45xo

[45xo]

Shout out to those who are disabled because they're intersex

[45xo]

Stop listening to people who claim to be "safe" while requesting that you send images of your genitals! This includes tracings and drawings! No, you also shouldn't do it with people who claim they can help you figure out if you have genital ambiguity or armchair diagnose you! It is incredibly dangerous! Especially if you're having your genitals publically analyzed in a large community or on a blog!

Stop giving people vulnerable information about yourself! I don't care if they claim to have good intentions. They don't. They're not medical professionals, and you don't know them. It is not their place to be analyzing your body. It is not their place to be "diagnosing" you. Additionally, when you put this information out in public, you are potentially exposing yourself to people with even worse, malicious intentions!

[45xo]

Lilleplutt from IKEA in Real Life is intersex, and its variation is Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH)!

Requested by @45xo

[45xo]

Four-leaf Clovers from Real Life are intersex!

The requester elaborates: " I do consider them to be a lot like intersex people recently, I think that would make a good symbol for a community:

1) 4-leaf clovers are NOT as rare as people make them to be (just like intersexuality isn't really that rare and comes in all shapes and forms, AKA there are also clovers that come with many more leaves on them), I've collected them for a few years and I have a pretty big collection

2) While there are some theories on why this may occur, it's still a mystery why some clovers come out with four leaves, just like many intersex variations are still a mystery

3) While in lots of cultures intersexuality is seen very negatively (for shame), sometimes it has very positive connections with divinity, beauty and luck (Ancient Greece for one), and luck is a wide belief with four-leaf clovers

4) Both intersex individuals and four-leaf clovers are extremely gorgeous<333 "

[45xo]

Yes yes, trans women are women, but what does that mean to you? Does that mean ignoring the trans part, insisting she's exactly the same as a cis woman? Because that means ignoring what it means to transition and how difficult transitioning is in a lot of places. That means ignoring transmisogyny and what that actually means intersectionally. It's not enough to validate the gender of a trans person, you must also see being transgender as something worthy of protection and expression, a life journey that needs support. Trans women are women, but they are also transgender, and this path to womanhood is different to the cis path and should be respected as a valid path to said womanhood. That's why trans women need trans rights as much as womans rights.

[45xo]

turner syndrome (XO chromosomes) flag by @gonyadaldysgenesis

x/x/x x x/x/x

[45xo]

Yes being intersex isn’t even that rare but we also can’t let the struggle for intersex rights be founded on how many of us there are. Being relatively common as a whole isn’t why intersex rights matter and while I appreciate trying to dispel the myth about how supposedly stupidly rare we are (again as a whole, some intersex conditions themselves are actually pretty rare), I don’t like the implication I sometimes get from that that we can convince people we matter because there are so many of us. We’d matter and have the right to bodily autonomy, acceptance, support and really just basic human rights whether there are 10 of us or 10 hundred million of us. A world with just one intersex person would still be a world where intersex rights and advocacy are needed.

[45xo]

Poll on coming out as intersex

I personally understand being "out" as a thing that isn't all or nothing - one can be open about being intersex in some spheres of your life and not others.

Examples of spheres of your life: family, work, school, hobbies, any religious organization you are a part of

[45xo]

[45xo]

I hope in a decade or so SOME OF YOU ignorant lot look back at the intersexist shit you've said and done, and realize it was as bigoted and moronic as the aphobia and bi/panphobia that got passed around like hot potato in the 2010s.

[45xo]

the lack of intersex education harms people so much. i genuinely thought that since i got a period (though, either super irregular or very heavy) i couldn't be intersex. sex ed needs to teach about variations too.

this is intersexism.

yes, a lot of intersex people have no idea that their traits are intersex. they often feel broken and alienated because of it. it also makes them more vulnerable to medical and social coercion.

we need intersex-inclusive sex ed. we need intersex-inclusive everything.

[45xo]

hi! i'm curious if any intersex people have a kidney difference at all? i have turner syndrome and i have long elongated kidneys which are almost horseshoe! i've heard kidney differences are more common in intersex people

[45xo]

Re: the ask about vulvar hypospadias -

“You’re not intersex! You just have sex traits that do not fit into the socially acceptable binary of male and female! That’s totally different.”

It’s always so frustrating when people try to make arguments like that. They’re not making the point that they think they’re making…

ask about vulvar hypospadias: link (clickable).

this is intersexism.

yes, this! they try to turn "intersex" in something almost mythical. it's not just different sex traits for them. it's something nearly impossible and totally not plain and simple.

if "intersex" is something vague mythical, it's easier to convince people that they're just broken and need to be fixed. because they totally can't be these mythical creatures. /retelling the rhetoric

that's why a lot of intersex people have impostor syndrome. after all this rarity-mongering, it's difficult to believe that you, actually, can be a part of this group.

[45xo]

People You Love from Real Life are intersex! Whether you know it or not!

Requested by @sanriopupbaby

[45xo]

so, with CT[X] labels, in your opinion, what's the... best? most proper? correct? reasoning for applying a CT[X] label to oneself? for euphoria? for avoiding dysphoria? for describing one's body? for describing how one is perceived by others? for describing how one perceives oneself? for describing one's experiences with being gendered? we've been tossing around the idea in our head of whether we self-apply CTF, or self-apply CTA, or even CTM. hell, maybe we simply apply none at all, or several if that's even a possibility. and we're not seeing as much discussion on these terms as we'd like to to use as scaffolding for our own introspection in regards to it, so. gestures. yeah. thank you!!

So! The most "proper" usage of this term is honestly...whatever you think best describes your experience?

When we created the terms CTF and CTM initially, it was because intersex people in our life at the time kept being gatekept out of intersex spaces for being "too male" or "too female", and wanted to remain anonymous, so asked us to create terms for them. Initially these were created to be used like "oh, I am CTF, which means people view me as mulleripathian in most settings but I'm actually intersex."

PLEASE keep in mind, we were all teenagers (us and the people requesting the terms) during its creation. The coining of these terms were far from perfect at the time.

Basically, the terms were made not necessarily to just describe physical traits, but to describe how ones variation causes society to treat oneself, and how ones own perception of oneself develops as a result. (Sort of similar to how mesosex was created for people who didn't feel "intersex enough" by perisex standards)

The community latched onto it, but there developed a subset of exclusionists that began using it to say "this variation is CTF! This variation is CTM!" when it was never meant to be applied like that. No variation is inherently anything.

We created CTA and CTN, and then people began creating terms like CTFA, CTFN, CTMN, CTMA, CTFM, CTFAM, CTFAN, etc.

People ask us often how to "use it correctly" and "what variations count as _" and we always have to answer saying that's not up for us to decide because it's self interpretive. Is hyperandrogenic PCOS CTF, CTM, CTA, a mixture? Idk! Depends on who you ask! "I have a mullerian duct and people treat me a disordered mulleripathian, that makes me CTF" one person may say, while another person says "I have higher androgens, lots of body hair, a deep voice, and clitoromegaly, that's CTM", meanwhile another says "my mixed sex traits make me CTA!"

See how all of these things can make sense? That's because intersexuality can't really be classified into these strict categories. Another example is that there are people with Turner syndrome who consider themselves CTF, CTN, both, etc.

The examples can go on and on, but our point is none of them are "right" or "wrong."

Basically, in conclusion - the only correct usage of these terms are...well, whatever you make of them! Do you want it to describe how others view you? Go for it. Do you want it to describe how you view your own traits? Go for it! Do you want it to describe a bit of both? Go for it! Do you not feel drawn to them at all? Don't use them!

All it was ever meant to do was to give intersex people additional language that they can personally interpret. Think of this scenario in a new context - it's like how intersex people interpret terms like cis and trans their own ways, too, and use terms like ipsogender, ultergender, intergender, etc. What one intersex person may consider cisgender for themselves can be transgender for another intersex person, or neither for another, or both for another, or an intersex person can refuse to use any gender labels whatsoever, and all of those are perfectly fine options to take.

[45xo]

commission for @intersexmari :)