Intersex

by Thea Hillman

“In Hillman’s world, the surer you become about who you are, the more vulnerable you get.”— The San Francisco Bay Guardian “Hillman’s writing is sexy because it’s smart and refuses to simplify things.”— Fabula Magazine "Hillman's utterly unabashed memoir...showcases both the personal, embodied realities of intersex, and the social and political milieus that shape them... Intersex, too, is gorgeously written."—Women's Review of Books "It's utterly impossible to not be spellbound by performer-activist Thea Hillman, in person or in print ... A must-read."—Curve “There’s nothing else in print like this amazing and courageous book.”—Patrick Califia, author of Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism “An important and wonderfully disarming book. Poetic, political, and deeply personal.”—Beth Lisick, author of Helping Me Help Myself Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word) chronicles one person’s search for self in a world obsessed with normal. What is “intersex”? According to the Intersex Society of North America, the word describes someone born with sex chromosomes, genitalia, or an internal reproductive system that are neither clearly male nor clearly female. In first-person prose as intimate as a diary, Thea Hillman redefines memoir in a series of compelling stories that take a no-holds-barred look at sex, gender, family, and community. Whether she’s pondering quirky family tendencies (“Drag”), reflecting on “queerness” (“Another”), or recounting scintillating adventures in San Francisco’s sex clubs, Hillman’s brave and fierce vision for cultural and societal change shines through. According to a special report by the Traditional Values Coalition entitled “Homosexual Urban Myth,” award-winning writer Thea Hillman is a radical who conducts erotic readings to promote the “homosexual revolution.” Thea offers presentations about sex and gender and performs her work at colleges and festivals around the country. She lives in Oakland, California.

Genres: Queer, Memoir, Nonfiction, LGBT, Gender, Intersex, Essays

160 pages, Paperback

First published May 5, 2007

Reviews

[Imogen · Rating 5 out of 5]

You made me cry on the bus, Thea Hillman, for which you are in trouble. I've never been to a performance of the Vagina Monologues because I kind of just assume it will trigger the shit out of me, but your response to your own issues with a performance you saw was absolutely fuckin gorgeous.

Anyway, yeah. Wow. This was an intense book that it was hard to pick up sometimes, not because the specifics of Ms. Hillman's experience are similar to my own, but the feelings that come with a lot of what she's writing about- the shame, the blood draining from your face and the panic when you recognize yourself in an article or movie or conversation that pathologizes or depathologizes your condition, the feeling of Man, I had thought I was fine- there's a lot of brave, honest stuff here. I mean, the whole goddam thing is brave and honest. And complicated! Jeez.

I'm glad she doesn't provide any answers about the overlap between the trans and intersex communities, while still acknowledging the intersection and the non intersection- the Venn diagramness of it!- and talking about how it's complicated. Asking instead of telling, the only way to do it, y'know?

And it's hard for me to read, once again, about a queer women's community that includes lots of trans guys and a few incidental, peripheral trans women, but I can't really argue with that, because that's what this community looks like, and specifically that's what her experience looks like. It just feels shitty: hey, this is my community too, right? Or do I not get to have a community?

And one great thing about this book is that that's one of its central questions, just with different specifics: "this is my community, too, right? Or do I not get to have a community?" I think it's a question a lot of folks have in a lot of different ways, and to lay it bare like these short pieces do, without being preachy or offering a bunch of answers, is a goddam accomplishment.

So anyway, yeah. Recommended strongly. Recommended aggressively!

[jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is a fantastically beautiful book and you should read it, partly because it's fantastically beautiful (i love it when poets write memoirs), partly because every other sentence is quotable and you will carry them around with you for a long time, partly because it really draws you into the world of intersex and, while entirely demystifying the status of intersex people (who are just like everyone else -- in the limited sense in which anyone is like anyone else -- and way more frequent than you might imagine), it also gives you access to what is a very complex psycho-social situation (the situation of being intersex, which would be entirely unremarkable except for the huge deal we all make about our bodies' sexual bits and their role in our daily interactions, even though we hardly ever get to see them); partly because, quite apart from intersexuality, it's a beautiful meditation on life, love, sex, and what we owe each other; partly because there's a lot of mind-blowing sex that is at first startling and then also kind of beautiful; and partly because thea hillman is so loving, so insightful about people, so attentive to the pain of others, you wish she were your friend and you were sitting with her under a tree, eating a mint chocolate chip ice cream.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars

I picked this up because I’m confused by the whole concept of nonbinary gender identities (don’t most people vary in some way from the stereotypes of their gender?), and so I’m trying to read about it. This book taught me something about intersex, though nobody in it uses non-standard pronouns, but more than that it’s about the author’s sexcapades, a bit about her childhood, and a platform for half-developed arguments.

This short book is a collection of very short (typically 2-3 pages) personal essays, from the perspective of a queer activist who lives in San Francisco and has a lot of sex. And I mean a lot. Sex parties, S&M, exhibitionism, threesomes – if you want a bunch of descriptions of an adventurous sex life, some of them graphic, this is your book. Attending sex parties seems to have been the author’s primary after-work activity for a good chunk of her life, and that chunk gets a lot of focus here.

She starts talking about intersex about halfway through the book, where it turns out the author is not in fact intersex by the most common definition: someone born with ambiguous genitalia. She is physically a woman, though as a child she developed a minor, borderline version of a hormone disorder (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia) that can cause intersex in girls, but she had hormone treatment that forestalled the most noticeable effects. As an adult and an activist, she was recruited into intersex activism, and reasoned that:

Here is a seemingly tailor-made issue for me: it’s about sex, it’s about breaking down boundaries, and it’s cutting edge – because who else do I know working on this issue?

So then she decides to start identifying as intersex and advocating for that group’s issues. Which I’m glad to have learned a bit about. Based on this book, intersex activism seems to be primarily focused around preventing doctors from performing medically unnecessary plastic surgery on the genitals of infants born intersex. Hillman’s opposition to this is based on first, her belief that people’s natural bodies and genitals are beautiful and that she feels cheated out of her natural body by the hormone treatment she received as a child, and second, the fact that many of her intersex friends lost feeling in their genitals, and/or the ability to experience orgasm, due to the surgery done to them as babies.

This is of course a terrible result, but I wanted to know more: how often do the surgeries go wrong in this way? (After all, lots of transgender people choose to have surgery on their genitals.) And I think the author, living in a queer enclave where having a threesome with her girlfriend and a transgender woman with a penis at a sex party is just your average Tuesday night, doesn’t recognize that for most people, there is significant value in being physically normal. Not everyone has either the opportunity or the desire to live a life like hers. And it’s easy for her to say – as an adult in her milieu, and having had childhood medical intervention – that she wishes she’d had her natural body. She might have felt very differently if she had in fact gone through puberty at age 6, grown body hair and had a maximum height of under five feet. Now even if the risks are low, it sounds like surgery should wait until the patient is old enough to weigh the risks and make an informed personal decision, but I don’t buy Hillman’s simple anti-medical-intervention stance.

Finally, while the writing is good and at first I felt it showed a generosity of spirit, at later points I questioned whether she was hiding pettiness behind a socially unassailable exterior. She uses one essay to settle scores with a woman who invited her to a party and then decided she didn’t want a date; another to insist that she made a thoughtless joke offending another conference attendee because “I simply just misunderstood” the situation, and not deliberately or just thoughtlessly; and she writes condescendingly about her parents, forever surprised when they understand her or do anything right.

At any rate, overall I did learn a bit from this book, which is well-written, short, and kept my attention pretty well for the most part. But it’s not one I would recommend.

[Valyssia Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book lays some of our strongest social taboos to bare in a truly beautiful, artful way. I was stunned by how frank it was. If you're at all open to discussions of gender as more than a static binary value, this is a must read that'll probably change how you think.

[Myth · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2012: I've been meaning to come back and re-examine this book. I went to reading it with assumptions and expectations that were very amateur as far as a reviewer. Since part of my studies revolve around literature, I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't read this book properly, understanding it's genre, author and it's primary focus. After this book I found that I don't tend to like memoir.

I don't know that this matters, but I idealize polyamory and the ability of people to be open and consensual. I think it's far less ideal to live in a bubble of prudishness and fear of sexual encounters, as if sex is somehow unnatural and disgusting.

---

Hillman's book has been on my to read list for a while now. However, I found her book difficult to get a hold of and now I think I may understand why.

Subject:
I can't say I greatly enjoyed it or even got what I wanted. I think I learned a few things, but quite a few more things annoyed me.

The book starts off as if Hillman is going to give her story. She says that intersex people aren't just a fetish, she's a normal person and there is some obvious dislike of the book Middle Sex. I personally didn't like Middle Sex that much either (she points out how the author is an idiot (not in such blunt terms) and the MC doesn't even refer to his "condition" in realistic terms and also uses the world "hermaphrodite"- which is defined as something different(which I've agreed with long before reading this book) and that it's an offensive term (knew that before reading this too). Perhaps Hillman's point was to write her own story to combat this fictional story. I suppose she did accomplish that, if it was her purpose.

I do have a bone to pick with this "we aren't fetishes" act, both on all cases and in Hillman's case in particular. Everyone, at some point or another in history, has been objectified. Everyone becomes objectified and someone else's fetish. I think in doses that's a good thing. Not to the point of obsession, but so what if you have a secret fetish for something in particular? Just about everyone does.

That brings up my issue with Hillman saying this, as she quickly reveals she's three partners short of a sex addiction. She's into sex parties and makes it sounds as though she's had sex with thousands of people. This was obviously a huge part of her life. I don't know that hyper-sexual falls into "average" and "normal". I ended up finding her comments in the beginning of the book kind of hypocritical.

Comparison:
Intersex (for lack of a better word), has many similarities to Gender Outlaw. One time I found the authors' thinking so in sync I checked to make sure they were different people. Considering one person is transsexual and the other one is intersexed I found it a little surprising how alike they were.

Hillman seems surrounded by this community where she's constantly stepping on egg shells. I have a hard time believing she has self-confidence half the time. I would find that understandable and I found a similar tone in Gender Outlaw. This sort of, "I speak for no one, but myself". It kind of makes me indignant, because Hillman only spoke as much as she was "allowed". I think that's ridiculous. Everyone makes generalizations, gets an impression from other people via experiences. Sometimes it seemed like Hillman wasn't speaking for herself (as though she wasn't allowed to), she was stepping on eggshells. That irritated me, it irritates me more to think the community is so touchy.

From the number of books I've read and drawing connections from these two books I'm prone to believe that the sexual preference is almost entirely hormonal (or maybe due to exposure to androgen in the womb). Though Hillman mentions a striking similarity between people such as herself and victims of sexual abuse.

Ultimately, the authors of Gender Outlaw and Intersex come from very different backgrounds and original forms. However, they both end up in a place where they seem like something in-between that defies the bi-gendered system and even find trouble being accepted in communities or not saying the wrong thing, etc...

I couldn't relate to Hillman, I have a very different background and we're opposites when it comes to number of sex partners and even interest in sex (I'm on the side of moderately hypersensitive introvert). Hillman writes some about her conditions, but she's conflicted and didn't even know she was intersex. She sounds somewhat self-absorbed when she mentions the fact that other intersex people have gone through much worse, can't experience orgasm, may even feel pain from sexual touch and then she talks as though she's a victim as well--Despite the fact that her sexual life is completely different.

From the researcher POVs in some of the books I read, I almost felt that they were more sympathetic. But perhaps that's because they haven't gone through the trauma themselves. These are authors don't want the bi-gendered system either. In one way they are fighting for the same things.

Memoirs like Intersex have helped me to have a much better understanding of the community and the difference between the homosexual community verses what Hillman calls queer. People of the more conservative communities tend to assume that queer and homosexual go hand in hand. I think this causes a lot of the confusion and fear that some people have.

Writing:
The book is written well and is short. It's written into organized little segments and focuses on a theme (more or less). Hillman sometimes switches from first person to second person POV. It isn't particularly comfortable to read, especially when one gets the impression she's writing specifically to someone...

I didn't really like the devise of switching, because it didn't seem to follow on in a coherent manner. I think she vaguely explained it's a sort of buffering.

As half (maybe over half) of the book is dedicated to her sex life I'm not sure I'll keep this book around. This isn't really a book I would want someone visiting to pick up and start reading. I think it might be too much for them. There are a few points I find valuable, but I've been thinking that I should've just checked it out from a library.

I didn't dislike it. To me it was "okay" and that's the star-rating I'm going by. On a learning scale I would say it's rated high like 5/5.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's easy to tell that Hillman is a poet (she's a San Francisco Poetry Slam champion) and performance artist. I can imagine her reading each of the essays in this book in front of an audience.

Hillman writes of the ache, exclusion, and incredible confusion associated with growing up intersex. I agree with another reviewer who did not like the use of the second person in some of the essays (I too prefer first or third person); however, it raises the constant conundrum of gender pronouns when it comes to people who identify as intersex. Is the person male, or female, or a combination of the two? Second person is so much simpler, I imagine...kind of like when I think of God...it's much simpler to avoid the pronoun.

This book is soaked in sex...Hillman writes freely of her love of sex parties and open relationships, a lifestyle completely alien to me.

Being a monogamous person myself, I preferred the pieces about her struggles in growing up and claiming her own gender identity. This book is a desperately needed piece of literature for a misunderstood community.

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written memoir and I think people should read it.

However, I am so tired of casual, ~*progressive*~ homophobia.

‘Gay’ is women loving women and men loving men who want to be recognized as couples and be able to get the same rights and privileges as straight couples. Gays read Out magazine, cry at Gay Pride marches, watch Queer as Folk, and think that bisexual and transgender people are ruining everyone’s chances to be perceived as normal. They believe that if we could all just act normal, we’d get good jobs, be able to get married, and earn enough money to shop at Pottery Barn. Gays wear gold.

“Queer” is men who used to be girls who love other queer girls, and boyish girls who only date other boyish girls who behave in a couple as if they are both gay men. Queer is getting off on leather or latex or polyamory, or acknowledging that there are more than two genders. Queer is understanding that gay rights are linked to all other movements for dignity and equality: women’s rights, disability rights, indigenous rights, and workers’ rights. Queers do not shop at The Gap; they protest The Gap. They wear platform heels, work boots, facial piercings, glitter, and tight tank tops. Queers wouldn’t wear gold even if they could afford it." (44)

The way it's framed, it seems like she's trying to pass it off as a thought she had when she was younger, but it doesn't matter. This attitude is far too common and honestly, keep it. Sit around with the editor from Autostraddle discussing how lesbians are neo-nazis or whatever passes for ~*progressive wlw*~ thought these days.

[Julie Bozza · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, and I love the author. Which seems the only reasonable response to such a calm, considered and candid tale of the author's life, and to her plea that we should love ourselves the way we are. Hillman - or, if I may, Thea finds herself to be a part of the intersex community, and yet she is also very much part of a global community that includes us all.

Thea recounts her life story in short chapters with single-word titles, unfolding and reflecting on a growth that wasn't linear. I found it difficult to put this book down, but kept reading one more, and one more, and one more chapter.

Anything I write here about Thea's thoughts and conclusions will sound mawkish by comparison to her words. I felt very much included, as she reflects that so few of us feel the neat fit between our biology, gender and sexuality that is expected by society.

And so I don't think she'd mind if I wish for a wider application of her wish, "for our community ... that during this very confusing and amazing time, we be gentle with ourselves, and with each other."

Amen.

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a series of mostly short essays, with the occasional poem, or journal entry thrown in. The pieces are likely mostly those she wrote for and published elsewhere, and they seem included here without editing, so sometimes the reader is subjected to the same musings or explanations multiple times. There isn't really a coherent, linear narrative but you get a good sense of the author's life and lived experience. It's interesting to get to peek inside the head of an intersex person, to read her perspective, rather than an external, medical perspective.

[Finley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hillman's memoir is poetic, honest, real, and educational. She talks about what it means and what it's like to be a queer person- she hit the points about why I like using this word in a reclaimed sense. I picked it up in the bookstore because it looked interesting, but I read it cover to cover in less than 24 hours. Before reading this book, I didn't know that Intersex used to be considered under the Trans umbrella. Hillman was one of the people who fought to make Intersex its own category. I would definitely recommend this book.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intersex Awareness Day is in a couple of days. For more info on intersex issues go to - isna.org.

I liked this book, it's a personal history of not just the author's intersex identity, but of some of the recent activism in california for intersex awareness and rights.

The only thing is that I don't like books that are really a series of short short essays/stories/ramblings/blurbs, that are disconnected.

[Anne Hayes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't what I was expecting. The story focused on the author's confusion about whether she was 'intersex' or not. It raised questions about gender and identity and our need to belong, ie fit into a box that others (and science) will understand. Why she couldn't just be? A bit bogged down in parts but an interesting read. It broadened my understanding of what intersex people experience as they try to make sense of the world and how to fit into it.

[Bean]

I am pretty sure this is exactly what i was looking to read next

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of the stories were ok, and some were absolutely amazing.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set out much like Roxane Gay’s ‘Hunger’, this book is split into 47 chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of Thea Hillman’s life, to a greater or lesser degree.

Much is given over to Hillman’s sex life and the subsequent relationships, but there is much more to it; the growing intersex activism; the rejection of surgery for the sake of making people ‘normal’; the hurt and pain caused to individuals through no fault of their own.

She moves in and out and between different communities and begins to understand that inequality is so much more than just gender – creed, social class, disability etc. all play a part in enforcing discrimination.

The following are some of the passages from the book:

“I wish my mom had known that I needed support because being different is hard, even under the best circumstances.”

“I wish my mom had known that accepting myself as different was the key to realizing that everyone in the world feels different.”

“There's a picture of my mom and me on the cover of the ISNA parents’ handbook. Standing out, risking community for the sake of showing parents and doctors that intersex people are whole human beings, not just naked bodies with eyes blackened out for privacy's sake.”

“I believe in speaking to people in language they'll understand. I've got CAH when I talk to doctors; I'm intersex when I talk to activists; I've got a medical condition when I talk to my boss.” - Intersex (for lack of a better word); Thea Hillman

Highly recommended to read – it brings a different insight to topic of intersex

[Kyra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very raw, open and honest collection of essays. Hillman is extremely generous with her sharing of stories, experiences, struggles, thoughts and feelings. This book felt to me like a call to question our own assumptions and opinions. It drew some interesting parallels between intersex and trans experiences which I personally have never considered before and I am grateful for Hillman's questions and frankness. The style of the book is not for me: the essays are non-linear and some read like longform poetry, whilst others are factual accounts of events and conferences. This constant switching in style and timeline is just not engaging for me personally, but the lower star rating is not a comment on content, only presentation. As Hillman points out in the book, there is only loosely an intersex "community" as everyone has such different experiences. As a cis woman reading this, it is not my place to evaluate how Hillman presents her unique experiences. Reading this has brought me a lot more understanding of queer, intersex and trans experiences and also a confirmation that I would hate everything about a slam poetry night.

[Pato El Ente Lector · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una serie de ensayos inconexos sobre las experiencias de Thea Hillman con el género, el sexo (el cuerpo) y el sexo (la actividad). Creo que me hubieran resultado incómodos o aturdidores si no hubiera pasado los últimos dos o tres años cuestionando mis propios esquemas sobre estos tres temas y tratando de educarme. Y es que estos pequeños ensayos tocan demasiados temas en muy poco espacio. Creo que lo ideal es leer uno por uno, sin prisa y dejando pasar suficiente tiempo para reflexionar antes de pasar al siguiente.

Amé las palabras de Hillman de celebración de las diferencias, especialmente en el ensayo sobre la guerra y sobre cómo sería un mundo donde de verdad no existiera la violencia contra las mujeres. Todas las mujeres, no sólo las nacidas con vaginas perfectamente funcionales.

No es un libro para educarse porque no explica casi nada. Por ejemplo, cuando habla de transiciones no te dice qué son, sino sólo lo que ha reflexionado acerca de ellas. Creo que es más un libro que Hillman escribió para ella, para expresarse, y para las personas que podrían necesitar poner en palabras lo que sienten pero no son tan buenas escribiendo.

[Silyara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking memoir, on a variety of experiences that also pull together into a larger whole. Many are on intersex (or something that word is used to cover). But it explores more than that, including gender and society's relationship with it.

As a note, there are repeated graphic descriptions of sex. These are not erotic/pornographic but are used to explore, to make points, etc as part of the memoir. There are many serious issues addressed, including consent, medical procedures (and those done without consent), sexual assault/abuse, etc.

[Alex Zuno · Rating 5 out of 5]

With brutal honesty, Thea Hillman shares her experience being an intersex queer lesbian woman. Despite the title, this book is not just about being intersex, it’s about being different and about embracing those characteristics that make us different, outsiders, “not normal” to others…
Hillman (like myself) thinks that we should embrace diversity instead of trying to fix it or erase it.
I found a lot of hope in this book and I loved Hillman’s voice.

[Liam Arne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this book at first, but I ended up really enjoying it. I had never considered the dimension of feeling you had to prove your intersexness to yourself or anyone else, and the lens into the complications of queer life as an intersex person were fascinating. There’s also a lot of frank discussion of a variety of sexual realities, but it’s not a kids’ book. 4.5 stars overall

[Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. There a lot of great insight here, especially from a member of community we so often here little from (or about). And although these often short chapters start strong, they feel unfinished, like the author just stopped when they should have really proved these situations—a few are there.

[Kat V · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: parts of this are traumatic and graphic
This is really good. There’s not much explanation of the scientific side to intersex so if that’s what you’re after I recommend The 7 Sexes, but it is a great memoir. It is sexually explicit and very queer. This probably isn’t a good casual read and it’s really only for people with a background or interest in radical queer theory/studies. 4.7 stars

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for school and it brought great insight about the Intersex community. I appreciated how honest Hillman was in the book about her insecurities about not only who she is but what she can say. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about gender and sex.

[Mateo Dk]

DNF at 40% the essay on how queers are better than gay people cause gay people are inherently reactionary when compared to queer people and also. Wear gold jewelry????? was insanity to me and i could not deal with that type of shit

[Jennifer Pickens · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. It will challenge some people, but that is as it should be. Thea Hillman is a gifted writer.

[Mo · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[David Hillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this wondering if the author was a relative, and to understand people I met. Moderately engaging.

[Melina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book touched me to my core (and that’s not a sex joke). Truly, one of the most moving literary experiences I have ever had.

[Raelee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book YEARS ago and I’m still thinking about it. Guess it’s time for a re-read.

[Jennifer L · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good! We had this for our book club I like how short the chapters are. I learned a lot.