#actuallyintersex

[ipso-faculty]

Perisex allies: stop this shit

CW: intersexism

Came across this infographic during some google image searching and I'm still kind of a state of despair about it because it's not just offensively wrong about what intersex is, it was used to teach university students about queer issues:

Alt text: LGBTQIA+ are defined one by one. Intersex is defined erroneously as "These are people who were born with genital organs of both sexes (male and female). It is a genetic condition."

It's one thing for your rando perisex person to be getting this wrong on social media. It's another thing entirely when it's professionals getting this wrong in an educational setting. 😩 And that this infographic appears in a peer-reviewed publication. 😩

It's even worse to know the students that were taught with this infographic were medical students, who will be the ones traumatizing intersex people for decades to come 😩

It's so wrong in so many different ways:

Intersex is not limited to people with genital differences. Most intersex people have intersex variations that are not apparent at birth, with puberty being the most common time of life for variations to present. Many people find out in adulthood having no outward physical differences.

Of the intersex people with genital differences, they do not have two sets of genitals. Most genital differences are still recognizably female or male (e.g. spadias), and those who have ambiguous genitals have one set.

Intersex is not "male parts + female parts" or even "intermediate male/female parts", it is an umbrella term for anybody whose primary/secondary sex characteristics don't line up with what is expected for male and female bodies. Some intersex variations make women look more feminine, or make men look more masculine.

Defining intersex by genital differences doesn't just exclude most intersex people, it also sets the tone that we are defined by our genitals. To be publicly intersex is to have non-stop DMs about your genitals. This sort of framing sets up openly intersex people for invasive questions and harassment, and it keeps large numbers of intersex people from coming out.

Many intersex variations do not have a known genetic basis. Many intersex variations are caused by exposure to certain hormonal levels in the womb. Certain medications when taken during pregnancy can trigger intersex variations.

While bodily variation is necessary for being intersex, the social experience of stigma, discrimination, isolation, hyper-medicalization, and hyper-sexualization are all just as much a part of being intersex.

📣 Perisex allies: this is shit you can stop. When you see other perisex people parrot this sort of misinformation, correct them. Direct them to look up resources written by actually intersex people.

Here are some starter resources to give:

Intersex explained by Hans Lindahl

Media and style guide by IHRA

FAQ by intersex-support

A recent post I did compiling information for trans people who want to be better intersex allies

[intersex-support]

Today, July 19 2022, intersex genital mutilation is banned in Greece!! This is the fifth country in the world to ban intersex surgery at birth, and is a huge win for intersex people in Greece. So much appreciation and admiration to the activists from Intersex Greece who worked to pass this bill. The fight is not over, but this is an amazing step towards protecting intersex people.

Check out this article for more info!!

[trans-axolotl]

how many times are intersex people going to have to remind you all to stop throwing us under the bus. when i see dyadic trans people say shit like “no kids are ever prescribed hormones/have surgery” you’re ignoring the hundreds of intersex kids every year who are forced into “normalizing treatments” because the idea of letting kids exist outside the sex binary is something doctors refuse to let happen. doctors and legislators are both incredibly interested in controlling our bodily autonomy as both trans and intersex people—they don’t want any of us to have the freedom to live authentically as ourselves. for trans people, that shows up like restricting access to gender affirming care. for intersex people, that looks like non consensual surgery and hormones that is often times used almost like conversion therapy, especially if you’re both trans and intersex. y’all CANNOT forget about us when you’re calling out transphobia, because I promise you that the transphobes have not forgot about us, as almost every single transphobic bill about restricting gender affirming care in the United States has also left explicit provisions to ensure that intersex genital mutilation and nonconsensual hormone therapy can continue. Dyadic trans people, you really should be able to understand why doctors denying people the ability to live as their authentic self without coercion is a problem, and you all NEED to stop acting like our fights for bodily autonomy are in conflict when in reality, it is two sides of the same coin.

okay to reblog

[trans-axolotl2]

I've been reading Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and one concept that I think is absolutely crucial and one of the best resources I've found for understanding my own experiences as an intersex person is the term Compulsory Dyadism.

Dr. Orr coins the term: "I propose the expression 'compulsory dyadism' to describe the instituted cultural mandate that people cannot violate the sex dyad, have intersex traits, or 'house the spectre of intersex' (Sparrow 2013, 29). Said spectre must be, according to the mandate, exorcised. However, trying to definitively cast out the spectre via curative violence always fails. The spectre always returns: a new intersex baby is born; one learns that they have intersex traits in adulthood; and/or medical procedures cannot cast out the spectre fully, as evidenced by life-long medical interventions, routines, or patienthood status. And the effects of compulsory dyadism haunt in the form of disabilities, scars, memories, trauma, and medical regimens (e.g., HRT routines). Compulsory dyadism, therefore, is not simply an event or a set of instituted policies but is an ongoing exorcising process and structure of pathologization, curative violence, erasure, trauma, and oppression." (Orr 19-20).

They continue on in their book to explore compulsory dyadism as it shows up in medical interventions, racializing intersex + sports sex testing, and eugenic and prenatal interventions on intersex fetuses. This term makes so much sense to me and puts words to an experience I've been struggling to comprehend--how can it be that so many endosex* people express such revulsion and fear of intersex bodies and traits, yet at the same time don't even know that intersex people exist? Why is it that people understand when I refer to my body in the terms used by freak shows, call myself a hermaphrodite, remember bearded ladies and laugh at interphobic jokes--yet do not even know that intersex people are as common as redheads? Understanding the term compulsory dyadism elucidates this for me. Endosex people might not comprehend what intersex actually is or know anything about our advocacy, but they do grow up in a cultural environment that indoctrinates them into false ideas about the sex binary and cultivates a fear of anything that lies outside of it.

From birth, compulsory dyadism affects every one of us, whether you're intersex or not. Intersex people carry the heaviest burden and often the most visible wounds that compulsory dyadism inflicts, as shown through often the very literal scars of violent, "curative" surgery, but the whole process of sex assignment at birth is a manifestation of compulsory dyadism. Ideas entrenched in the medical system that assign gender to the hormones testosterone and estrogen although neither of those hormones have anything to do with gender, a society that starts selling hair removal products to girls at puberty, and the historical legacy of things like sexual inversion theory are all manifestations of compulsory dyadism. For intersex people, facing compulsory dyadism often means that we are subjected to curative violence, institutionalized medical malpractice that sometimes includes aspects of ritualized sexual abuse, and means that we are left "haunted by, for instance, traumatic memories, acquires body-mind disabilities, an ability that was taken, or a 'paradoxical nostalgia....for all the futures that were lost' (Fisher 2013,45)." (Orr 26).

Compulsory dyadism works in tandem with concepts like compulsory able-bodiedness and compulsory heterosexuality to create mindsets and systems that tie together ideas to suggest that the only "normal" body is a cisgender one that meets capitalist standards of function, is capable of heterosexual sex and reproduction, and has chromosomes, hormones, genitalia, reproductive system, and sex traits that all line up. Part of compulsory dyadism is convincing the public that this is the only way for a body to function, erasing intersex people both by excluding us from public perception and by actively utilizing curative violence as a way to actively erasure intersex traits from our body. Compulsory dyadism works by getting both the endosex and intersex public to buy into the idea that intersex doesn't exist, and if it does exist then it needs to be treated as a freakshow, either exploiting us to put us on display as an aberration or by delegating us to the medical freakshow of experimentation and violence.

Until we all start to fully understand the many, many ways that compulsory dyadism is showing up in our lives, I don't think we're going to be able to achieve true intersex liberation. And in fact, I think many causes are tied into intersex liberation and affected by compulsory dyadism in ways that endosex people don't understand. Take the intense revulsion that some trans people express about the thought of medical transition, for example. Although transitioning does not make people intersex and never will, and the only way to be intersex is to have an intersex variation, I think that compulsory dyadism affects a lot more of that rhetoric than is expressed. The disgust I see some people talking about when they think about medical transition causing them to live in a body that has XX chromosomes, a vagina, but also more hair, a larger clitoris--I think a lot of this rhetoric is born in compulsory dyadism that teaches us to view anything that steps outside the sex dyad with intense fear and violence. I'm thinking about transphobic legislation blocking medical transition and how there's intersex exceptions in almost every one of those bills, and how having an understanding of compulsory dyadism would actually help us understand the ways in which our struggles overlap and choose to build meaningful solidarity, instead of just sitting together by default.

I have so much more to say about this topic, and will probably continue to write about it for a while, but I want to end by just saying: I think this is going to be one of the most important concepts for intersex advocacy going into the next decade. With all due respect and much love to intersex activists both current and present,I think that it's time for a new strategy, not one where we medicalize ourselves and distance ourselves from queer liberation, not one where we sort of just end up as an add on to LGBTQ community by default, not even one where we use a human rights framework, nonprofits, and try to negotiate with the government. I agree with so much of what Dr. Orr says in Cripping Intersex and I think the intersex and/as/is/with disability framework, along with these foundational ideas for understanding our own oppression with the language of compulsory dyadism and curative violence, are providing us with the tools to start laying a foundation for a truly liberatory mode of intersex community building and liberation.

*Endosex means not intersex

Endosex people, please feel free to reblog!

[cannabiscomrade]

Intersex people face higher rates of pregnancy complications and pregnancy loss.

We are continuously affected by institutions insisting control over our bodies, but yet so often we are left out of the conversation on reproductive justice.

From abortion to high risk pregnancy care (which are often overlapping and intertwined), intersex people need to be a voice in this fight.

[queercripintersex]

To all those questioning if you're intersex

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you have PCOS

It's valid to call yourself intersex if the diagnosis you have isn't on one of the standard lists of intersex diagnoses

It's valid to call yourself intersex if your intersex variation wasn't evident at birth (most aren't!)

It's valid to call yourself intersex if your intersex variation was one where puberty Did Not Go To Plan

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you have totally ordinary genitals

It's valid to call yourself intersex if the only signs that you're intersex show up on lab tests/imaging and otherwise there's no way somebody could tell from looking at you

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you never had any coercive medical interventions

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you identify your sex as male or female (we are not a third sex!)

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you don't look like how white people with your intersex variation look

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you only found out through freak happenstance as an adult

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you think you were misdiagnosed

It's valid to call yourself intersex if no doctor ever told you you're intersex

It's valid to call yourself intersex if your doctor(s) dispute whether your diagnosis counts an intersex condition (it's not up to them!)

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you feel your intersex variation is a health condition

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you don't like the way you look

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you do like the way you look

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you started your questioning as part of a gender journey

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you started questioning to figure out trauma from your youth

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you started questioning to find other people like you

It's valid to call yourself intersex if you started questioning your intersex status just because you wanted to know

FINAL NOTE: you don't need to be 100% certain you're intersex to start finding, following, and getting involved in intersex spaces. People will understand if you're questioning, and it's the best way to find out if the label fits you! <3

[intersex-culture-is]

intersex culture is wishing the main tag wasn’t filled with pornbots, fanfic, and people tagging posts with as many queer labels as they could

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[wormworker]

( CN: graphic child abuse, endosexism )

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Mutilating the genitals of Intersex babies is not only horrendous in itself (and universally accepted), it doesn't end there.

Your child will grow up with you having withheld that they're Intersex, and they'll start having debilitating pain and health problems and have no idea why, and neither will their doctors.

Endosex (binary sex) genitals are only part of being Intersex, and not all Intersex people have visibly Intersex genitals. Intersex people have Intersex chromosomes and hormones, regardless of what horrific things you do to our genitals.

Period pain comparable to endometriosis, chronic fatigue, out of control weight problems regardless of how hard we work to maintain a healthy weight, neverending genital pain, excruciating GYN exams that can be so painful they cause PTSD... the list goes on, and NO ONE knows how to help us with our pain because of the almost complete lack of medical research on Intersex people and the withholding of our indentities/diagnoses from us.

[trans-axolotl3]

hey everyone, used to be @trans-axolotl. staff just deleted my blog which i am so fucking upset about-there's so much writing that i lost and i also have lost track of like half my mutuals. reblog so i can try to find my followers again?

[ipso-faculty]

Is saying "intersex and/or mesosex" the same way of saying "trans and/or nonbinary"? Sorry I'm trying to (un)learn, I don't want to be seen as insensitive

No, mesosex should be thought of as a subset of intersex. I'd just say intersex. 👍️

I'm gonna give you a wall of text of context so upfront a TLDR: 😅

TLDR: positioning mesosex as in between perisex and intersex is like positioning bisexual as in between queer and not-queer. Intersex people are organizing for inclusive views of intersex and trying to create a middle ground between intersex & perisex plays into conservative efforts to divide and conquer us. 🧑‍🏫

So a big difference between being intersex and being trans/nonbinary comes from the role of medicine being far, far more powerful in its control and oppression of intersex people. In a lot of ways intersex is more like disability than like other queer identities. So much of intersex identity is gatekept by doctors. Intersex people are often told they're intersex by a doctor in a context of telling them they are disordered and broken. Fostering community amongst intersex people is hard because so many of us have been conditioned by doctors to think of themselves as rare freaks.

Right now we in the intersex community are fighting a kind of desperate battle for people to understand that it is intersex people who decide who is and isn't intersex, as opposed to it being up to doctors. And the intersex community consistently says that people with PCOS, Poland Syndrome, or even no diagnosis, who feel that their experiences line up with being intersex are intersex.

Meanwhile TERFs and other conservatives are pushing real hard to keep the definition of intersex as narrow as possible. They don't want intersex people to be common or for us to find community. They're invested in a narrative that intersex people are rare, and are disorderd men/women.

Right now, the track record of treating mesosex as not intersex has unfortunately been that it reinforces those conservative narratives. It's gotten used to imply that people with PCOS aren't really intersex, that they are mesosex instead. Same for undiagnosed intersex people. 😭

Even though this is not what I intended for the term, seeing what's happened with it in the wild it's been honestly scary and upsetting seeing this term get weaponized against an inclusive view of what intersex means. (And more experienced intersex folks raised concern about this well in advance 😨.)

Intersex being an umbrella category I think there is value in having microlabels within the umbrella category, which is why I updated my definition of mesosex rather than abandon the term altogether.

But yeah I would definitely steer far away from treating mesosex as though it's in between intersex and perisex - it's really not at all analogous to being nonbinary. I'd say a better analogy is that treating mesosex as if it is between intersex and perisex is like treating bisexual as being in between queer and non-queer.

The stakes are political inclusion and organizing - politically speaking, any effort to create a group between queer and non-queer generally serves to weaken the collective organizing of queer people. Same deal with intersex. Hope that clarifies things. 💜

[intersex-support]

Intersex Donations thread

happy pride everyone! Although we have a lot of pride and love being intersex, we also know that being intersex can be difficult, and that things like medical bills, dealing with harassment at work, disability, and many other things can make it difficult for us to have the resources we need to survive.

If you're intersex, feel free to reblog and add your donation link info to this post! Share as much or as little as you feel comfortable-sharing our personal trauma should not be a requirement to be believed and supported.

please share and donate if you can, and support intersex community this pride month!

[trans-axolotl]

saw a post talking about how intersex bodies are natural bodies, just like dyadic bodies, and how intersex bodies are not a medical condition or a "birth defect." this is not something that i disagree with--I think that intersex people suffer when our bodies are medicalized, I think it puts us in a position where we are much more vulnerable to "corrective" abuse and I think it promotes self hatred by making us think that doctors are here to fix something broken about us.

But as an intersex person who is multiply disabled and who is disabled by my intersex variation, I wonder if we could extend this idea further. I think that we need to be able to embrace the idea that disability is natural and that many, many disabled people are harmed by the medicalization of our bodies. These concepts of "normal" and "abnormal" that are weaponized towards us as a way to justify sterilization and forced hormones are the same concepts of "normal" and "abnormal" used to justify eugenic abortion, used to deny sign language access to Deaf children, used to promote psychiatric incarceration. Yes, Intersex bodies are just as natural as dyadic bodies and do not inherently cause us impairment, and at the same time, disabled bodies are just as natural as abled bodies--being disabled is a natural way of being. Saying that some of our intersex variations can be a disability does not mean that we need to accept the idea that it's our sex characteristics that are "abnormal" or causing us impairment, and it does not mean we have to agree with doctors who want to treat the existence of people outside the sex binary as a problem in need of a cure.

I think it's vital that as intersex people we fight against medicalization, but I think that in recognizing the ways that medicalization has so deeply harmed us, this is also an opportunity to recognize the ways that the dehumanization of medicalization harms so many people. I'm not sure there is the mythical disabled and ill person or some specific diagnosis that is helped by medicalization, and I think that instead of trying to separate ourselves away from disabled community, we have the opportunity to build intentional solidarity on our own terms.

Intersex bodies are beautiful and natural and whole, and we are allowed to acknowledge the ways in which our intersex bodies might sometimes be disabled while still rejecting medicalization and the ideology of cure that doctors want us to accept as truth.

okay to reblog, but dyadic people please think carefully before adding on.

[jadwiga-abremovic]

My "assigned gender at birth" is bursting into a sob of absolute trauma whenever someone asks me.

[cannabiscomrade]

we cannot begin to act like intersex transphobes and transmisogynists don't exist, and it is actively dangerous to perpetuate that these demographics don't exist. There are absolutely intersex circles that frame their ideology around the "disordered male/female" idea.

Intersex and trans solidarity is key to keeping both of our communities alive- but intersex TERFs are a thing. Intersex transphobes who align themselves under the DSD label are very real and just like transmasc TERFs will use their marginalized status as a weapon against others and a justification of their exterminatory behavior.

Intersexism is a core culture issue of TERF and other transphobe rhetoric, they often operate under and agree with the medicalization of intersex bodies or the "disorders of sexual development" label. TERFs believing that their own intersex female body is just disordered further justifies their idea that there is an ideal framework surrounding the idea of being "female", and inherently means it's something trans women cannot obtain- regardless of intersex status. It is still rooted in transmisogyny.

[trans-axolotl2]

"Integrating disability studies into intersex studies and effectively transforming it into crip intersex studies offers the tools required to break down the traditional sex binary and what I term "compulsory dyadism": the instituted cultural mandate that people cannot undermine the sex dyad by possessing intersex traits or housing 'the spectre of intersex' (Sparrow 2013, 29). The spectre, according to this mandate, must be exorcised. Distancing intersex from disability by insisting that intersex is "not that" reproduces ableist discourses and prevents intersex studies scholars, activists, and advocates from using the necessary tools offered by feminist disability and crip studies to successfully combat the ableism that underpins compulsory dyadism. Effectively undermining compulsory dyadism is impossible without also resisting ableism and undermining 'compulsory able-bodiedness' (McRuer 2013, 369). Given that people with intersex traits who 'fail' the sex dyad are deemed disabled, disordered, or diseased and are often subjected to medically unnecessary interventions to 'cure' that which is supposedly out of order, studies and activism regarding intersex and disability must be actively politically linked."

-Celeste E Orr, Cripping Intersex

[intersex-culture-is]

Intersex culture is being the only one with an intersex pride flag at the local pride event.

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