Unveil to connect
Bea Is
For too long secrecy has been the medical prescription. A way to cover up the strange and the different. A way to cover up the unusual rarity of being intersex.
Many intersex people, in an attempt to veil our wonderful bodily diversity with which we were born, have camouflaged under clothing—socially acceptable, heteronormative and binary costumes—which allow us to go unnoticed through life. This veil has not only covered our body, our bodily diversity, but it has also managed to cover the human connection—the deep and sincere intimate connection with other intersex people.
Many intersex people, if not all, have grown apart from our peers, from people who, like us, were born with a variation in sex characteristics. We exist without any kind and respectful information about the diversity of our bodies, without anyone to identify with, anyone to guide us, anyone to support us, or anyone to hold us emotionally.
A part of my life is titled: ‘Searching for myself’. Somehow, not knowing anyone who had been born with the same or similar differences as me and without being able to understand myself or really know what was happening to me, I somehow had a deep feeling of knowing that somewhere in the world there would be someone else who was just like me—just as different, just as diverse. Even though this feeling was fragile and weak, and not having much hope at all in this regard, I still decided to continue in the relentless search to find someone who was just like me or at least discover what was really happening to me.
It came to be that after so much searching I found a light. I found not just one, but many people just as diverse as me: intersex people who have gone through similar experiences to myself.
I titled that stage of my life: ‘I found myself looking for myself’. I unveiled my intersex existence. At last, I understood what was really happening to me. I met wonderful people who accompanied me, supported me emotionally and are my guide to this day.
Just as I went out to meet myself today, my dream is to be able to help intersex people meet each other in Peru so that they no longer go through this path of loneliness, emptiness, uncertainty and fear that I had to go through. On the contrary, they can connect, get to know each other, accompany each other in safe, respectful and kind spaces, and celebrate how wonderful it is to be an intersex person.
This piece is a translation of the Spanish text – Develar para conectar.