The word "gender" was coined by Doctor John Money of John Hopkins Medical University here in the USA, in 1947 in a book he authored based on his Harvard doctoral dissertation entitled Hermaphroditism: An Inquiry into the Nature of a Human Paradox.

Terms do have some importance and it is necessary that we define them to discuss certain matters. The following are the definitions I use:

"Sex" denotes the medical and biological organs involved in reproduction, producing hormones that effect divergent appearances between the two forms needed for reproduction having physical attributes as secondary characteristics proximate of these hormones.

"Gender," is the exhibition of a sexual appearance and/or behavior with social deportment and mannerisms generally accepted as "appropriate" for the exhibited sexual appearance, denoting one's biological sex or sexual preference within a culture, rote mannerisms and enhancements designed to attract the other biological sex required for reproduction and to secure survival.

If you can accept these general definitions, we can have some meaningful communication.

Sex is biological, medically physical and has only a few exceptions, among them are a few anomalies, hermaphrodites/intersexuals and some others with biological birth defects or anomalies from various causes.

Sex is simple and easily discernable by medical tests today. Including various kinds of intersexuality. Horror stories arise from a lack of surgical skill and/or tests, derived from the bias sexual preferences of involved adults, cosmetic elective surgery being performed on children under their control. This is done to normalize sexual appearance, fool the child and society into acceptance of a sexual façade. Biologically they remain unchanged intersexuals.

Gender however is infinite, complex and poorly defined even by psychological terms, so much is only social perception of acceptable conduct, dress and behavior. There are as many definitions of gender and individual expressions of it as there are people.

Behavioral "gender" terms are words like feminine, masculine, lady-like and gentlemanly are terms of desired behavior attributed to male and female. I am sure you have seen gay males who are more feminine in gender manners and gesture than birth females.

Many social concepts and taboos are rooted in historical divisions of labor and conduct needed to survive in harsh environments, tribal or cultural rules. With survival of the tribal group as the major concern, there were brutal acts of simply killing those whose sexual behavior caused discord or lacked any valued social contribution, as such behavior was seen as a risk to the cultures survival.

In today's affluent world of plenty, the procreational importance of rigid sexual divisions and laws regarding appropriate dress and behavior, are without that importance, now noncreational sexual expression has became "generally" tolerated, if not totally accepted.

I want to write about my own feelings and thoughts about living my life as a contemporary hermaphrodite/intersexual. And that is to say that basically I feel like a captive alien from another world, attempting to communicate my conflicted feelings to humans, who have no real parallel experiences, no common language. Only through imagination can most "normal's" identify and commiserate with me.

A classic science fiction book, "Stranger In A Strange Land" is a more idealized relating of, yet a situation not without parallels to, my life--excepting the ability to communicate and the happy ending.

Society, through its reigning medical establishment has butchered my peers, a medical holocaust I feel guilt for surviving. Those having been medically abused and tortured are justly angry, consumed with rage and heartache, are fashioned into people who are no longer my peers, only medical casualties.

Many of my mental and emotional problems and conflicts I attributed to my intersexual condition for many years. I later discovered were the result of my childhood sexual abuse and rapes. We all share the common desire for love, friendships, and acceptance within our families and with in our peer-group.

As hermaphrodite, I did not have a peer group. When younger it was critical that I play the male role, and my adopted peer group was male. In that peer group one can not be different, for if they sense our "difference" they will reject and vilify those that are different. "Being different" is dreaded and feared in all young people, allowing others to feel superior and smug in their sameness and peer acceptance.

Being "different," ostracizes, forces us to individually examine ourselves, ["what's wrong with me?"], forces us to seek knowledge of our condition and determine what direction, this reaction to the truth of our own "innocence," should take us.

The subsequent awareness of my social rejection, the horrific moral, medical and legal invisibility, within an allegedly "just" society, left me with no choice but a lesser of what I perceived as two evils. Social confrontation or concealment, to survive.

I was taken to see the movie Frankenstein as a child and while watching the scene where the whole village rises up with crude weapons and torches to destroy the Monster, I was told this was what would happen to me if people EVER found out and knew what a sexual freak and a monster I really was.

This was actually good advise from the person who took me to the movie and regularly sexually and physically abused me. (I never imagined this was done to keep me quiet about their perverted sexual use of me.)

In later years I felt all the guilt myself. I discovered that what I had participated in to please those I was dependent upon, and to survive, was "wrong"!

I was told that I was, by my intersexual difference, "bad and evil." I was "sin personified." This was pounded into my brain by both my family and those that knew of my condition.

Society and many religions would indeed destroy me. (Realize, this was at a time when, homosexuality was considered a mental illness and many were institutionalized as insane and died in asylums.) I was certain, I too was insane and that reinforced my concealment and secrecy determinations.

I found an escape. I disassociated from the truth, simply ignored it and became another "normal person." If this new person failed to gain acceptance, I'd simply become still another. I did not know who I was as I had no role models, no true peers. I could only mimic roles in order to survive. I became adroit at simply ignoring others who indicated or sensed my gender act or sexual physiology was flawed.

At puberty I was living as a boy and discovered I was not developing like other boys. I had locked away and forgotten any memories of my actual sexual identity. I could not yet cope with those memories. Yet, I was dismayed by my appearance and lack of any "normal" puberty. I did not know why this could be.

Fortunately a doctor agreed to secretly give me male hormone injections, so that I would pass, at least superficially, as a male, freeing me from my abusive family.

I had no sexual urges as yet, but I was absolutely certain I did not want to be "used" as a female again under any circumstances. I felt a great pity for every female. I wanted to protect them from my childhood experiences as a "female" but I was helpless.

Only as a male would I be safe myself from the brutality and lust of men and the women who condoned my abuse and even welcomed the aggressive and brutal behavior of my abusers.

My tentative contacts with religions and my observations of their hypocrisy and bias with regard to sexual realities, disillusioned me forever!

My masquerade as "male" lasted many, years with my feeling like a spy in the enemy's camp, listening to the duplicity and motivations of heterosexual men. Listening to their discussions about their efforts to mislead, dominate and control women was further reason for me to despise and fear them and my possible exposure.

I was forced by my actions in life, into self awareness and exposure via a wonderful doctor. It took years of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy to accept that I was not mentally ill, not crazy. However, I was a freak. I finally remembered and faced my hated and avoided gender reality.I lived a semi-productive life until my health failed. Some DNA tests were done which showed my karyotype of 46 XX/XY (mosaic). I was taken off the male hormones due to the medical conditions. However a laboratory worker leaked my unusual test results, destroying my life in my small town, when it was made public.

I was the same person. But friends of 20 years could not accept me now. I was not "male." Therefore I must be female or some other "lesser" gender and, in their minds, some kind of homosexual because they thought I was a male all those years. They've labeled and called me fag, freak, pervert.

The actions of my home town and of others are responsible for my active efforts to combat homophobia after my exposure. I didn't leave the closet voluntarily, I was socially ejected.

It was my decision however to confront the issues by a web page, fully realizing I would be attacked. I was frightened and apprehensive knowing how violently certain homophobic people can react. Courage only pretended at first, becomes a reality when used. It gets stronger with each use.

The hate mail suggesting I be sterilized or people like me, aborted or killed, (some from pseudo-Christian ministers) are outnumbered by the positive letters ten to one. I have and do support those lonely people confronting our "differences" alone in the darkest of closets.

I felt my strange sometimes funny life needed to be told and wrote my biography, such observations and opinions I hold as true, such as these, despite my very poor writing skills.

In my own small way, I've joined activist gay people, males and females fighting "sex and gender" discrimination and legal discrimination. They too suffer homophobic prejudice, internal conflicts, and are subject to hate crimes and rejection. They can identify with me in many, but not in all ways. I envy them in their having a community of spirit and support from their peers, the lasting relationships I have seen and the abiding love some find.

I am active in the Gay Pride movement, even partially accepted. I am treated well, yet I am still the alien standing outside, observing.

In one word I am lonely. I have become celibate and resigned, still finding a measured contentment with who, what and where I am. I have a few close supporters and friends as well as several of the children I raised alone, who are mine emotionally if not mine biologically.

I know that I am a child of creation, and there are no gender rules one must meet to qualify for that, despite what organized religions may try to promote.

I've learned to accept and use both my female and male God given bents of mind. At times I may enjoy a depth of feeling, emotion, compassion and connectedness that eludes many hetero-sexual males who are so concerned with their sexuality and maleness, that their minds and hearts are closed to anything that might threaten their internal, societal inoculated macho image of themselves. On the other hand, I can and do easily assume the male role in confronting other males. Concealing my feminine body characteristics, and speaking to them in the language they understand. I must, or they would still destroy me.

I think of myself as neither male or female, as I am BOTH. Gender is a fluid concept. There are masculine girls, feminine boys. This is natural. What is unnatural is society's penchant for making us must meet the idealized versions of gender or else were are perverts, sick or an abomination. This condemnation I have noticed, is stronger with the male, insecure and unhappy in their own sexuality.

Many formerly inclusive Native American traditions, have been corrupted in their tribal spiritual beliefs, through social exposure to this hypocritical and homophobic society and education in despicable Government "Indian Schools." It is another huge loss, of that accepting and inclusive spiritual faith which we use to have.

This is the path given me by my Creator, or Creation, I pray I can walk it with my best effort, with honor and in love of all creation, never to be blinded to earth's way's and beauty.