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Heike Boedeker / Heike Spreitzer and transgender people

Heike Susanne Bödeker (also known as Heike Spreitzer) is a German writer and “autogynephilia” activist. Heike claimed to have been in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”) and was involved in the transkids.us hoax site.

Background

Heike claims to be born in 1963 and “adopted by the family of a psychotic woman.” Heike described family life in Heidelberg as a concentration camp: “like being at the hands of some torturer or KZ-Waechter resp. like living in a death row.” Heike has very little good to say about one adoptive parent. Heike allegedly got a break when the parent was hospitalized in 1969. Heike says, “occasionally she beat me really seething with hatred.” and ” I will spit on her grave rather go to hell
”

Heike has reported being diagnosed with mixed gonadal dysgenesis. Heike claims to have been assigned female at birth but was reassigned male in 1968 around age 5. Around age 12, Heike was reportedly put on testosterone (from November 1975 “until shortly before my attempt at suicide around the time of my 14th birthday in May ’77.”). This gave Heike what “many contemporaries due to their lack of any musical education mistake for a male voice.” In 1977, Heike dropped out of a school program, then “had a major breakdown” at age 18.

After living as male for about 16 years starting at age 5, Heike was reportedly reassigned female at age 21 in 1984. Heike’s turning point came in 1993. Heike spent time learning about the Siksika, Piikani, Kainaa, Tsuut’ina, and Nakoda First Nations, and became aware of ISNA.

“I experienced another breakdown only a few weeks after [2 years of psychotherapy] had ended.” Heike was reportedly later adopted by Anna Boedeker and got in a relationship with Denise Magner (aka “Kiira Triea”). Between 1998 and 2000 Heike Bödeker self-identified as “Kiira’s partner,” at one point writing, “This is what happens when one’s gf lives in Germany.”

Activism

Heike and Magner had many connections prior to Magner’s death in 2012:

  • CISAE [Coalition for iIntersex Support Activism and Education] and GMSSG [Genital Mutilation Survivors’ Support Network] and EZKU were hosted on the same domain
  • Wrote pro-“autogynephilia” piece in response to Becky Allison
  • Wrote article on Native v. White gender diversity with Magner and Teresa Binstock 
  • http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ (now Heike’s mother’s site)
  • boedeker@netcologne.de
  • Boedeker_Spreitzer_GbR@t-online.de

Boedeker has gone to considerable effort to erase all online presence.

Selected publications

Michal Rachel Nahman (2000). Embodied Stories, Pragmatic Lives: Intersex Body Narratives on the Net. Unpublished thesis, York University.

The EZKU website is run by Heike Boedeker, from Germany, who used to run the Genital Mutilation Survivors’ Support Network website (which is no longer in existence). As opposed to GMSSN, EZKU is not a support network; rather, it is an online journal (the offline version of which dates back to 1981 -1985) devoted to intersexual and transsexual traumatization issues. Through this website Heike has demonstrated dissatisfaction with the exclusion of transsexual issues frorn the intersex movement. The EZKU website contains Heike’s life history. It focuses specifically on traumatization caused by surgeries, hormone therapies and the mistreatment s/he received. I use Heike’s cornments and hir online testimonials in the next section where I compare the different intersex websites
 For Heike, a functioning body is just as important or even more important than a body that can ‘pass’ for mate or female. Here we see a key difference amongst people in the movement. Some equate normalcy with function, others with appearance.

For exarnple, in her online testimonial, Heike describes her feelings at the age of 15, stating that she could not identify as anything: 1 can’t be male, I can’t not be male, 1 can’t be female, I can’t not be fernale, I can’t be intersexed, 1 can’t be not intersexed, i can’t betranssexual, I can’t be not transsexual.. . likewise, I canY have r’ships [sic] and I can’t have no r’ships.. .sounds crazy, right? [Heike Boedeker, GMSSN website (no longer available online)]

When she wrote this Heike was feeling rejected by various different communities and found herself in a double bind. While others have constantly identified Heike as an intersexual, she sees herself as just as much a transsexual, or rather she is frustrated by the need to identify as anything at all.

References

Boedeker, Heike (Janunary 24, 1998). “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Herm.” Real Intersexed People, via CISAE

Spreitzer, Heike (1994). enthĂ€lt: Zur PhĂ€nomenologie der DirektionalitĂ€t (“inverse Flexion”). Sprache & Sprachen

Spreitzer, Heike; Nieragden, Göran; Chapado, Olga; Wilbertz, Veronika; Weyerts, Helga (1994). Versuch einer historischen Lautlehre des Arbore. Sprache & Sprachen 14/15 (1994), 35-69.

Resources

Anna Boedeker (anna-boedeker.de)

  • http://www.anna-boedeker.de/ab.html
  • http://www.anna-boedeker.de/cats/family.htm

Sonic (sonic.net)

  • http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/
  • http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/heike/index.htm
  • http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ezku/index_pe.html
  • http://www.sonic.net/~boedeker/ezku/glossary.htm