About me

My name is Maya Posch, I was born September 4th 1983 in Sijbekarspel, a small village near Hoorn in the Netherlands. I currently live in Almere, where I stay at a friend's place until I can find my own spot. I have my own software & game company, Nyanko, which I founded together with a good friend in Canada. We're working hard on it to make it a success.

My favourite colours are purple and pink, my favourite book is 'An Artist of the Floating World' by Ishiguro Kazuo and I watch a lot of anime series and movies. My hobbies including reading (mostly fantasy), playing the guitar, piano and learning the violin, plus I'm crazy about everything technology/science and of course cats :D

My life hasn't been all sunshine so far, though, and I'd even claim that my life knows more cloudy and rainy days than the opposite even now. First of all there is the issue of my giftedness. I have a rare form of giftedness ("Visual-spatial learner with auditory deficiency") which essentially expresses itself in a general increased mental acuity, not focused on a single area, combined with extreme emotional sensitivity and empathy. The visual-spatial part means that I think in 'images' and am able to realize connections between related things very well. It makes people think that I'm scatterbrained and not interested in many things, but in reality the exact opposite is true. It's just that so many things and thoughts are happening inside my mind simultaneously that it takes some effort to sort through. The auditory deficiency also means that interacting with others using spoken words takes a lot more effort than for others. Every word I hear has to go through a lengthy translation process to my internal 'format' before I can process it. This explains my preference for visual methods of interactions, including written words over spoken.

Being gifted has made it very hard for me to find a place in society, as being better than average isn't applauded or approved of in modern society. I nearly dropped out of school a few times due to lack of interest from my side, didn't make any friends, pushed people away because they "just don't understand me", and generally just preferred to bury myself in all the knowledge I could find on the internet.

Then there's the second major issue which has made my life somewhat of a living hell. I said that my first name is 'Maya', but that's not what my passport says, nor does it say that I'm female. The problem? Intersexuality. My body is primarily feminine, with some secondary feminine characteristics, yet the externally visible reproductive organs are those of a male which has led to me being recorded as being male. What I am exactly or how my body is put together is still largely unknown. According to two German MRI scan reports I am a hermaphrodite, yet here in the Netherlands multiple hospitals so far claim they can't see anything unusual or at least not the presence of female reproductive organs. The past years I have spent trying to find some conclusive answers after I suddenly realized in early 2005 that I had never consciously made the decision to be a boy or girl and had stayed a child emotionally. My environment including my direct family and the female friends of my mother had never treated me as a boy up till that point and I couldn't imagine myself in a masculine role, so I decided to move towards a feminine role.

I began to use female hormones on my own early 2007 without prescription after a complete lack of cooperation from doctors and psychologists who all seemed to want to brainwash me into believing that I was transsexual. The reason why I didn't like that term and have now come to hate transsexuals as a result of that treatment is that I have never seen and still don't see my body as being male, nor has my environment. I have no desire to become female, or male. All I want at this point is to know how my body works and how it's put together so that I can plan how I can best make it fit into the life I desire.

At this point, though, little progress has been made. The VUMC, which is the primary hospital with a gender team in this country, has done absolutely nothing for me, even refusing to do a single test in the past years. All I desire are some tests and clarity on the MRI scan, yet even this appears to be too much. The medicines and therapies I undergo now are costing me thousands of Euros each year, which I can ill afford. Recently the UMCG has prescribed me hormones yet hasn't performed any more tests.

Another not so nice thing is that I suffer from severe PTSD due to getting raped by a 'friend' in 2006, compounded by sexual assault early 2008 by another guy, a complete lack of treatment for it, many other bad experiences, resulting in me having developed an instinctive hatred against anything related to sexuality and relationships, especially those involving a guy and girl. It hasn't helped to help me value my body one bit more. According to my current therapist I also suffer from PTSD due to the poor treatment of the doctors here in the Netherlands.

I'm looking for friends... support... love... perhaps even a relationship, while gradually regaining confidence in my own skills and acknowledging and accepting my own existence. Above all I'd want my condition acknowledged and resolved so that I can finally get my insurance company to cough up all the money and to get my official identity and gender changed so that I won't have to explain why my ID card says that I'm male any more while nobody thinks I am. Currently a gender change is impossible unless you're a transsexual due to the law, with some friends I'm working on having this changed. It's a delicate point, but if I can manage to keep things afloat, everything should be alright from now on, despite the pessimistic and negative tone of most posts in my blog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Facts: phenotype

• Phenotype feminine, no male characteristics related to the skeleton, female pelvis.
• No adam's apple.
• Breasts started growing during early puberty to then stop until start of hormone therapy.
• Male genitals lack a foreskin with soft and thin skin in general, not fully descended testicles, before hormone therapy severe difficulties with male orgasm and ejaculation, afterwards former nearly impossible (painful), latter impossible.
• Female orgasm (very different experience from male orgasm) easy to reach, general response to stimulation is akin to that of a female. Male genitals respond more like female analogue, most sensitive zone around location vagina.
• Presence of a small prostate, presence vagina or other organs/tissues still unclear.
• Sexually completely infertile.
• Testosterone production 25% of normal male levels.
• Prostate, if present, completely inactive at the moment.

Facts: genotype

• Genotype of blood is XY, normal count.
• Genotype other tissues unknown (not sampled).

Irregularities

Some medical irregularities have occurred the past few years, see this document for an overview.

Also see the analysis of various medical reports: Analysis of reports in the case Maya Posch

Issues and Wishes

• I want a chimera test performed and clarity on the MRI scans (in progress)
• I want to understand my body, feel at ease with it.
• I want to feel normal, like my body is 'normal' too. Whether that means being fully female or a hermaphrodite is a secondary concern.
• At this point I feel neither male nor female. I only present myself as a female because it fits better.