Abandon All Hope:
The South Carolina Case (with Raisins)
The South Carolina Case (with Raisins)
"This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it." – Dorothy Parker
“People who remember court madness through pain, the pain of the perpetually recurring death of their innocence; people who forget court another kind of madness, the madness of the denial of pain and the hatred of innocence; and the world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget.” – James Baldwin (1956)
On May 14, 2013 Advocates for Informed Choice and Southern Poverty Law Center ran a press release announcing the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of a child who was harmed unthinkably, and beyond repair, by a group of adults employed by the state of South Carolina.
On May 14, 2013 Advocates for Informed Choice and Southern Poverty Law Center ran a press release announcing the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of a child who was harmed unthinkably, and beyond repair, by a group of adults employed by the state of South Carolina.
One year ago (ok, a year and 7 days ago) Advocates for Informed Choice (AIC) and Southern Poverty Law Center ran
a press release explaining why they'd filed a lawsuit (2, actually) in Columbia, South Carolina. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of a child who was harmed unthinkably,
and beyond repair, by a group of adults employed by the state of South
Carolina.
"When M.C. was just 16 months old, and in the care of the South Carolina Department of Social Services, doctors and department officials decided the child should undergo sex assignment surgery to make M.C. a girl. There was no medical reason to perform this surgery, which robbed M.C. not only of his healthy genital tissue but also of the opportunity to decide what should happen to his own body." - Press release, May 14, 2013
It sucks having to sort my emotions so that I can write about them well. When AIC asked me to publish my reaction to the filing of M.C. v. Aaronson (Federal) and M.C. v. Medical University of South Carolina (State) What I was not prepared for was how helpless I felt imagining how I might capture all that this first public lawsuit could produce in one blog post: put the surgical establishment on notice, bring treatment protocols into the 21st century, and maybe watch some hapless clinician frantically apply the concept of informed consent now that his way of life depends on it. I was delirious. Then I remembered I wasn't being asked for some grand impact analysis – just reflection.
It's like old Jimmy Baldwin told us about there being two kinds of people in the world: madmen who remember and the madmen who forget.
I worked for AIC from 2009 to 2013 so I knew this day was a long time coming. However, I spent my time thinking of all the ways it could fail (not fancy lawyer-maneuver ways like, "I object!," "The plaintiff has no standing ... blah blah," and other less dramatic/more cerebral methods. More like "Cloverfield monster decimates Sonoma County: Sits on Anne's computer."). I worried, then assumed, the opportunity would vanish, or rather be taken away because I hadn't suffered, hadn't earned it. An activist's life is haunted by punitive apparitions like these. And, still, there was a lingering sense that just filing the lawsuit would be monumental.
On May 14, 2013 AIC and Southern Poverty Law Center ran a press release announcing the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of a child (M.C.) who was harmed unthinkably, and beyond repair, by a group of adults employed by the state of South Carolina.
It's like old Jimmy Baldwin told us about there being two kinds of people in the world: madmen who remember and the madmen who forget.
I worked for AIC from 2009 to 2013 so I knew this day was a long time coming. However, I spent my time thinking of all the ways it could fail (not fancy lawyer-maneuver ways like, "I object!," "The plaintiff has no standing ... blah blah," and other less dramatic/more cerebral methods. More like "Cloverfield monster decimates Sonoma County: Sits on Anne's computer."). I worried, then assumed, the opportunity would vanish, or rather be taken away because I hadn't suffered, hadn't earned it. An activist's life is haunted by punitive apparitions like these. And, still, there was a lingering sense that just filing the lawsuit would be monumental.
On May 14, 2013 AIC and Southern Poverty Law Center ran a press release announcing the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of a child (M.C.) who was harmed unthinkably, and beyond repair, by a group of adults employed by the state of South Carolina.
"When M.C. was born eight years ago, the newborn was not easily identifiable as a male or female. Doctors determined the child had an intersex condition, which is a difference in reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t fit the typical definition of male or female – a condition that years ago would have been called “hermaphroditism.” When M.C. was just 16 months old and in the care of the South Carolina Department of Social Services, doctors and department officials decided the child should undergo sex assignment surgery to make M.C. a girl. There was no medical reason to perform this surgery, which robbed M.C. not only of his healthy genital tissue but also of the opportunity to decide what should happen to his own body." - SPLC press release
That same day there was a press conference in Columbia, South Carolina. I flashed back to my college soccer years and the memory of my lone visit to Columbia and walking into the University of South Carolina soccer stadium, glancing at the tunnel's overhang, and reading: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," etched across a flat stone surface. Dante's words connected (I was a bit creeped out) but weren't fatal. The game ended in a tie.
Anyway, a team of lawyers, Pam and Mark Crawford, and my old friend Saifa Wall stood in a semi-circle behind a podium in front of some giant brick courthouse, and there was Anne! Anne Tamar-Mattis, AIC's executive director, ever-measured and convincing as she explained (this is key) what she knows she can prove: that what M.C. endured was unnecessary, arrogant, and brutal.
The difficult, no, the taxing aspect of intersex advocacy, for me, is the explaining: the "making-it-understood" for the novice. Intersex stuff is nothing but sprawl. It gets everywhere: sex, genitals, sexuality, gender, basic air-we-breathe prejudice, restrooms, autonomy, thwarted hope, hormones, clothes, gender (again), sports, f***ing, misogyny, bone density, expression, how to be alone, connection, coveted childhoods, how we sleep at night, self-determination, identity, the predictability of the enthusiastic reply, intimacy, trauma, karyotypes, talking to children, sitting still with never-ending wrong, the benevolent naiveté of those who steal untold pleasure from others, contentment, and lies like life rafts occupied by a parent unable to see their child for who, or where, they are; the curse being it's a raft built for two, but it's the rare parent who knows this. These things can be laborious to get into because most of us have that longstanding habit of conflating sex and gender (two altogether different items). So, it stands to reason that we can't expect a child to skillfully describe a numerator if they struggle to count to ten.
Back to Columbia. At some point, Pam and Mark Crawford did something many intersex advocates (myself included) thought could never happen. They stood in front of local television news cameras and demanded justice for their intersex kiddo. Pam and Mark denounced the needless removal of their son’s genitals and reproductive organs as “a careless and reckless action,” and that the state of South Carolina “disfigured (their son) because they could not accept him for who he was.” Glancing down to watch the seconds peel away on the clip I looked at Pam's face again and realized she bears a passing resemblance to my mother. My mother has that red hair, those sturdy-yet-stylish eyeglasses, and a voice that tells a careful listener suffering is something you do alone.
M.C. and I share a somewhat similar narrative. We both endured early years of ghastly "normalizing" genital surgery as well as the loss of our reproductive organs. We were both "made into girls." But, Pam and Mark adopted M.C. I've never seen the inside of an orphanage. M.C. has a sense of self and of his safety. My sense of self was disoriented and gray. I did not feel safe. M.C. has a voice that he uses. If I’d used my voice as a kid I might've told my parents something was wrong. M.C. used his voice to inform his family that he is a boy.
Anyway, a team of lawyers, Pam and Mark Crawford, and my old friend Saifa Wall stood in a semi-circle behind a podium in front of some giant brick courthouse, and there was Anne! Anne Tamar-Mattis, AIC's executive director, ever-measured and convincing as she explained (this is key) what she knows she can prove: that what M.C. endured was unnecessary, arrogant, and brutal.
The difficult, no, the taxing aspect of intersex advocacy, for me, is the explaining: the "making-it-understood" for the novice. Intersex stuff is nothing but sprawl. It gets everywhere: sex, genitals, sexuality, gender, basic air-we-breathe prejudice, restrooms, autonomy, thwarted hope, hormones, clothes, gender (again), sports, f***ing, misogyny, bone density, expression, how to be alone, connection, coveted childhoods, how we sleep at night, self-determination, identity, the predictability of the enthusiastic reply, intimacy, trauma, karyotypes, talking to children, sitting still with never-ending wrong, the benevolent naiveté of those who steal untold pleasure from others, contentment, and lies like life rafts occupied by a parent unable to see their child for who, or where, they are; the curse being it's a raft built for two, but it's the rare parent who knows this. These things can be laborious to get into because most of us have that longstanding habit of conflating sex and gender (two altogether different items). So, it stands to reason that we can't expect a child to skillfully describe a numerator if they struggle to count to ten.
Back to Columbia. At some point, Pam and Mark Crawford did something many intersex advocates (myself included) thought could never happen. They stood in front of local television news cameras and demanded justice for their intersex kiddo. Pam and Mark denounced the needless removal of their son’s genitals and reproductive organs as “a careless and reckless action,” and that the state of South Carolina “disfigured (their son) because they could not accept him for who he was.” Glancing down to watch the seconds peel away on the clip I looked at Pam's face again and realized she bears a passing resemblance to my mother. My mother has that red hair, those sturdy-yet-stylish eyeglasses, and a voice that tells a careful listener suffering is something you do alone.
M.C. and I share a somewhat similar narrative. We both endured early years of ghastly "normalizing" genital surgery as well as the loss of our reproductive organs. We were both "made into girls." But, Pam and Mark adopted M.C. I've never seen the inside of an orphanage. M.C. has a sense of self and of his safety. My sense of self was disoriented and gray. I did not feel safe. M.C. has a voice that he uses. If I’d used my voice as a kid I might've told my parents something was wrong. M.C. used his voice to inform his family that he is a boy.
Pam: “The adults involved are sending him the message that your body is not acceptable and has to change in order for you to be loved.” Intersex activists have articulated versions of Pam's words to clinicians feigning hearing loss for more than 15 years. Faithfully, though, many working for worthy causes know that if it's hope that dies last then a policymaker's indifference often marks the birth of a fresh path for social change. After all, why should an M.D.'s first response be to absorb difficult truths about their errors, the patient's loss, and mutual regret when intersex genital mutilation has always made the train run on time?
History tells us that appeals for mercy through testimonials of suffering have never been enough to effect lasting institutional change. As someone who has wept on camera and spent time (green-haired, chain-smoking, and too young to know I was too damned young to be doing this work) failing to persuade clinicians that I deserved the same right to self-determination they enjoyed as a newborn, I'm not alone in noticing a progressive shift in intersex political discourse the world over.
We no longer mourn our plight in public. We no longer have to wait patiently while some urologist (smelling like he's been dipped in molten gold laced with Old Spice) finishes briefing us on his unique approach to male circumcision and how retaining glans sensitivity is his #1 priority – speaking of unforgivable conflation. The Crawfords' words are not appeals for mercy, or thoughtful consideration. They are shots across the bow with fresh cannons trained at the hull.
That morning my body presented me with knots of grief I thought I’d beared away. Out and away, and between graceless crying jags I was aware this grieving was new. There was no one in my home (and I was certainly suffering) but I wasn't alone. I shared that day with many, especially those no longer with us, and I decided a bit of the bravery and allegiance the Crawfords' demonstrated for their little boy was for us, too. Thinking like this reminds me how isolated I was, how criminally alone my mother was for too long, how alive I've become and, finally, that an unromantic resilience eventually brings liberation to those residing on the right side of history. ©
History tells us that appeals for mercy through testimonials of suffering have never been enough to effect lasting institutional change. As someone who has wept on camera and spent time (green-haired, chain-smoking, and too young to know I was too damned young to be doing this work) failing to persuade clinicians that I deserved the same right to self-determination they enjoyed as a newborn, I'm not alone in noticing a progressive shift in intersex political discourse the world over.
We no longer mourn our plight in public. We no longer have to wait patiently while some urologist (smelling like he's been dipped in molten gold laced with Old Spice) finishes briefing us on his unique approach to male circumcision and how retaining glans sensitivity is his #1 priority – speaking of unforgivable conflation. The Crawfords' words are not appeals for mercy, or thoughtful consideration. They are shots across the bow with fresh cannons trained at the hull.
That morning my body presented me with knots of grief I thought I’d beared away. Out and away, and between graceless crying jags I was aware this grieving was new. There was no one in my home (and I was certainly suffering) but I wasn't alone. I shared that day with many, especially those no longer with us, and I decided a bit of the bravery and allegiance the Crawfords' demonstrated for their little boy was for us, too. Thinking like this reminds me how isolated I was, how criminally alone my mother was for too long, how alive I've become and, finally, that an unromantic resilience eventually brings liberation to those residing on the right side of history. ©