Introduction 

I have completed the writing of Gathering of Misfits: Vicky and Tammy, my fifth novel of that series. Taking a break from that community of people, I read through and tweaked a few of my other stories: Salvation Ranch, the Millenium series, and The AI Sister of the Mighty Men of Oak Street. This past week, I came across two story ideas for my next Misfits book. These involve dealing with betrayal and with acceptance and God’s love for intersex people.

Dealing with Betrayal

I have been enjoying a romp through a space saga in which the main character and his friends rescue his younger sister from a golden cage on a distant planet. She had been abducted by a tribe of Amazon- like warriors and priestesses to become their queen, but with minimal power. Along the way, another young woman the crew had rescued betrays them to the main villain of the story. The main character and his crew had to grab the younger sister/ queen and flee for space again.

This idea of betrayal inspired me to develop a story idea for Xavier Constanza of the Gathering of Misfits. Throughout that series, he has been Joe Laird’s second- in-command, Kate’s husband and Phoebe’s father, and the architect who designed the renovation of the Ark for the Misfits to live in. Hot- blooded Latino that he is, with his beloved wife dead, I decided Xavier needed to “go off the deep end” and seek occasional sexual encounters in another city.

The betrayal came when Xavier takes Arnau Rey into his empty apartment as an ezer without sex. Arnau reveals Xavier’s sexcapades to the Misfits community at a time when the latter is running for a seat on the Paradise city council. The scandal becomes a mountain in the way of Xavier’s being elected. He will have to deal with that betrayal along with everything else.

Intersex Persons

Then I came across an interview with a Bible scholar who has discovered Writings that say things about intersex people. In Matthew 19:12, Jesus referred to 

…eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others — and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Bible scholar said that Jewish rabbis of that day talked about men, women, and four or more types of people who were neither. This is what Jesus meant by the “eunuchs who were born that way”.

Modern medical science has been aware of babies born outside the norm of being boys or girls. (It turns out they are as common as redheads.) One abnormality(?) involves a child born with XY (male) chromosomes whose testes did not descend into an external scrotum before birth. These male organs remain inside the lower torso. Turner Syndrome involves babies born with XO chromosomes. They tend to be short, stocky females with heart valve abnormalities and other traits. Some babies are born with both XX and XY chromosomes.

For decades, doctors performed surgeries to “correct” the various sexual “abnormalities” in XY/ hidden testicles children. These doctors then told clueless parents to raise the child as a girl. Because the body is unable to use the testosterone produced by the internal Testicles, normal male characteristics do not develop for this genetically male child.

Typically, doctors or parents tell the preteen “girl” the news that she is abnormal and will never bear the children she has been conditioned to want. The girl goes through her teen years without growing breasts or developing periods. Mentally, if not socially, she becomes an outsider during the years of growing into physical and social adulthood. This may all become a deep, dark secret, never to be shared with anyone but the most intimate friend. When revealed to the one desired for marriage, that man often breaks off the relationship. 

This is only one of a number of sexual “abnormalities” endured by intersex people. Neither do these people want to be called “hermaphrodites”. This is not to be confused with transexualism. That is the belief by a physical boy or girl that he/she was born with the wrong anatomy.

Enter Briana Snow

Scrapping the illicit sex idea for Xavier, I seized upon the notion that he becomes acquainted with Briana. She is a fellow architect, who introduced to him the ideas for using vertical spaces in small apartment rooms. He used these for the renovation of the Ark for the Gathering of Misfits.

She heard his plans to live with a community of believers to bring the Kingdom into a neighborhood plagued by one social issue or another. She also heard of the Misfits’ ideal of accepting people where they are and showing them Father God’s love. Being a church- goer who loves Jesus, Briana pours out her heart to the recently- widowed Xavier. She persuaded him to meet with her regularly to give mutual support for their individual struggles.

Emotional nakedness leads to physical nakedness and sexual intimacy. This is what Arnau discovers and tells to the Misfits community. This is the betrayal Xavier must deal with and the mountain in the way of election to the city council.

Misfits’ Acceptance and Love

As with my other Gathering of Misfits novels, this one explores the need for God’s people to put aside their white, Anglo- Saxon, church morality. God has called them to accept Briana in her intersex reality and to help her overcome the psychological wounds of being medically mutilated as a child, raised as a girl in a genetically male body, and ostracized as unfit for love and marriage.