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"GIX"Apr/24/2008
www.ParentsInX.org
When GendersInX was approximately a year old under the new server, I had started to think about creating a new site just for parents of children with a Congenital Gender Variation. This would include parents who are or their children who are of 5 Alpha Reductase, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, Klinefelter’s Syndrome and Turner’s Syndrome.
The parents forum wasn’t seeing too much traffic in GIX and I thought that perhaps the cause was that parents would like a little privacy. In writing this concern in GendersInX, a member there who is a mother of a Turner’s Syndrome child spoke up and suggested that a new site just for parents was the way to go. I offered her moderatorship on the site and she accepted. So here I went with a new project to be excited about.
Mamaniq and I decided that the theme of the site should be centered around the home as this is where we raise our young’uns most. I had set this up so that the resource people in GendersInX would also have the same job function in ParentsInX (PIX for short). This way if a parent had any questions, then they would get the information first hand from a person who is of that condition. Mamaniq has good first hand experience in her child’s condition and I am a Klinefelter’s person who is daddy to a daughter (can you tell how proud I am of that ?).
To our great surprise, we had a donation given to us for this project. This gave us a great boost. Although PIX is a free forum, some things paid for are domain names, no ads, memory storage and other features that make our forums wonderfully functional. Well, things are picking up and unlike most sites, it is my feeling that parents do not want to share their story until they are assured that a site is safe and sound. This is something that most parent sites are not assured of.
To date, we have some mothers coming on PIX and we are starting to see more conversations. I look forward to others coming on and voicing their concerns, thoughts and anecdotes. The site is definitely safe and all who enter go through a short screening process in order to be assured that the new poster is not a spammer. We are always open to suggestions, should it be noted that a forum would be apt for a discussion.
www.ParentsInX.org exists to encourage and support all the members with a little fun mixed in.
Apr/24/2008
www.GendersInX.org 
GendersInX started when I was neck deep into moderation of another site that dealt with Klinefelter’s and all aspects of it. In amongst the many posters, a woman who had Turner’s Syndrome came on to find out what Klinefelter’s was all about. I was amazed on how much we had in common as much as I was interested on our differences in our two syndromes. I wanted to explore that however it would not be appropriate to discuss Turner’s in a Klinefelter’s forum.
I scoured the internet to find a suitable forum server that will do the trick. Through my inexperience with this I found an opportunity in one of the free forums. A comment was made that any free site would not make it anywhere. That was the last straw in giving me the push to make this site as I really thought that this person was wrong in down playing anyone’s effort. Finding a name for the site that will compare different conditions with each other in looking for similarities, I had to find an appropriate name that would encompass them all. After a time, I found the common factor in all of our conditions is the X Chromosome. Some have more than one, some less and some inexistent. I knew that not everyone saw themselves as male and female but still acknowledged that they had a gender or were genderless so I called the site Genders In X. In this new site, I put this in as a .com as I didn’t know any different then.
The site started slowly as any site does and I included the Turner’s syndrome person I had met on the other site as my moderator. As I had many a friend on the other xxy site, they supported me and tried to help as best they could. To this day this effort is much appreciated. This will be said from time to tine as grass roots are always remembered.
As GendersInX (GIX for short) was slowly taking off, my moderatorship was in question from the other site as I was seen as making a competitive site and it was feared that I would take posters from that site to make mine. This was never the intention but I could see that this would be a thorn to explain it, so I stepped down vowing that I will prove that what I say is true. Much to the Admin’s credit, this was retracted and all was good. In fact, he and I are good friends and we talk from time to time always supporting each other. As much as this situation could be viewed as a negative, I saw it as a positive as it gave me a bigger push to concentrate on my task at hand. I am still a member of that earlier site and I post once in a while when I find some interesting information the members there could appreciate. I owe a lot to www.XXYTalk.com as it opened my eyes to parts of myself that were mere frustrations before I came onto the site.
In the time that I posted much on XXYTalk.com, I met a person there that had posted subjects particularly on intersex subjects. As GIX was getting to the point that Intersex was going to be a good part of that site, I approached Curtis Hinkle to take a gander at GendersInX at that point. He was impressed that a site addressed the commonality of different conditions leaning towards Intersex without any influence of any other organisation. As I found out later, Curtis was/is the President of the Organisation of Intersex International (OII) and GIX was introduced to his members. That gave GIX the necessary push to expand it’s horizons. I had altered some of the wording to accommodate the many different people that would come on the site. Curtis then made me a part of his organisation to which I am there still today. The title that Curtis created for me was apt to my mission that I was trying to accomplish. More on that in my biography.
Curtis had expressed a desire to have a site that addressed Intersex only and so I began to make a site for him through another server that I wasn’t initially aware of. I made plenty of mistakes and I learned from every single one of them. This site is called Intersexions Café and later on it’s domain name became www.Intersexions.org. More on that story in it’s own title.
That was a good experience and it gave me ideas on how I was going to step up GIX as I wasn’t satisfied over the security features (or the lack of it) and other features that direly needed upgrading. I changed to the forumotion server and restarted GendersInX encouraging the members to change over. I lost a few then but I gained a few more. Certainly my subjects on 5 Alpha Reductase, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, Androgen Insensitive Syndrome, Klinefelter’s Syndrome and Turner’s Syndrome were getting a fair chance of becoming more available to anyone that would like to learn of them through the people that have that condition.
From that time on, we had seen some bumps and bruises not unlike any site starting up and the members in GIX certainly supported the site and are still there today. This I say with pride because I appreciate everyone’s efforts on GIX. Really, I am the Admin there but they are the ones that make the site the encouraging and supportive site it is now. For the future, I would like to add more genetic sexual conditions so that we all can learn from the people involved and get together online to discuss whatever suits our fancy. I will probably change some features and the look a little but I am happy with the marble layout. My co-Admin just rolls up here eyes when I mention that I will change this and that. I think variety is the spice of life and so I implement that into GendersInX.org as much as possible .
As mentioned earlier, we have resource people who address any and all questions concerning their conditions. To date we have 5 excluding myself. Some members shared an interest in trying to encourage some of the other members who have not posted yet and from that one member, the group of 4 is now called the Peer Support group. I think it’s important that we all share in encouraging and supporting each other as we will not get that from the world as it is. Indeed getting hammered constantly would discourage anyone. I find my refuge in GIX when the negative world starts to make little sense to me. Once in a while I let loose by writing what frustrates me or brings me down and I am always encouraged again to continue what I set out to do.
Supporting and encouraging, this is what www.GendersInX.org is all about,.
2008-04-27 @ 07:32:13 pm
by Andre
Happy to be there with you ...
2008-04-27 @ 07:05:37 pm
by Boz