Monday 4 June 2007

Cosmos 15

From Encyclopedia Galactica :

* 1963 April 22 - Cosmos 15 -
Launch Site: Baikonur.
Launch Vehicle: Vostok 8A92.
Mass: 4 720 kg (10 400 lb).
Perigee: 194 km (120 mi).
Apogee: 336 km (208 mi).
Inclination: 65.00 deg.
Period: 89.80 min.
Duration: 5.00 days.

Area survey photo reconnaissance satellite. Also carried weather, radiation experiments.

It's also the Issue 15 of Cosmos Magazine, which contains an article on Intersex.

"We think in terms of 'male' and 'female', but gender doesn't stop there. Up to a whopping 2 per cent of people have some form of intersexual features, from mixed chromosomes to ambiguous genitalia. Some people don't even know they're intersexual. David Salt asks why society and science struggle to understand the spectrum between the sexes."
Part of that article is an interview with yours truly.
There once was a boy called Bruce. As a baby he lost his penis in an accident and was surgically transformed into a girl called Brenda.

Then there’s Kylie; she was told that she was born with deformed ovaries that had been surgically removed at age 4. As a young woman she discovered that she was actually born with testes and male chromosomes though she has only ever considered herself female.

Tony was also born as a genetic male but because of his atypical genitalia the doctors decided he would be better off assigned as a female. By the time he turned seven, his phallus had started to grow. Doctors removed his testes to prevent him from masculinising any further but the truth was he had always felt like a man, not a women. When he turned 30 he chose to live his life as a man.

Zoe was born a male but always felt like a female. She did her best to accept her male form but found the effort to maintain the charade became increasingly difficult and stressful over the years. Then, aged 48, she spontaneously began making the transition into a female (and the relief was enormous).
But if you want to read the rest, you'll have to buy a copy : it's not in their online section.

2 comments:

mythusmage said...

On Tony

The mindless arrogance of the doctors is appalling.

Anonymous said...

another zoe who has your history

its a small world :)