ipso-faculty

[ipso-faculty]

Are you taking submissions for the intersex wiki? I have a really rare autoimmune disorder that for all intents and purposes makes me intersex (tldr my immune system attacks my own estrogen) and it took me so long to find any information about it/is quite isolating I was thinking maybe I could write up something for the intersex wiki about it in case someone goes looking on there like I did?

Please do!!! It would be super appreciated! <3

The wiki is open for anybody to edit, and getting this information out there for our community is why it's here! You just need to make an account to make edits - the Wiki has gotten a LOT of vandalism/attacks (sigh) which is why I have that turned on.

If you have any questions about wiki formatting or the like, discord is here. You don't need permission to edit existing pages, so feel free to also add the page you create to the list of intersex variations once you've made it!

[ipso-faculty]

This is a rant about the Scientific American diagram on intersex

This diagram makes the rounds periodically as an illustration of how sex development is complicated. Unfortunately, I don't think people really give it a close look, because it is incredibly intersexist.

The first thing to know about this diagram is it advocates for intersex genital mutilation. Here are actual boxes in the diagram:

"Genitals can be modified to look more typically female" is written in the part about how CAH looks at birth. "Dysgenic gonad and testis can be removed and genitals modified to look female" is under MGD at birth. "Dysgenic gonad can be removed and genitals modified to look male" is ALSO under MGD at birth and under PAIS.

Let's be clear here. This diagram is advocating that *babies* should be put through genital mutilation that causes permanent nerve damage, just so the babies can look "normal". 🤬

It also advocates removing gonads from babies, because they're the "wrong" ones. 🤬

The same diagram also advocates putting intersex youths on HRT to "promote (male/female) characteristics" or "regulate effects of [one's natural but apparently incorrect] male hormones". Again, coercive medical shit used to try and make our bodies conform to perinormativity without regard for our bodily autonomy, gender identity, goals, etc. 👀

Speaking of gender. The text that looks like the title of the diagram is the infobox on "the gender spectrum", which visually makes this seem about gender rather than sex. 🤨 This infobox also sucks: it defines trans, cis, and nonbinary, without any regard for how intersex people identify. I assume it's there to try explain to ignorant people that intersex is not gender, but in doing so it totally forgets that intersex people have gender and we often don't fit into these definitions of trans/nb/cis! It really reflects a view that intersex people aren't people with experiences and identities, we are just anatomical oddities. 🙃

The descriptions in the diagram are also gratuitously gendered. Like, "male hormones" are used rather than androgens, "female hormones" are used rather than estrogens, and there's vague shit like "male characteristics" (which ones?). 👀

Unsurprisingly, intersex variations are referred to by their pathologizing names, and they're called "intersex conditions" rather than variations. Language in the diagram throws around loaded shit like "biological male" (as in, intersex people are not). 🙃

Altogether this is deeply intersexist diagram, and it's upsetting every time I see it make the rounds. This is not the pro-intersex diagram people seem to think it is. 😩

[ipso-faculty]

A good rule of thumb for AI is "would you trust a trained pigeon to do this?"

"We trained a pigeon to recognise cancerous cell clusters and somehow they're really good at it" okay great, that's something that could plausibly be a thing.

"We trained a pigeon to recognise good CV:s and left it in charge of sorting through all our job applications" uh perhaps consider not doing that.

[ipso-faculty]

[ipso-faculty]

You can tell when someone’s frame of reference for “normal people” is more “people at the church sponsored ice cream social” and less “people on the bus”

[ipso-faculty]

Poll: is Hermaphroditus intersex?

I recently started the Intersex Wiki articles on Intersex in Mythology and Intersex Art History and it's prompted the question: is the Greco-Roman god Hermaphroditus actually intersex?

For those unfamiliar, this is the god that the h-slur is a reference to. He is traditionally depicted with mixed sex characteristics, usually a feminine upper-half with a penis and testes, usually revealing said genitals.

As is common with mythology, there are multiple versions of his origin story. In some early versions, he is born intersex -- scholars think he emerged as a new form of Aphroditus/Astarte (who were physically androgynous). But in many later versions of the myth, Hermaphroditus is born perisex. [CW: sexual violence] The most common version of the myth known today comes from Ovid, in which he is born perisex. A nymph, Salmacis, lusted after him, sexually harassing him and trying to rape him. She prayed to the gods that they should never be parted. And the gods granted her prayer by merging her body into his. It's some serious body horror shit. 😐️

@praeobscura recently made the argument that Hermaphroditus is not actually intersex. I personally agree that the Ovid version is not intersex, but I have no sense of if we're a minority or majority on this matter, especially as there is no "canon" version of the myth. So, poll:

[ipso-faculty]

Please remember that MOGAI archives are not an archive of terms the archiver, on a personal level, agrees with 100%. Archiving is important to do regardless of if the term is something you think is good or worded in the right way You would not go into a library and get mad at the librarian for a book you think is bad or was written by a guy you don't like.

Archivers are the backbone of this community where entire identities can easily become lost media. Your like of an individual archived term doesn't indicate the moral character of the archiver, a person who is impartial in this. Don't disrespect them for doing their job.

[ipso-faculty]

Since you explicitly wrote in the tags you want intersex people to reply...

First: you gotta understand what intersex is. Intersex is innately (congenitally) having sex characteristics that are not what are expected by one's society, and being vulnerable to intersexism as a result.

We are an oppressed minority group. We are not "weird genitals". Some intersex people do have genital differences, but this is not what defines intersex. Most intersex people don't have genital differences, actually - congenital variations in secondary sex characteristics like hirsutism in female-typed bodies and gynecomastia in male-typed bodies are way more common.

There is no singular intersex body type. Intersex is an umbrella term that includes dozens of intersex variations like AIS and CAH.

Please have a look at these resources for more information: - OII Europe's brochure on intersex allyship - InterACT's FAQ - @intersex-anthology - Intersex Wiki's entry on intersex

"So why can't a fursona with both parts be intersex?"

Because that's probably not intersex, actually. Even when intersex people have ambiguous genitalia, they don't have a typical perisex penis + typical perisex vagina, they have structures that are intermediate and don't look or function like "typical" genitals.

Intersex is not the same thing as cosexuality, which is when a nonhuman organism can reproduce as both male and female simultaneously. (Like snails.) 🐌

If you wanna make a fursona that has bigenitalia, that's fine, have fun! The problem is mislabelling that as intersex. Because that's not what intersex is, and it spreads harmful misinformation.

Why is it specifically the fault of furries .... Idk if all intersex people blame furries, but I keep seeing this one big blogger that does, and I don't get it.

You're probably referring to status-quo-hater, who is a furry. People write about what they know. It's gonna talk about furries because it is one.

I'm not a furry, but I have tried to use the fediverse, and have lately given up. The intersex tag on mastodon and other parts of the fediverse is SO overrun with mislabelled bigenital furry porn it makes it a really inhospitable place to be intersex. 😭

It's not just the fediverse though; similar issue on Bluesky. 😫 So depending on what parts of the internet somebody frequents, furries may be the most visible group that is being actively intersexist.

Flooding the intersex tag with porn makes it really hard for intersex people to find each other, when we're collectively struggling with social isolation. It's also just really psychologically hurtful to see the minority group you're a part of repeatedly reduced down to "funky genitals" 😭

Actual question I have, I'm just trying to understand this, please don't come at me:

Why is it specifically the fault of furries that intersex people are thought to be hermaphrodites (like snails)? Idk if all intersex people blame furries, but I keep seeing this one big blogger that does, and I don't get it.

Like I get being angry that intersexism is thought to be entirely fictional, I can def see how that's a problem, but isn't that just it?

Albino animals have red eyes even though humans don't. So why can't a fursona with both parts be intersex? And like, it's also a fursona. Dogs aren't blue irl but they can be as a fursona, and nobody bats an eye.

[ipso-faculty]

my utopia

[ipso-faculty]

we seriously need to stop conceding to the personhood trap when it comes to abortion rights. is a fetus a person? thats a spiritual question. i dont care about the answer. should another person dictate what someone can do with their body? simple answer: no.

[ipso-faculty]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[ipso-faculty]

things you DO NOT need to be a man

a dick

he/him pronouns

XY chromosomes

things you DO need to be a man

the swiftness of a coursing river

the force of a great typhoon

the strength of a raging fire

the mysteriousness of the dark side of the moon

^this post was brought to you by LGBT^

Let's

Get down to

Business

To defeat the huns

[ipso-faculty]

[ipso-faculty]

Hey radfems can you stop posting on the intersex tag? You are not welcome here, fuck off.

Transphobia actively harms the intersex community. We are not your transphobic talking point so please shut the fuck up.

[ipso-faculty]

This pride month is an excellent time to drop the term "cishet" as a word for "conformant" or "nonqueer".

Intersex people belong in pride. "Pericishet" is only a bandaid solution because stacking prefixes will always leave some group out.

If you want to talk about allorepropericisheteronormativity you probably are trying to talk about cultural hegemony.

[ipso-faculty]

[ipso-faculty]

See also, "We're in a drought; conserve water!" Meanwhile, bottled water companies and golf courses for rich folk empty the aquifers.