throw their clothes
off at the door and there is NEVER any booze – booze has a nasty effect on
erections and really messes up sex. This
was definitely not like home. We
met another couple who actually were both bisexual and have a gay son. They were
both essentially gay/lesbian, and socially leaned more gay than straight. They both affirmed that if they hadn’t
found their soul mates in each other they would be with someone of the same sex.
They were still very much in love after many years. He was there for men, and she was there
for women. We were connecting to
him and hoped she’d join in for a 4-way.
It turns out that she once had an intersexed girlfriend. The intersexed
girl friend had a vagina but also could stand to pee with her 3 inch long
phalloclit. She thought she was a
fantastic lover. Did she want to
have a 4-way with us? No. “You boys, go have a ball, a SAFE
ball. I really want to get some
pussy tonight.” “But,” I protested, “I have one!” “No, silly…..”, she said, “You’re a man with a
vagina. That turns me on, but tonight I’m looking for PUSSY, I want the WHOLE
PACKAGE.” She wanted a woman. She SAID pussy, but she MEANT the whole
woman. You see, the males sometimes
say “cock” when they mean “man” and the females say “pussy” when
they mean “woman”. Transsexual
friends tell me they have put this same thing to the test with the same results. How often have I missed the opportunity
for sex, romance, and love because I listened to what they said instead of what
they meant and thought it left me out? I
don’t even want to think. Thank
God I finally know better. Needless
to say we had a wonderful time with the husband who was thrilled to have an
encounter with a male man, and a man with a vagina because he was in the mood
for …… men.
It
seems like every time I go out I rediscover:
“You have to have XY,
testes, penis, prostate, no breasts and masculine personality, OR XX, ovaries,
clit, uterus and breasts and feminine personality or no one will want you,
relate to you, desire you, or fall in love with you. Anything
else is revolting to “normal” people.”
Every time I explode that lie I’m a step further from shame, secrecy, isolation and self-loathing. We can be the life of the party. Wanna dance?
Jim Costich 2003
I was 44 before I found out what my body contains and what kind of intersex I am. I had no surgery. I've been on hormones since I was a teen. I was assigned as if I were female but raised as if I were male starting in toddler hood because I called myself a boy. I've never felt dysphoric about my gender or my sex but I would if someone tried to force me to be something I’m not. I'm not what someone else thought I should be. I'm just what I am.
My parents weren't told much about what I was, just that my genitals were atypical and they thought it might have been the progestin they had prescribed for my mother before and into her pregnancy. My parents thought this meant my penis didn't completely develop, my urethra didn't seal, and that I had no testes. I always thought I was an unfinished male. I recently learned that I’m genetically XX, have a vagina that was collapsed, closed over and a little short, but healthy and is now opened and usable for sex. Do I have a tiny penis or a big clit? They're just variations on a single theme anyway. I like to call it a phalloclit, a term some other intersexed people like too. Physically I'm the opposite of what I thought I was. It changes nothing really; I'm the same man I was. At the same time it changes everything. I know more about my body now, about my truth. What I am is part of the story of who I am and now the missing pages are back in my book. I also know I'm not an inadequate male. I'm not male at all. I'm not female either. I'm Intersexed – both male and female in some ways and not exactly either in others. That set me free to be what I am rather than constantly apologizing for what I'm not.
So, did I transition in babyhood? If an intersexed person is assigned a gender, that assignment turns out not to match their identity, and they transition, how much different is that from transsexuals or the transgendered? There are blokes you can poke, there are chicks with dicks..... trans, intersex....are we talking different species here, or just cousins? Is the difference that most transsexuals desperately want their bodies changed and most intersexed people don’t? How different is that from the transgendered? Do differences matter more than similarities?
We have the physically male, female or intersexed force-fed a gender that doesn't fit so they assume a gender that fits better. That happens a lot. But wait a minute! The brain is part of the body and the mind resides in the brain. Gender identity takes place between the ears, not the legs. We know that there are differences between male and female brains. That's even taught in High School Biology now. We know that transsexuals, gay men and lesbian's brains are more like the "opposite" sex so does that mean that the organ of intersex for them is JUST the brain? From what I've been reading fetal exposure to testosterone, is ultimately what virilizes the brain and/or rest of the body. The default is female. Male is an add-on and different quantities of testosterone at different times are what ultimately do the trick. Maybe that testosterone came from mom, or a drug mom was on, or your testes, or your adrenals, or you got it but can't process the hormone, or you're XXY and that short circuited the system, and on and on ad nauseum. In the end the effect of it or lack of effect of it has an impact on all human fetuses creating a vast array of sexual differences. Some of them are just garden variety males and females.
I can't help but wonder if intersex doesn't encompass every form of gender variance from sexual orientation to hermaphrodism. Maybe people with really big clits or really tiny penises are marginally intersexed. Australia passed a statute saying that transsexualism is to be legally treated as a form of intersex. In the U.S.A. the Intersexed have no civil rights because the legal system has no way of dealing with us. Some people argue that Hypospadias is not intersex. Some people argue that the ONLY valid definition of intersex is ovarian and testicular tissue in the same person and ambiguous genitals aren't intersex. Some people just argue for the sake of arguing. It's an interesting mind puzzle, but I have a REALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION TO ASK MYSELF AND ALL THE REST OF US MIGHT WANT TO ASK IT TOO. It is;
"Who is defining us to ourselves and do we really want to continue to let them do that?"
I think it's time we validate each other and reclaim our rightful place at the table of humanity. When we look down on each other arrogantly thinking that one of us is superior to the other what do we think that says about us? Do we suppose that society will favor "our" group if we disassociate ourselves from other "less favorable" groups? How on Earth can we justify that? Transsexuals looking down their noses at cross dressers, intersexed looking down their noses at transsexuals, macho acting men looking down their noses at effeminate men, certain lesbians declaring trans or intersexed women are "really" men, and straight people declaring us all sick, damned or deformed. I hope and pray that every day, every little thing I do, chips away at the walls that divide us. This has been lovely, but now I have to scream.
Jim Costich
Another
Fathers Day is creeping up on me. It's my 14th
one. Long
ago and faraway I stood in the doorway of an "Early Intervention"
program classroom, staring into the eyes of a crippled toddler who was strapped
to frame that stood him up at a table where he was squeezing Play-Doh and
beaming. Surely
it was some sort of divine directive that brought me to this place, and I
demanded God tell me if this was whom S/He had sent me to adopt.
Later his foster mother told me that
on the way home he asked if I had come to be his father. Spooky. No one had
even told him he was being adopted. I became, or
maybe always had been, his father.
Occasionally, people ask him, or me,
if I'm his REAL father. Within
months the two of us had decided to answer this question with a snappy,
"No, I have such a good imagination that you can see him too," or
"Oh, he's real all right, pinch him and see what happens."
No one could invalidate us if we were
laughing. Real
father, real. Real. That's the
question that used to hunt and haunt me. "What
are you, REALLY?" If I have no
biological connection, am I a REAL father? Is an
intersexed man or woman REAL, seeing as they aren't exactly male or female and
sort of both? There
are women who aren't female and men who aren't male. REALLY.
Like most Intersexed people, I'm
sterile. I
never grieved that being gay would preclude me from "having my OWN
children".
Does that mean that if we have a biological connection to them, we OWN
our children? It
was never my expectation, because I've known all my life that sexual
reproduction isn't in my repertoire. I've
listened to male and female people question if they are REAL men or women when
they discover they are sterile and medicine can't fix their broken organs. Not knowing
what I am, I've had the surreal experience of them asking ME if I think THEY are
real. How
ironic that they would ask me, the UNREAL male/female, to tell them if they are
REAL.
But that is exactly how it goes when
you are intersexed.
When you talk about it with people, they invariably end up re-evaluating
just what makes them male/female, men/women, and ask the intersexed to help them
figure it out.
Some intersexed educators and authors complain about it. They want
people to pay attention to them as intersexed. I welcome
it. No,
I love it. It's
like watching flowers bloom. Real. "What
are you REALLY?"
I'm not sure at what age I learned
that parenthood could be achieved through adoption. I'm not sure
at what age I was told, overheard, deduced that if "They" figured out
WHAT I WAS, "They" would never let me be a parent. What I was. An
unfinished male.
An over-done female? "Pseudo-hermaphrodite,"
not even a REAL hermaphrodite, a pseudo-hermaphrodite? That was one of the
cryptic words I'd heard bandied about in hushed tones under a smothering blanket
of shame. At
the time I didn’t know what my body contained. I do now.
At some point, I accepted that
parenthood was never going to be part of my life. Imagine my
amazement when I stood in the Judge' s chambers being legally declared a father. He was only
3 when I told him that I would be his father forever. Even if I
died I would still love him and he would still not be fatherless. He echoed my
commitment with his own. He’s 17
this year. He
found one.
It happened again
in the first years of our relationship, when my partner's daughter whispered to
me that no matter what other people said, in her mind she had two Daddies. But did that
mean people would see me as REAL? A REAL
father? A
REAL man? To
her I am real.
She reminds me often and never forgets me on Father’s Day.
Over the years a fascinating pattern
has developed with people who have seen me with our kids, (even my kids
sometimes honor me on Father's Day. They also
honor me on Mother's Day!). It happened
again this year, a man walked up to me in church, threw open his arms, hugged
me, slapped me on the back and said, "Happy Mother's Day, Jim!" It was
clearly spontaneous.
Even as he let go his face registered, "Why the hell did I just do
that?"
I grinned and said, "Thanks!" He looked relieved that I was happy. Am I happy? Is it a good thing for people to see a Mother AND a Father when they look at a man who can't REALLY be either of those things? REAL? Is that what I am? Yes, I'm real. Just pinch me.
by Jim Costich, 48, Former Lab Technologist |
Esquire Magazine Article Aug 01 '05
I'M NOT A HERMAPHRODITE. The slugs in your yard are true hermaphrodites; when they mate with each other, there's an exchange of sperm and eggs from both. I'm infertile. But if you're going to define a hermaphrodite as somebody who has both male and female characteristics, then yeah, I'm a hermaphrodite.
The commonly used term is intersex. When I was born, the doctors couldn't determine exactly what my sex was because my genitals were ambiguous. It appeared that I had no vagina, but I didn't have testicles, either. What I did have could be considered a big clitoris or ......
Read the rest in August 2005 Issue of Esquire in Newsstands!
© Jim Costich | The Transitional Male | Nick Edward