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thecreaturecalledriza · 1 day ago

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"In Northern California, a Native American tribe is celebrating the return of ancestral lands in one of the largest such transfers in the nation’s history.

Through a Dept. of the Interior initiative aiming to bring indigenous knowledge back into land management, 76 square miles east of the central stretch of the Klamath River has been returned to the Yurok tribe.

Sandwiched between the newly-freed Klamath and forested hillsides of evergreens, redwoods, and cottonwoods, Blue Creek is considered the crown jewel of these lands, though if it were a jewel it wouldn’t be blue, it would be a giant colorless diamond, such is the clarity of the water.

Pictured: Blue Creek

It’s the most important cold-water tributary of the Klamath River, and critical habitat for coho and Chinook salmon. Fished and hunted on since time immemorial by the Yurok and their ancestors, the land was taken from them during the gold rush before eventually being bought by timber companies.

Barry McCovey Jr., director of the Yurok Tribal Fisheries Department, remembers slipping past gates and dodging security along Blue Creek just to fish up a steelhead, one of three game fish that populate the river and need it to spawn.

Profiled along with the efforts of his tribe to secure the land for themselves and their posterity, he spoke to AP about the experience of seeing plans, made a decade ago, come to fruition, and returning to the creek on which he formerly trespassed as a land and fisheries manager.

“To go from when I was a kid and 20 years ago even, from being afraid to go out there to having it be back in tribal hands … is incredible,” he said.

Part of the agreement is that the Yurok Tribe would manage the land to a state of maximum health and resilience, and for that the tribe has big plans, including restoring native prairie, using fire to control understory growth, removing invasive species, restoring native fish habitat, and undoing decades of land-use changes from the logging industry in the form of culverts and logging roads.

“And maybe all that’s not going to be done in my lifetime,” said McCovey. “But that’s fine, because I’m not doing this for myself.”

The Yurok Tribe were recently at the center of the nation’s largest dam removal, a two decades-long campaign to remove a series of four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. Once the West Coast’s third-largest salmon run, the Klamath dams substantially reduced salmon activity.

Completed last September, the before and after photographs are stunning to witness. By late November, salmon had already returned far upriver to spawn, proving that instinctual information had remained intact even after a century of disconnect.

Pictured; Klamath River flows freely, after Copco-2 dam was removed in California

“Seeing salmon spawning above the former dams fills my heart,” said Joseph L. James, chairman of the Yurok Tribe, the leaders of the dam removal campaign along with the Karuk and Klamath tribes.

“Our salmon are coming home. Klamath Basin tribes fought for decades to make this day a reality because our future generations deserve to inherit a healthier river from the headwaters to the sea.”

Last March, GNN reported that the Yurok Tribe had also become the first of America’s tribal nations to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding involving Redwoods National Park.

The nonprofit Save the Redwoods bought a piece of land adjacent to the park, which receives 1 million visitors annually and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, and handed it over to the Yurok for stewardship.

The piece of land, which contained giant redwoods, recovered to such an extent that the NPS has incorporated it into the Redwoods trail network, and the two agencies will cooperate in ensuring mutual flourishing between two properties and one ecosystem.

Back at Blue Creek, AP reports that work has already begun clearing non-native conifer trees planted for lumber. The trunks will be used to create log jams in the creek for wildlife habitat.

Costing $56 million, the land was bought from the loggers by Western Rivers Conservancy, using a mixture of fundraising efforts including private capital, low interest loans, tax credits, public grants and carbon credit sales.

The sale was part of a movement called Land Back, which involves returning ownership of once-native lands of great importance to tribes for the sake of effective stewardship. [Note: This is a weirdly limited definition of Land Back. Land Back means RETURN STOLEN LAND, PERIOD.] Studies have shown around the tropics that indigenous-owned lands in protected areas have higher forest integrity and biodiversity than those owned by national governments.

Land Back has seen 4,700 square miles—equivalent to one and a half-times the size of Yellowstone National Park—returned to tribes through land buy-back agreements in 15 states." [Note: Since land buyback agreements aren't the only form of Land Back, the total is probably (hopefully) more than that.]

-via Good News Network, June 10, 2025

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thecreaturecalledriza · 2 days ago

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Perhaps a slightly contentious take but I'm hoping it can be taken in good faith that I'm sincerely asking a question in order to understand and discuss a nuanced situation with regard to trans-intersex relations.

(Full disclosure that OP is a perisex trans man in the UK. I'd also like to point out for credential reasons I'm an academic queer historian currently studying for a postgraduate degree on historical queer terminology).

[Content warning for discussions of historical transphobia and intersexism in this post. It is also a long post. For much of the post I'm talking about perisex trans experiences when I use the term trans, but recognise that there are also intersex trans people]

I've seen a post recently where a perisex trans person was talking about how their (US) doctor removed references to their transness from their medical record and instead put something along the lines of "hormone disorder" (read: intersex) for the safety of that transgender person. I come from the UK where we don't have the insurance system like the US has - but presumably the doctor did this so their trans patient could continue to access HRT without being flagged up as trans.

The notes of that post were really varied, but one thing kept coming up from intersex people, namely that it was inappropriate for a perisex transgender person to recieve this designation (note: it's unknown if the person specifically assked for this) for safety reasons on a few grounds. E.g. that being designated intersex on medical papers won't necessarily make someone safer, or might make them even less safe. And (rightly) brings up how much intersexism is ignored in the queer community and society in general. To be absolutely 100% clear I don't think in a majority of cases, being labelled intersex incorrectly by your doctor (whether you asked for it or the doctor attempted to do this to "protect" you) is going to help you avoid discrimination or problems. I do think that the intersex people in the notes of that post were right in pointing out that in these times, this is not necessarily the most ideal solution for that perisex trans person.

However, I'm familiar with a lot of trans history in which perisex trans people have had to claim to be intersex to avoid very real persecution, with some success. There are examples of this with individuals from the 18th to the 20th centuries that I'm aware of - and possibly many more.

Part of the problem is that transgender people and intersex people have been, at various points, considered one and the same by the medical establishment and society. Often, both of the above groups were grouped under and referred to by the h-slur (which is primarily associated with intersex people, but sometimes applied to other groups conflated with intersexuality). Transness was historically incorrectly posited to be an intersex variation which happened entirely in the brain (a presupposition which is obviously wrong in the modern day, but this viewpoint prevailed until the late 1960s).

There's three historical trans men I know of who were either presumed intersex or consciously presented themselves as intersex to avoid discrimination. There's likely examples of trans women doing the same, but I'm most familiar with transmasc history.

James Barry was an Irish trans man born in 1789 and lived his life as a man until his death, after which point he requested that his body be buried without inspection in the clothes he died in. This was disregarded by the charwoman who came to attend to his body, who attempted to tell Barry's superiors in the military that he was, in her view, "actually a woman". She had tried to tell Major D. R. McKinnon, who issued Barry's death certificate. But he wouldn't listen to her, instead, he speculated that Barry was intersex instead (note: we have no evidence which points towards this being the case):

(Cw for historical intersexism)

"Amongst other things she said Dr Barry was a female & that I was a pretty doctor not to know this & that she would not like to be attended by me. I informed her that it was none of my business whether Dr Barry was a male or a female – that I thought it as likely he might be neither, viz. an imperfectly developed man... my own impression was that Dr Barry was a [h-slur]"

- Major McKinnon, in a letter

In this case the presupposition of being intersex was done post-mortem, but to me, McKinnon's position that Barry must have been intersex when it was revealed he wasn't a perisex cis man like he thought seems to stem from wishful thinking that he wasn't mistaken about Barry's agab for years and that the only reason he didn't twig Barry was not a perisex cis man was because he must have been intersex. Meaning, to McKinnon at least, it was perfectly acceptable to have not noticed anything unusual about Barry as his physician. Obviously, McKinnon's viewpoints are directly informed by both intersexism and transphobia - and it is not to say *at all* that intersexuality was better recieved than possible transness in this period (both intersexuality and transess were severely frowned upon) - but that on an individual level, McKinnon would have preferred a scenario where Barry was intersex rather than transgender (to use our modern terms) because to him he could justify his ignorance of Barry's agab as being a result of Barry being intersex. If McKinnon viewed Barry as not intersex he would have considered himself to have been tricked or deceived by Barry, which was unfathomable and shameful to most well-to-do British people of the period. In Barry's case - him being presumed intersex post-mortem (when he was likely perisex) spared his memory from being tarnished further. The British Army certainly felt perturbed enough to attempt to seal away his records for the next 100 years to prevent scandal.

Society does not value non-perisex or non-cisgender individuals in this world. Both trans and intersex people are routinely targeted by horrific amounts of bigotry. But that's on a societal level. On an individual level, it's a bit different. You may get a bigot who doesn't really care about intersex people, because they believe that it's just something that happens that can't be helped (with the caveat that they endorse IGM). But that same person may vehemently hate trans people because to them, transness "can be helped" (I.e. they may view being trans as a choice). The same can occur the other way around- a bigot may tolerate trans people if they're transitioning to "correct" themselves, but doesn't tolerate intersex people because they believe the political identity of intersex is invalid and they believe intersex people to be "disordered". Does this make sense? I hope I'm managing to be be clear in that depending on the individual, passing as trans or as intersex might be useful if a certain individual is against one but not the other. It's entirely circumstantial.

To give two more examples of historical perisex trans men, Andrea's Bruce, a Swedish trans man, was born in 1808. His family were tolerant of his masculinity to a degree and he was able to live as a man. In order for the family to justify their "daughter" living as a man, they took him to a doctor and had him declared intersex (note: they used the h-slur in those times). So that fron that point onwards, Bruce's masculinity was not seen as masculinity on a "woman" but as a result of being intersex, which made it more permissible to some (emphasis on *some*). Again, there is a heady mix of transphobia and intersexism at play, but like with Barry's case, the presumption of being intersex spared him from transphobia and harassment he might have experienced without the false diagnosis to back him up. But it goes without saying this did then open him up to intersexism, too.

A final example I know of is Baronet Ewan Forbes of Craigievar, born in 1912. He was a Scottish trans man known for his previously hidden court case in which his right to male primogenture (for the right to inherit the baronetcy) was challenged by his cousin, because Forbes was not a cisgender man. Forbes had transitioned as a young man in Weimar Germany, leaving just as the Nazis began to crack down on queer communities there. By 1952, he was able to re-register his birth as male and marry his wife. A lot of string pulling went on to enable this. His cousin's challenge threatened not only to remove Forbes' right to the baronetcy, but also to make his marriage void (since, if Forbes was declared a woman his marriage to his wife would be illegal) and Forbes' profession as a male doctor would be ended. In 1965 he was able to win his cousin's lawsuit by the skin of his teeth after convincing the judges he was intersex (being a doctor, Forbes was uniquely positioned to argue convincingly he was). Being declared intersex instead of trans was the only way to prevent his life from crumbling down around him. It bears repeating that this in no way suggests intersex people had it easier back then - or that it was safer to be intersex than trans. That's not the case at all. But to some individuals, passing as intersex was the only way to avoid transphobic discrimination.

It's also something that occurs in other queer identities. E.g. I'm bisexual and in some situations, just saying I'm gay is easier than saying I'm bisexual because some people are fine with monosexual gay men and lesbians, but are less fine with bisexual people (see: biphobia and the AIDS crisis). Notwithstanding that I consider myself both gay and bisexual, sometimes passing as a monosexual gay man is preferable to being openly a bisexual man. Not a 1:1 to the trans/intersex relationship I'm talking about in this post, but hopefully you get my point. I can also envision other members of the queer community needing to pass as a gender/sexuality they're not for safety reasons. While I don't know any any examples (if you know any please tell me) but if an intersex person needed to pass as trans in order to avoid intersexism, I'd be 100% fine with that. It'd be correct of me to point out that this would theoretically open them up to transphobia, but if the benefits of avoiding intersexism outweigh the potential risks of transphobia, then I trust that individual to make that judgment for themself.

The point of this post really is that I don't see much discussion of the historical relationship (and conflation) between the trans and intersex communities, which is a real shame because we share so much history. The dearth of trans-intersex discussions and lack of knowledge of our shared history means that people aren't aware of how and why historical trans people had to pass as intersex sometimes (and presumably vice versa, depending on the situation).

Which leads me to wanting to make this post because I feel that some of the arguments against perisex trans people asking for their documents to say "hormone disorder" (or any other medical euphemism for an intersex condition) ignore of the ways in which the trans and intersex communities have long had an intertwined history and should have a strong allyship between them. Some of the backlash against perisex trans people considering this has been unsympathetic to the perisex trans people who feel terrified at the rise in transphobia occurring globally. Like I said at the beginning of this post - I agree doing so would open up said trans people to intersexism and not necessarily save them from all bigotry, but might possibly save them from a big chunk of transphobia. But I do feel some of the responses from intersex people on the post I'm talking about were a bit knee-jerk and while I wouldn't go far as to say were transphobic, they were at the very least a bit dismissive of the reasons why trans people might have been considering doing the action in the first place.

So, to conclude, this leaves me with a few things.

If other members of the queer community can be trusted to know themselves and their needs best if they conclude that passing as a different gender/sexuality might make them safer (even if that brings a risk of experiencing a different kind of bigotry) - then why can't we trust trans people to do the same with (in often very limited senses) passing as intersex? If you wouldn't condemn a bisexual person for passing as gay to avoid biphobia (notwithstanding the risk of homophobia), why would you condemn a trans person for passing as intersex to avoid transphobia (e.g. potential loss of HRT) (notwithstanding risk of intersexism)?

If you believe trans people are the only group who should not pass as another group for safety, why do you believe that? /gq. As I've said, I think it'd be perfectly fine for an intersex person to pass as trans for safety from intersexism if they deemed it necessary (I'd trust their assessment of the situation). If you believe this is fine but the reverse isn't, why is that? /gq.

Additionally, if you believe that trans people should never pass as intersex for any reason (notwithstanding all the reasons I've listed where it has been the only thing shielding a trans person from transphobia) - in what way should we perceive historical trans people who have done so for safety (or had the term intersex retroactively applied to spare the feelings of bigots)? People like Barry, Bruce and Forbes? How should we perceive such people if the practice of trans people passing as intersex for safety is condemned? Do we condemn them also? Or do we take a measured approach and understand that the nuances of their situation (and indeed the situations of many living trans people) demand an unsatisfactory means to a legitimate end? /gq

Genuinely, I ask all of these questions because I want to establish more trans-intersex dialogue about these things and actually explore the ins-and-outs of these situations. I feel like the trans and intersex communities sometimes talk at each other instead of with each other - and I think we have a lot to gain by discussing together on nuanced topics like this! I'm asking in good faith and I really, really hope that has come across. But I'd like to respectfully ask for other trans people and intersex people to weigh in if you'd like. What do you think about any of the issues I've raised here? How do we move forwards as trans and intersex communities together?

If you got this far, thank you for reading this post, I know it turned into a long one.

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