It knew no bounds or reason, what I was feeling. In those early days, the doctor was on the end of half of it, the other half went to my parents. I fought as hard as I could to put a lid on it until I could get the real story from my parents. Somehow, I knew they’d never do something like this to me without one hell of a good reason. They simply are not the kind of people who just do things like this.

And so I waited, biding my time until the rage declined enough to go talk to the folks. Until then, I used the emotional control I developed from years of bullying in school to hide what I was feeling. But life can be especially cruel, sometimes. My niece gave birth to a boy while I was wrestling with my rage and grief. I learned I was a granduncle in the same conversation I learned that he had been circumcised too. The “C” word was dropped right in there casually by my mother. No big deal. I felt like I’d just been hit by lightning.

Oh boy, did the rage beast roar inside my head that day! I barely held my composure, but somehow that day passed without me doing or saying something regrettable. I knew I could no longer put off talking to my parents, so the next time I was able to get a handle on what I was feeling, I went to talk to them.

First and only question from my lips: Why? I wanted to blow the roof off the house with that one word shouted at a thousand decibels, but held my anger in check and moderated my tone. The answer came, and that was the day my rage redirected fully at the doctor, and my parents were immediately forgiven. In 1973, it was just what was done and the doctor had pushed it like a life-or-death surgery. I needed this surgery to live. It’s going to get infected. Do it now. Do it now. Do it NOW. He could die.

So . . . they gave their consent. I was early, remember, and my parents were fresh off the memory of one of their nephews dying at birth. They were scared, and doctors know best, don’t they? But then they regretted it, deciding to never do it again. My younger sisters, had they been born male, would have been able to keep their whole bodies. They had also tried to talk my niece and her boyfriend out of doing it to their newborn son.

Since then, some time has passed and I have been restoring my birthright through stretching exercises. These will never give me back everything that was so casually chopped off in the name of a doctor’s paycheck, but should help the mental side of things. I have regained all of my age 20 sensitivity and then some. You’d think that would make me less angry, and it likely will in time, but as of right now I am reminded of what happened to me every single time I look at the scar. Sometimes I feel like restoration is sticking it to the monster that did this to me; other times I get so incandescent with rage I have to stop for the day. Sometimes I even wish I were born female, so I could have my whole body. But I think it will get better in time.

Even so, I want to make it perfectly clear where I stand, even if you don’t believe a word of my own story. Consent and bodily autonomy have always been important to me. I was brought up Christian, to respect the rights of other people. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

We tell our children to be careful. Don’t take candy from strangers. That’s your private area, nobody should ever touch you there. Don’t get in that van, he isn’t looking to show you his new puppy. And yet, what was my first life lesson? “Your body isn’t actually yours. Your private parts are broken, you need fixing. Your body is here to make this doctor money, nothing more. You won’t remember anyway, so it doesn’t even matter what we cut off of you right now. Your future opinion . . . just doesn’t matter.”