#intersex culture is

[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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[transfemasc-culture-is]

Transmascfem bigender intersex culture is tucking your attached dick in because you want to pack with a larger one.

It’s also getting Gynecomastia top surgery and getting excited because you can now wear the breastplates / breast padding sizes you want without your chest being hyper-sensitive (but still having the option to be flat when you want to be)

I love my modular body forever <3

transfemasc culture is...!

[hussyknee]

Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani’s Kitab al-Aghani records the lives of a number of individuals including one named Tuways who lived during the last years of Muhammad and the reigns of the early Muslim dynasties. Tuways was mukhannathun: those who were born as men, but who presented as female. They are described by al-Isfahani as wearing bangles, decorating their hands with henna, and wearing feminine clothing. One mukhannathun, Hit, was even in the household of the Prophet Muhammad. Tuways earned a reputation as a musician, performing for clients and even for Muslim rulers. When Yahya ibn al-Hakam was appointed as governor, Tuways joined in the celebration wearing ostentatious garb and cosmetics. When asked by the governor if he were Muslim Tuways affirmed his belief, proclaiming the declaration of faith and saying that he observes the fast of Ramadan and the five daily prayers. In other words, al-Isfahani, who recorded the life of a number of mukhannathun like Tuways, saw no contradiction between his gender expression and his Muslimness. From al-Isfahani we read of al-Dalal, ibn Surayj, and al-Gharid—all mukhannathun—who lived rich lives in early Muslim societies. Notably absent from al-Isfahani’s records is any state-sanctioned persecution. Instead, the mukhannathun are an accepted part of society.

...

Far from isolated cases, across Islamic history—from North Africa to South Asia—we see widespread acceptance of gender nonconforming and queer individuals. - Later in the Ottoman Empire, there were the köçek who were men who wore women’s clothing and performed at festivals. Formally trained in dance and percussion instruments, the köçek were an important part of social functions. A similar practice was found in Egypt. The khawal were male dancers who presented as female, wearing dresses, make up, and henna. Like their Ottoman counterparts, they performed at social events.

- In South Asia, the hijra were and are third-sex individuals. The term is used for intersex people as well as transgender women. Hijra are attested to among the earliest Muslim societies of South Asia where, according to Nalini Iyer, they were often guardians of the household and even held office as advisors.

- In Iraq, the mustarjil are born female, but present as men. In Wilfred Thesiger’s The Marsh Arabs the guide, Amara explains, “A mustarjil is born a woman. She cannot help that; but she has the heart of a man, so she lives like a man.” When asked if the mustarjil are accepted, Amara replies “Certainly. We eat with her and she may sit in the mudhif.” Amara goes on to describe how mustarjil have sex with women.

...

Historian Indira Gesink analyzed 41 medical and juristic sources between the 8th and 18th centuries and discovered that the discourse of a “binary sex” was an anachronistic projection backwards. Gesink points out in one of the earliest lexicography by the 8th century al-Khalil ibn Ahmad that he suggests addressing a male-presenting intersex person as ya khunathu and a female-presenting intersex person as ya khanathi while addressing an effeminate man as ya khunathatu. This suggests a clear recognition of a spectrum of sex and gender expression and a desire to address someone respectfully based on how they presented.

Tolerance of gender ambiguity and non-conformity in Islamic cultures went hand-in-hand with broader acceptance of homoeroticism. Texts like Ali ibn Nasir al-Katib’s Jawami al-Ladhdha, Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani’s Kitab al-Aghani, and the Tunisian, Ahmad al-Tifashi’s Nuz’ha al-‘Albab attest to the widespread acceptance of same-sex desire as natural. Homoeroticism is a common element in much of Persian and Arabic poetry where youthful males are often the object of desire. From Abu Nuwas to Rumi, from ibn Ammar to Amir Khusraw, some of the Islamic world’s greatest poets were composing verses for their male lovers. Queer love was openly vaunted by poets. One, Ibn Nasr, immortalizes the love between two Arab lesbians Hind al Nu’man and al-Zarqa by writing:

“Oh Hind, you are truer to your word than men. Oh, the differences between your loyalty and theirs.”

...

Acceptance of same-sex desire and gender non-conformity was the hallmark of Islamic societies to such a degree that European travelers consistently remarked derisively on it. In the 19th century, Edward Lane wrote of the khawal: “They are Muslims and natives of Egypt. As they personate women, their dances are exactly of the same description as those of the ghawazee; and are, in like manner, accompanied by the sound of castanets.”

A similarly scandalized CS Sonnini writes of Muslim homoerotic culture:

“The inconceivable appetite which dishonored the Greeks and the Persians of antiquity, constitute the delight, or to use a juster term, the infamy of the Egyptians. It is not for women that their ditties are composed: it is not on them that tender caresses are lavished; far different objects inflame them.”

In his travels in the 19th century, James Silk Buckingham encounters an Afghan dervish shedding tears for parting with his male lover. The dervish, Ismael, is astonished to find how rare same-sex love was in Europe. Buckingham reports the deep love between Ismael and his lover quoting, “though they were still two bodies, they became one soul.”

...

Today, vocal Muslim critics of LGBTQ+ rights often accuse gay and queer people of imposing a “Western” concept or forcing Islam to adjust to “Western values” failing to grasp the irony of the claim: the shift in the 19th and 20th century was precisely an alignment with colonial values over older Islamic ones, all of which led to legal criminalization. In fact, the common feature among nations with anti-LGBTQ+ legislation isn’t Islam, but rather colonial law.

Don't talk to me I'm weeping. I'm not Muslim, but the grief of colonization runs in the blood of every Global South person. Dicovering these is like finding our lost treasures among plundered ruins.

Queer folk have always, always been here; we have always been inextricable, shining golden threads in the tapestry of human history. To erase and condemn us is to continue using the scalpel of colonizers in the mutilation and betrayal of our own heritage.

[queerism1969]

[magnetothemagnificent]

Happy Pride, if you claim that Judaism recognizes six or eight genders, you are not being an ally to Jews or trans people, you are just misinformed at best and maliciously co-opting the historical reality and labels of intersex and infertile people at worst :)

[rawliverandgoronspice]

So the Gerudo women aren't like salamanders, they actually need other cultures' men to have children and raise their numbers. The fact that only one Gerudo man is born every century means that either the Gerudo can only bear daughters, or if they have children who are men, they're not Gerudo. They don't have the Gerudo traits like the dark skin, the red hair and the tallness (and in some iterations the round ears).

A friend of mine proposed that the Gerudo traits are actually carried primarily by the X chromosome of Gerudo mothers, therefore passed onto mostly to AFAB people, and a Gerudo male would actually be intersex, which is why they are so rare.

Sure, we don't apply genetic science to fantasy, but I thought it was a fun thinkpiece. Intersex Ganondorf!

Holy hell I love that!!!! This is so good!!!! I'm extremely onboard, this is an incredibly fun theory!!

[trans-enby-culture-is]

this is incredibly specific but ^.^

intersex nonbinary culture is having a hard time telling if you're cis, trans, or some silly little place far away

(I personally decided I'm nonbinary in terms of male and female as well as nonbinary in terms of cis and trans)

#115

💜💜

[disabledunitypunk]

Screenshot below:

[Image ID: A tumblr post with the username cut off which reads "i mean this in the gentlest way possible: you need to eat vegetables. you need to become comfortable with doing so. i do not care if you are a picky eater because of autism (hi, i used to be this person!), you need to find at least some vegetables you can eat. find a different way to prepare them. chances are you would like a vegetable you hate if you prepared it in a stew or roasted it with seasoning or included it as an ingredient in a recipe. just. please start eating better. potatoes and corn are not sufficient vegetables for a healthy diet." /end ID]

No. Just no.

You don't HAVE TO do anything. ARFID is called an EATING DISORDER for a reason. What's it going to take to get it through your heads that some people cannot, under ANY circumstances, eat certain foods because of their neuroDISABILITIES. It's almost like disabilities of the brain can still make you NOT ABLE to do things!

You also have no moral obligation to be healthy. Healthism is one of the fundamental pillars of ableism. Health is a personal choice that must be fully, enthusiastically consensual (which does not mean you can mumble-grumble about the steps it takes to get there or have complex feelings that include resentment about the process or what caused the unhealthiness in the first place).

The "hi, I used to be this person!" is, get this, ALSO ABLEISM. Like good job, you had the ability to do something with effort that some people with your same disability can never do! Something that, might I add, you had no obligation to do but chose to because YOU either wanted it or were unfairly pressured to. Plus, the narrative of "you can overcome your disabilities if you try hard enough" is incredibly insidious even in disabled communities (in my experience, especially so in neurodivergent communities, but I'll also add my experiences aren't universal).

Just, everything about this post reeks of ableism. A "hey, if you're wanting to eat more veggies but can't because of sensory issues, these ways of preparing them might make them edible for you!" would have reached MORE people and accomplished more than... all of that.

I'd also like to add: healthism is how you get involuntary psychiatric holds for even people who are self-harming or using substances as a form of harm reduction. Healthism is how you get psychiatric and medical abuse that forces or manipulates you onto meds you do consent to being on (including coerced consent, as that is not consent).

Healthism and ableism both is why insurances and doctors require you to go to physical therapy to "get better" before even considering prescribing a mobility aid because "what if the mobility aid has health consequences when PT could 'fix' you?" Healthism is responsible for "do no harm" stopping at bodily harm and not taking a holistic, whole-person approach to making sure disabled people have a good quality of life.

Healthism is also a primary driver of fatphobia and to a lesser extent, medical intersexism. There is a normative idea of what "health" even is, one that is often incorrect and based in bigotry, that means deviations from that norm get blamed for any symptoms a person expresses while actual causes are ignored. "Corrective" measures are forced are many people who neither want nor need them to be healthy.

Healthism aims to make people more abled (or at least more able to conform to abled standards) without regard for their quality of life, personal wishes, or even consent. It is directly responsible for medical abuse.

It is also responsible for medical neglect, in that if you *can't* pursue a treatment option, doctors will often refuse to explore other treatments. Instead, they assume you're simply lazy and don't want to get better, and are therefore a waste of their time.

("Can't" here includes 'is technically possible but the consequences of doing so make you as sick or sicker/in as much or more pain/as or more disabled than not doing anything at all.)

Often there's another treatment option that would work just fine. Sometimes there's no viable option, and GOOD treatment then becomes exploring how to still live as fulfilling a life as possible with the condition untreated. Sometimes it's only possible to manage a disability that is usually fully possible to send into remission. There's a wide spectrum of experiences here.

But the most important thing is: what do YOU want for your body? Will conforming to standards of "health" help you feel happier and live a more preferable life for you? Will the requirements in the process of becoming "healthy" end up just making you sicker or more disabled in one way or another?

Also, are there access barriers or direct obstacles caused by your disability in the way of seeking the health outcomes you want? Are those outcomes not possible because of your disabilities, and if so, is healthy OR helpful to keep pushing yourself past your limits or trying and failing to do so? Have you made sure this is what YOU want, and not what you feel pressured into doing*?

*(Reminder to BELIEVE PEOPLE if they say it is what they want. We respect autonomy above all here.)

I've talked about this before, but recovery is about what YOU want and are able to do. There are no milestones you have to make or requirements you have to meet. It's okay to be unhealthy. Often, disability means you don't have a choice in the matter, and moralizing health is therefore moralizing disability.

It contributes to the myth that disability and chronic illness especially is a result of "bad choices", and especially the culturally christian idea that it is a "punishment" for "sinful behaviors" and "righteous behaviors" will be rewarded with the person becoming abled again.

As I said above, remember: Autonomy above all. What matters, first, foremost, and forever, is what each disabled individual wants. Helping other disabled people with tools to reach their desired bodily and psychiatric outcomes? Yes!! Do that!!

Disabled people don't owe anyone health, though, and certainly not standards of health that may make us sicker or more disabled than simply not conforming to them.

[factoidfactory]

Random Fact #6,493

"The god of Christians, Jews, and Muslims made only two genders" is not a sound claim even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that God exists and created genders.

Israelite society had several genders, not just two.

Ay’lonit [איילונית]

A person who is identified as “woman” at birth but develops “man” characteristics at puberty and is infertile. 

There are 80 references to this gender in the Mishna and Talmud and 40 in the classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Androgynos [אנדרוגינוס] (Ancient Israel, from at least 1st century CE to 16th century CE)

A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics. 

There are 149 references to the gender in the Mishna and Talmud and a whopping 350 mentions in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Saris [סריס:] (Ancient Israel)

A person who is identified as a “man” at birth but develops “woman” characteristics at puberty and/or is lacking a penis. 

A saris can be “naturally” a saris (saris hamah), or become one through human intervention (saris adam). 

There are 156 references to this gender in mishna and the Talmud and 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.

Tumtum [טומטום] (Ancient Israel)

A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured.

According to Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Mada, Avoda Zara, 12, 4 Tumtum is not a separate gender exactly, but rather a state of doubt about what gender a person is (kind of like a Schrödinger’s gender?).

[queering-ecology]

LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History—chapter 09. Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native America and the Pacific Islands by Will Roscoe. part 2

Two Spirits in Native Tradition: Roles, Genders, Identities and Diversity cont.

In the twentieth century, ‘berdache’ “became the standard anthropological term for alternative gender roles among Native Americans. By the 1980’s, however, there was call for a change among scholars. In 1990, at a gathering of Native American and First Nations people, the term ‘two-spirit(ed)’ was coined. “Today, the term is used to refer to “both male-bodied and female-bodied native people who mix, cross, or combine the standard roles of men and women” (09-5).

The author acknowledges in a footnote that the term has its limitations (translation errors, and the fact that many tribes believe that all of us have the essence/spirit of male and female in us). But none of his reasons for these limitations match with my main critique both with the term two-spirit but mostly with the way it is often spoken of. Even within the acknowledgement of individuals who do not conform 100% to the Western concept of man or woman, the people are still fit into a binary. They are referred to as ‘male bodied’ and ‘female bodied’ two-spirited people.

To me, this often feels like an easy way for people to ‘short cut’ their understanding of native genders—as soon as they understand the way someone is sexed, they can still fit that person into a category, even if those categories are imperfect. Intersexuality is a ghost when topics of sex and gender arise. More and more, we understand that sex is not immutable, it is yet another social construction—the process of someone developing in utero and then continuing to grow and change in their lifetime is so complex that very often people do not fit neatly into either the distinct category of male or female.

(See the link below for a better image of this)

Whether that is their very chromosomes, hormones, secondary or primary sex characteristics—all these things and more combine to create a person. A person whose very sex is unique to them, as their gender is unique to them. Who knows the true reality of the two-spirit’s biological sex? No one—unless they are given extensive expensive testing that has only recently become available.

The truth is that intersexuality is natural and is common in humans, even in the Western world with its biopolitical control and its dualisms. The reason two-spirit people were and are held so special is because they do not fit neatly into these categories. To me it feels a kind of modern colonial erasure to try and sex the bodies of people who often very clearly and blatantly blurred all barriers. It feels as if it misses the entire point of the term two-spirit, as least as I understand it. But, I have not read much into what other two-spirits (especially elders) think about this concept. “Two-spirit males have been documented in at least 155 tribes; in about a third of these a recognized status for females who adopted a masculine lifestyle existed as well”. (09-6) But as Roscue later adds, “absence of evidence cannot be taken as evidence of absence” (09-8).

In general, the lives of “native women have been overlooked […] and obscured by Euro-American sexual and racial stereotypes. Taking a broader view reveals that women throughout North American and the Pacific Islands often engaged in male pursuits, from hunting to warfare and tribal leadership, without necessarily acquiring a different gender identity” (09-8). Roscoe then offers some examples of Indigenous women being awesome. The author then lists examples of traditional terms for two-spirited people across various tribes and explains that many of them cannot be literally translated into gender binary terms like ‘man-woman’. “These terms have lead anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists to describe two-spirit roles as alternative or multiple genders” (09-6). In fact, “many native societies are capable of accommodating three, four, and possibly more genders, or having a gender system characterized by fluidity, transformation, and individual variation” (09-7).

The author discusses how two-spirit children were identified often as youth by the certain type of activities they liked to participate in. Oftentimes ceremonies ‘marked’ people with two-spirit status. He then goes on to discuss the other ways two-spirits lived in society. “In many instances, male and female two spirits were medicine people, healers, shamans, and ceremonial leaders” (09-8). Certain ceremonial functions were specific to two-spirits and they were often seen to hold great power (09-8). “Because two-spirits occupied a distinct gender status, their relationships were not viewed as being same-sex” (09-9). !!!! This feels so important for some reason!!

Sexual and Gender Diversity in Native Hawai’i

This section further emphases that indigenous peoples have had genders that go beyond male or female, man or woman and also that colonial violence is a tragedy. While I respect and love the people of Hawai’i and their struggles are so, so similar to Native Americans, I believe that the vast majority of Native Hawaiians do NOT consider themselves Native American (or American Indian or even just American) so my covering on this topic will be limited.

Roscoe speaks about the mahu stones that have extraordinarily sacred significance—these stones have a powerful history and connection to the mahu people (their gender diverse term). (This summary is literally so terrible and not at all a true representative of how important and beautiful this topic is, I apologize). Like the people, the stones faced colonization and were figuratively and then literally buried—“in the 1920s they were buried beneath a bowling alley” (09-15). They have since been reclaimed and are now being properly respected but, for the native peoples, “the Land inheres as sacred—beyond human perception and conception, beyond our capacities for belief and imagination—in and of itself” (09-15) and “If there were no humans on earth, they would still be sacred” (09-15). The stone’s spiritual power ‘has never been interrupted’ (09-15).

[intersex-culture-is]

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

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[renesassing]

happy pride to my dykes, my faggots, my trannies, my queers. my siblings-in-arms. my extended family. whether you're out or not or only partially. i love you all so goddamn much. i hope life will be kinder to us all.

[justdavina]

Very,very SEXY Asian transgender girl! I LOVE her eye liner and eyes! Her hair is a perfect shape that compliments her sexy face! Such a beautiful girl with her blue knit top too.

[jasontoddssuper]

@ Hp/Mar*uders Era fans liking my posts about how being punk is about being anti fascist and helping and prioritizing minorities and that just being edgy dosen't count as punk:

[dysphoric-culture-is]

Quick positivity post for trans people who didn’t get more conventionally attractive after they transitioned!

Trans people who look ‘worse’ or ‘the same’ are wonderful and look great actually.

Conventional beauty standards are exclusionary and flawed, and shouldn’t be the goal anyway- the point of transitioning isn’t to ‘glow up’ by becoming attractive, it’s to become more comfortable with yourself.

Trans people shouldn’t be expected to suddenly become conventionally attractive as part of their transition anyway (look as weird and non-cis as you want! it’s your body!), and photos of ’ugly’ pre-transition people who look ‘better’ after transitioning should not be used to justify to cis people why people should be allowed to transition.

Look the way you want (or the way you pass), not the way beauty standards want you to look! The endless quest to become conventionally attractive is a trap and you don’t have to fall for it when you transition.

[fatcultureis]

fat culture is wishing fat intersex people a happy intersex awareness day.