MIH and Proud.

This post had to be remade and so I'm going to just skip straight to the point and add links everywhere, so no dumb questions. All language used is exclusive to deviae folk.

What is MIH?

What is deviae?

Am I deviae?

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I was born months premature with polydactyly. I was tiny, baby squirrel tiny. I was then modified into humanity by removal of my polydactyly without consent. In perisex cases of infant surgery, it is life threatening. My polydactyly was not life threatening and they had taken from me what I thought was mine.

It is removing a portion of me, a section of me that had functioned without issue to my health, but something a surgeon had deemed as anatomically incorrect for a female and a defect to my body.

They mutilated me and they're doing it to others by any means, whether it's surgery or not. Babies are further butchered without their knowledge until complications come up later in life, or they are treated as lesser by their peers when the topic arises.

For those who are older now, deviae folk who went through the effects of zoanormalcy (MIH or not), they'll know what it's like, especially deviae folk who feel as though the body they exist in now is not the right one and that modifying it would aide them. I've heard of deviae folk who were screwed by their insurance company because certain gender affirming choices during surgery was easier. Ive heard of deviae folk who are terrified of getting body modifications because they aren't sure if their friends/family/partner will support them. Some deviae folk are nonhuman and they want nonhuman traits but just can't because their choice is not human enough.

Those deviae folk who are physically transitioning through hormones and surgery, trying to regain what they believe has either been lost from being MIH or trying to feel the safest in their own body. They know what it is like to be alive and deal with what society thinks is best for them.

Through the joys of transitioning, of becoming myself again, all of that is beautiful. I deserve it, I deserve to be seen and understood as alive and as good enough. I am human enough, I don't need to be mutilated and changed so that I may better fit into these categories. I am enough and I am happy how I am.

But living with being MIH is a form of hell.

I consistently crave extra digits, species dysphoria from the surgery. i frantically justifying my extra finger as "benign", i explain myself during times where i didn't have to over something most people don't go through. my finger had nerves, blood vessels, and now all of that has been tucked under my skin. I can feel it and the nub left is noticable.

It hurts when I press at it, it's sensitive and it is pained when it is bumped into gently. That is what is left of my supposed nonhumanity, now turned into constant, aggravating pain on the side of my palm. And why? Because I was deemed not human enough to be in society.

They feared what society thought and they gave me mercy by removing a part of me. Aesthetically. Because now, I deal with complications and discomfort and dysmorphia. Mental anguish all because of zoanormalcy.

What I will be pursuing, getting my polydactyly back, will most likely never happen unless it's silicone. I will never have that back. No, being MIH is not just an action done upon you, it is a life you must live forever and a life that you cant choose to be other. Your only options are to express frustration or reclaim that body. Some, aren't able to.

This post isn't supposed to be negative, just blunt, to get others to understand that my feelings are entirely about how badly I and many others were affected.

"You can't co-opt IGM and compare this to real mutilation!"

"This feels like calling intersex and disabled people monsters."

"This term is useless! Just use physical nonhuman!"

This term is separate from IGM completely but some intersex deviae people may think their humanity was forced upon them in ways unnecessary because some intersex folk are physically nonhuman because that's their identity.

Deviae and the topic of MIH is limited to those who are using the label, not those who fit in with it's description. Me believing my polydactyly is deviatypal is not me saying that everyone with it is deviae. it's opt-in but still physical.

And finally, let people have what they want as long as it isn't directly harming tens or millions of people. Genuinely, deviae is a better term than any other word that discusses the modification and alteration of your body by choice. It is a specific culture and experience that is by choice and by your own relationship with yourself.

Deviae is what I am, by gender and species and sex. Being MIH destroyed my sense of what mullerian bodies are supposed to look like because everyone pictures one thing; slim, feminine, anatomically correct, "normal". Any imperfection of the mind or body was abnormal and therefore unwanted. I'm choosing nullification surgery because it's the closest I'll get to having my own way of what looks like what to me. Refusing to follow human standards is how I fight back against being reduced to nothing..

There are times where I feel helpless about ever getting that surgery to put me back together. But I understand now that the more and more angry I get about it, the more I love about being in a community that can see me and understand that I am who I am. Talking and speaking to other deviae folk, seeing how they struggle and seeing how they discuss their identity.. I love the culture that we are building. At times, I'm glad I was deemed not human enough. At times, I'm glad I connected with others who went through surgeries or couldn't get their species affirmation/gone through malspecialia. I'm glad because I can finally put it into words how good it feels to share resources and just .. live. To be alive ans find purpose in breathing again with words you can use to describe how it was! This is a dream!

So when I say that I am not human by birth and I am not my body, I mean it. I experienced being MIH and this wasn't just a surgery, but a change to my entire life until I die. I could have just been deviae without experiencing MIH, but that wasn't enough. They had to prove to me my nonhumanity, tell me that I could be fixed. Well I don't want to be fixed. So what I wasn't human enough?

I'm proud of that.