#i hope this helps! if youre interested in personal experiences from intersex folks id say check out r/intersex too :)

[skelejon]

Hey, sorry if I'm crossing a line and feel free to ignore, but I just saw your post about informing people who aren't intersex about being intersex and I definitely am uninformed and was wondering if there were any sites you considered trustworthy sources of information for learning about intersex people? Thank you for informing us!

So my main recommendations are

InterACT: they have a lot of resources for pretty much anyone; health workers, people who are questioning, allies, etc.

And IHRA (Intersex Human Rights Australia): they're Australia based so a lot of their legal resources and such are aimed at intersex Australians but they do have a lot of articles on allyship and the importance of bodily autonomy.

https://ihra.org.au/

There's also the old ISNA (Intersex society of North America) site, which is archived and still available to read thanks to interACT. There may be outdated information there as its not been updated in 15 years.

[failurefemmegf]

I'm very sorry for all you went through. i remember being your age in uni and suicidal. I went to uni for biology and was nowhere near the rest of my family who all lived across the country (in the USA). I would encourage you to look into intersectional feminism and engage with LGBT+ centers on your area if they are available. Even if you find donye radfems who don't hate trans people, many still believe in bioessentialism.

Bioessentialism doesn't help anyone. It puts people in stricter boxes that they cannot escape from. Never mind that it ignores much of actual biology. Such as sex being incredibly complicated and bimodal rather than binary. Many radfems (especially those that are vocal about their transphobia) will often ignore that information. Along with the history of intersex children/babies having surgeries done to them so that they conform to being strictly male or female and/or sterilized.

I am glad you discovered so much more about yourself and were able to take time to reflect and see that you are not trans/transition wasn't right for you. But please don't let your own feelings take you down a path that will lead to hate or trying to control someone else's autonomy.

Best wishes. May you always have what you need and friends by your side.

i really appreciate your concern in reaching out to me. i will say i have engaged with intersectional feminism since my younger teen years, and i am looking for lgbt+ resource centers near me, but it's extremely difficult because i live in a rural area. so it has been something i've been considering.

i understand your concerns about radical feminism and bioessentialism, but i experienced a lot of bioessentialism in the trans community as well. when i was active in the trans community, there was especially a push that if you identified even slightly out of a box, you were supposed to make or join a new one. my experience with gender can be best summed up by this comic by @peerjongeling on instagram.

i don't want to have to label myself, and even if i choose not to have a label, i'll still get labels shoved on me anyways, such as "nonbinary" and "agender". i don't want another box, i want the boxes gone.

so if i don't want a gender label, what am i if not female? it doesn't matter whether i id as nonbinary, agender, a trans man, i'm still oppressed by misogyny because i was born with a uterus. i'm female because i was born female, and no amount of changing my appearance or self-identity will change that.

not to mention there are hundreds of gnc women around the world who are still female. i don't think "discomfort with being female" should be grounds for an entire new identity. i've never met a woman who was perfectly happy being a woman and that does not make all those women nonbinary. like i said before it's just more boxes and does nothing to fix the actual problem with sex and gender in society.

"female" doesn't mean anything to me other than "this person was born with a vagina and a uterus." likewise, "male" doesn't mean anything but "this person was born with a penis." female and male say nothing about personality, interests, expression, etc., and i am all for the spectrum of human expression. this is an unpopular opinion among radfems, but for me this even extends to pronouns and gendered language.

as for intersex folk, i'll concede that i don't have enough information to form an opinion, but i am firmly, firmly against any sort of sex reassignment surgery done to intersex children and infants.

however, once someone becomes an adult, i'm not going to advocate against transition, because hey, not my body, not going to try to control strangers. but if someone asked my genuine opinion on whether or not they should pursue medical transition, i am going to say "there's nothing you can do with a transitioned body that you can't do with your current one."

i guess that sums up where i'm at right now. i hope this didn't come across as harsh, because i genuinely feel your compassion nonny and i'm grateful for your concern.

best wishes to you, and i hope you find your joy in whatever form it may take