Georgie's Wish to Heal
Donation protected
Georgie’s Surgery Officially Approved
My name is Georgie Yovanovic. I am 53 years old intersex woman, of Greek/Yugoslavian heritage, living in Melbourne.
I want to let all my supporters know that my surgery has finally been approved after a long highly traumatising and protracted process due to the pathologising of trans and gender diverse and intersex people. Its taken me nearly a year to be "approved" by the medical industry to able to access reparative surgery for the non-consensual invasive medical procedures that were forced upon me in my youth. This protracted "approval' process has been detrimental to my physical and mental well being. Rather than this experience being a healing process that improves the quality of my life and health the medical industry has further traumitised and disempowered me.
I cannot emphasis enough how humiliating and degrading this experience has been where my human rights and dignity were taken away from me in regards to my bodily autonomy by many of these medical professionals. At times I felt coerced and bullied to fit into the binary female stereotype including feeling pressured to have gender reassignment surgery rather than the surgery I requested as it fit more into their medical model. My treating psychologist threatened to have my surgery denied unless I took particular HRT medication to which it was known I had an previous adverse reaction to. I ended up being diagnosed with a chronic illness after re-intiating this particular type of HRT.
I am 55 year old intersex non binary female, I've always lived this way, whether I've been accessing hormones or not. It is a violation of my human rights to be subjected to the medical pathologiastion of intersex and trans and gender people where we do have the right to make autonomous decisions around our own bodies. I'm intersex but I still had to go through the pathologising assessments within the trans and gender diverse healthcare system, this is unacceptable and needs to change. I offer my solidarity to all the trans and gender diverse people who have been pathologised by this system and continue to do so until we change this system.
I am asking for your assistance to fundraise for my reparitive surgery after the non-consensual invasive medical procedures that were forced upon me i my youth. Thank you to all the people who have supported me during my journey of healing.
I hope you will read my story and consider contributing to this cause.
MY STORY
UPDATE:
I currently living in Melbourne where I am a volunteer advocate, public speaker for Zoe Belle Gender Collective, an advocacy group that celebrates gender, intersex and sexual diversity. This is my story.
I am intersex, meaning I was born with physical sex characteristics that don’t fit medical norms for female or male bodies. When I was a child, my parents didn’t know I was intersex. No-one knew. My parents presumed I was male because I born with external male genitalia. But from a very young age, everyone assumed I was a girl. I had big, red ruby cheeks and golden curly locks. I was always playing with my sister’s dolls, dressing as a girl and acting feminine. The first time I had an understanding I was different was when I was three years old. My father dragged me to the barbers and had all my hair chopped off. I remember him ordering my mother that she had to specifically dress me as a boy. And she did.
At the age of 13, I had undeveloped testicles so my father forced me to go to the family doctor. I had no say in it. Over the course of a year, the doctor induced my testicles to develop with periodic male hormone replacement therapy, as well as physical inducement, which involved a lot of poking and prodding. It was intensely humiliating and very painful. These sessions were my first in a series of invasive and non-consensual surgery.
I hit puberty at 14 years old, started developing breasts and hips and becoming even more feminine. Again, against my will, my parents and doctor restarted hormone replacement therapy so my body would physically reflect a binary (atypical) male physiology. I began to run away from the family home because I could no longer cope with the combined trauma of these invasive medical procedures, my father’s disapproval of my femininity and his physical, verbal and emotional abuse.
Life on the streets was hard; it led to alcohol and drug addiction and sex work as a means of survival. Every time I ran away, my father called the police and I would be forced to return to my hurtful and harrowing house. My father would immediately take me back to the doctors for more non-consensual medical intervention. This became a vicious cycle where I had no power and no control.
The last time I was picked up by the police I was 17 years old and finally living happily as a female with other transsexuals and transgender people. My father had never seen me fully dressed as a female and was disgusted and shocked. He shouted, “You’re not a girl, you’re a boy, act like it. You’re a disgrace to our family.” He beat me to a point of submission then dragged me to St Vincent’s Hospital in Fitzroy. He held me by the wrists, while I was also restrained by medical staff, so escape was impossible. I was absolutely terrified. A nurse approached, stuck a needle into my hand and I blacked out …
I remember waking up flat on my back and as I went to sit up I felt this pain on my left side and I looked down and realised that I'd been bandaged across the chest. I ripped the bandages off only to find that my left breast had been removed. I threw on my clothes and ran away from hospital. I have never been the same person. That experience has haunted me for my entire life.
It was incredibly traumatic to wake up and discover that part of my body had been removed - and I was never asked, I was never told. To this day, that experience haunts me.
I ended up in a transgender refuge in Sydney called Tiresias House that provided counselling, accommodation and a range of other services. This was the first time I truly felt alive and was able to live fulltime as a female with any parental abuse, shame or fear. I was encouraged to emerge into myself. I saw an endocrinologist, was given a genetic assessment and was finally informed that I was intersex and had an extra chromosome, a condition known as 47,XXY or Klinefelter syndrome. I felt incredibly relieved to finally know that I was intersex because it brought me to a place of realisation of why I went through the invasive surgeries and abuse. I wasn’t transgender after all, I was intersex.
But ever since the invasive surgeries began, my biology has been out of its natural state. For many years I have been on female hormone replacement therapy, anxiety and depression medications, amongst others, to help balance my system.
I have since discovered that the medical intervention I endured is actually a violation of human rights. The intersex factsheet produced by United Nations states, “Because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatized and subjected to multiple human rights violations, including violations of their rights to health and physical integrity, to be free from torture and ill-treatment, and to equality and non-discrimination”.
For many years, I have had the thought at the back of my mind that I must undertake reparative surgery at some time to get my body back to its original state. I will need intense psychological counselling, endocrinology appointments and assessment, and hormone tests to see if my body is biologically fit for genital surgery and breast implants. But medical reparations for intersex people who had non-consensual medical interventions are not currently covered by Medicare or the medical institutions whom preformed these procedures. And it can’t be done in Alice Springs, so I have decided to return to Melbourne where I will need to find a home, a new network of support and a medical team.
I hope this story also raises awareness of intersex people so we can achieve an equal place in society.
Thank you for reading my story and hopefully contributing to my campaign.
Georgie x
BUDGET
$1,200 Flights
$3,800 Medical recovery accommodation
$10,000 surgery and anethistist
Further Reading - Articles:
“I am intersex: Georgie Yovanovic's story” - ABC Alice Springs article and audio clips - 3rd December 2014 - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/12/01/4135509.htm
“Alice Springs intersex advocate highlights perils of 'normalising' surgery” - ABC Alice Springs article - 30th July 2015 - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-30/intersex-advocate-to-highlight-perils-of-normalising-surgery/6654970
“There's a Lack of LGBTI Peer Support Services for Australia's Indigenous Population” - VICE magazine article - 31st August 2015 - http://www.vice.com/read/heres-a-look-at-lgbtiq-peer-support-services-in-the-northern-territory
Further Reading - Medical & Support Info:
Klinefelter Syndrome - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome
OII Australia - Intersex Australia - https://oii.org.au/
Sisters & Brothers NT - http://sistersandbrothersnt.com/intersex/
United Nations Factsheet - Intersex - https://www.unfe.org/system/unfe-65-Intersex_Factsheet_ENGLISH.pdf
World Health Organization Genomic resource centre - Gender and Genetics - http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html
My name is Georgie Yovanovic. I am 53 years old intersex woman, of Greek/Yugoslavian heritage, living in Melbourne.
I want to let all my supporters know that my surgery has finally been approved after a long highly traumatising and protracted process due to the pathologising of trans and gender diverse and intersex people. Its taken me nearly a year to be "approved" by the medical industry to able to access reparative surgery for the non-consensual invasive medical procedures that were forced upon me in my youth. This protracted "approval' process has been detrimental to my physical and mental well being. Rather than this experience being a healing process that improves the quality of my life and health the medical industry has further traumitised and disempowered me.
I cannot emphasis enough how humiliating and degrading this experience has been where my human rights and dignity were taken away from me in regards to my bodily autonomy by many of these medical professionals. At times I felt coerced and bullied to fit into the binary female stereotype including feeling pressured to have gender reassignment surgery rather than the surgery I requested as it fit more into their medical model. My treating psychologist threatened to have my surgery denied unless I took particular HRT medication to which it was known I had an previous adverse reaction to. I ended up being diagnosed with a chronic illness after re-intiating this particular type of HRT.
I am 55 year old intersex non binary female, I've always lived this way, whether I've been accessing hormones or not. It is a violation of my human rights to be subjected to the medical pathologiastion of intersex and trans and gender people where we do have the right to make autonomous decisions around our own bodies. I'm intersex but I still had to go through the pathologising assessments within the trans and gender diverse healthcare system, this is unacceptable and needs to change. I offer my solidarity to all the trans and gender diverse people who have been pathologised by this system and continue to do so until we change this system.
I am asking for your assistance to fundraise for my reparitive surgery after the non-consensual invasive medical procedures that were forced upon me i my youth. Thank you to all the people who have supported me during my journey of healing.
I hope you will read my story and consider contributing to this cause.
MY STORY
UPDATE:
I currently living in Melbourne where I am a volunteer advocate, public speaker for Zoe Belle Gender Collective, an advocacy group that celebrates gender, intersex and sexual diversity. This is my story.
I am intersex, meaning I was born with physical sex characteristics that don’t fit medical norms for female or male bodies. When I was a child, my parents didn’t know I was intersex. No-one knew. My parents presumed I was male because I born with external male genitalia. But from a very young age, everyone assumed I was a girl. I had big, red ruby cheeks and golden curly locks. I was always playing with my sister’s dolls, dressing as a girl and acting feminine. The first time I had an understanding I was different was when I was three years old. My father dragged me to the barbers and had all my hair chopped off. I remember him ordering my mother that she had to specifically dress me as a boy. And she did.
At the age of 13, I had undeveloped testicles so my father forced me to go to the family doctor. I had no say in it. Over the course of a year, the doctor induced my testicles to develop with periodic male hormone replacement therapy, as well as physical inducement, which involved a lot of poking and prodding. It was intensely humiliating and very painful. These sessions were my first in a series of invasive and non-consensual surgery.
I hit puberty at 14 years old, started developing breasts and hips and becoming even more feminine. Again, against my will, my parents and doctor restarted hormone replacement therapy so my body would physically reflect a binary (atypical) male physiology. I began to run away from the family home because I could no longer cope with the combined trauma of these invasive medical procedures, my father’s disapproval of my femininity and his physical, verbal and emotional abuse.
Life on the streets was hard; it led to alcohol and drug addiction and sex work as a means of survival. Every time I ran away, my father called the police and I would be forced to return to my hurtful and harrowing house. My father would immediately take me back to the doctors for more non-consensual medical intervention. This became a vicious cycle where I had no power and no control.
The last time I was picked up by the police I was 17 years old and finally living happily as a female with other transsexuals and transgender people. My father had never seen me fully dressed as a female and was disgusted and shocked. He shouted, “You’re not a girl, you’re a boy, act like it. You’re a disgrace to our family.” He beat me to a point of submission then dragged me to St Vincent’s Hospital in Fitzroy. He held me by the wrists, while I was also restrained by medical staff, so escape was impossible. I was absolutely terrified. A nurse approached, stuck a needle into my hand and I blacked out …
I remember waking up flat on my back and as I went to sit up I felt this pain on my left side and I looked down and realised that I'd been bandaged across the chest. I ripped the bandages off only to find that my left breast had been removed. I threw on my clothes and ran away from hospital. I have never been the same person. That experience has haunted me for my entire life.
It was incredibly traumatic to wake up and discover that part of my body had been removed - and I was never asked, I was never told. To this day, that experience haunts me.
I ended up in a transgender refuge in Sydney called Tiresias House that provided counselling, accommodation and a range of other services. This was the first time I truly felt alive and was able to live fulltime as a female with any parental abuse, shame or fear. I was encouraged to emerge into myself. I saw an endocrinologist, was given a genetic assessment and was finally informed that I was intersex and had an extra chromosome, a condition known as 47,XXY or Klinefelter syndrome. I felt incredibly relieved to finally know that I was intersex because it brought me to a place of realisation of why I went through the invasive surgeries and abuse. I wasn’t transgender after all, I was intersex.
But ever since the invasive surgeries began, my biology has been out of its natural state. For many years I have been on female hormone replacement therapy, anxiety and depression medications, amongst others, to help balance my system.
I have since discovered that the medical intervention I endured is actually a violation of human rights. The intersex factsheet produced by United Nations states, “Because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatized and subjected to multiple human rights violations, including violations of their rights to health and physical integrity, to be free from torture and ill-treatment, and to equality and non-discrimination”.
For many years, I have had the thought at the back of my mind that I must undertake reparative surgery at some time to get my body back to its original state. I will need intense psychological counselling, endocrinology appointments and assessment, and hormone tests to see if my body is biologically fit for genital surgery and breast implants. But medical reparations for intersex people who had non-consensual medical interventions are not currently covered by Medicare or the medical institutions whom preformed these procedures. And it can’t be done in Alice Springs, so I have decided to return to Melbourne where I will need to find a home, a new network of support and a medical team.
I hope this story also raises awareness of intersex people so we can achieve an equal place in society.
Thank you for reading my story and hopefully contributing to my campaign.
Georgie x
BUDGET
$1,200 Flights
$3,800 Medical recovery accommodation
$10,000 surgery and anethistist
Further Reading - Articles:
“I am intersex: Georgie Yovanovic's story” - ABC Alice Springs article and audio clips - 3rd December 2014 - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/12/01/4135509.htm
“Alice Springs intersex advocate highlights perils of 'normalising' surgery” - ABC Alice Springs article - 30th July 2015 - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-30/intersex-advocate-to-highlight-perils-of-normalising-surgery/6654970
“There's a Lack of LGBTI Peer Support Services for Australia's Indigenous Population” - VICE magazine article - 31st August 2015 - http://www.vice.com/read/heres-a-look-at-lgbtiq-peer-support-services-in-the-northern-territory
Further Reading - Medical & Support Info:
Klinefelter Syndrome - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome
OII Australia - Intersex Australia - https://oii.org.au/
Sisters & Brothers NT - http://sistersandbrothersnt.com/intersex/
United Nations Factsheet - Intersex - https://www.unfe.org/system/unfe-65-Intersex_Factsheet_ENGLISH.pdf
World Health Organization Genomic resource centre - Gender and Genetics - http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html
Organizer
Georgie Yovanovic
Organizer
White Gums NT
