Intersexism - Tumblr Posts
Are you intersex?
It would be a great help if you were to take this 14 question survey about the sorts of terminology you prefer!
This survey will be posted in other locations and intersex forums, feel free to spread it yourselves, I am looking for 385 responses, from a wide array of intersex people from different backgrounds. I intend to use the results of this survey in an informational website I am working on with the help of other intersex folk! If you are not intersex, you can help out by reblogging!
"Why can't I transition to be intersex?"
This is a sentiment I see a lot in the trans community, and I believe it is because of the fundamental misunderstanding of how the term intersex is seen. Most people, even those in the queer community, see intersex as a rare third sex where you are born with both genitalia. This is inaccurate, and perpetuates a harmful stereotype!
If you want to transition to be 'a rare third sex with both genitalia', by all means, go ahead! But do not call this transitioning to intersex, do not say you want an intersex body, do not involve intersex people in it!
There are plenty of words for this, bigenital, transneutral, altersex, salmacian, etc! These words actually portray YOUR EXPERIENCE transitioning to this state, unlike co-opting the term intersex.
Intersex is defined as being born with and/or naturally developing anatomy, sex characteristics, hormones, or chromosomes that do not fit the typical definitions of male or female - in short, there are a LOT of ways one can be intersex, not all of these ways are obvious. We are not a third sex but rather an in-between state that cannot be neatly categorized into either of the two modes (male or female) of the bimodal sex distribution.
The operative word here in defining intersex is that you are born with these traits, or they naturally develop later in life, such as during natal puberty, with no medical interventions to cause them. This is what intersex refers to. You cannot transition (medically alter the body), to be intersex (a non-medically-achieved state). It doesn't work like that.
On the flip side of this, an intersex person cannot transition to be perisex, as perisex is a non-medically achieved state referring to the state of your body in the absence of medical intervention. This means that nothing the medical industry can do to us will ever make us perisex, no matter how badly they want to. If you can transition to be intersex, does that mean those of us who have experienced medical violence to "fix" our bodies have been successfully made perisex? Because that is what you are insisting when you insist you can transition into being intersex or perisex via medical intervention.
Intersex people are a violently erased group with very few people who are open and advocating for our visibility and right to bodily autonomy, compared to the trans community. By using this label when you do not have this lived experience with an intersex body, you are playing a part in our further erasure.
By claiming those with PCOS need to fit a certain criteria to be 'valid' as intersex people, you are further enforcing the idea that sex is binary, just with a third option. Congratulations, you've fucked us over more lmao!
this reminds me that I went to a pride event one time, and the flag vendors didn't have any intersex flags. This is a mild example of erasure, but an example no less.
Intersexism is clinical. It's sterile. It's professional. It's systematic. It's efficient. It is horrifically violent, yet quiet. Disarmed, portrayed as care. And worst of all, it has successfully erased us.
Nobody knows what intersex means.
Nobody knows what our flag means
Nobody knows we even exist.
For me at least, intersexism is the most visceral form of bigotry I have ever had the experience of living through and witnessing.
🫂
it's also racist as shit because people will see a black woman in sports and claim she's a man because she doesn't match white centric femininity standards. :/
lmfao someone told me to stfu as if what I'm saying isn't completely true
oh! that's funny because the part of the community that isn't full of TERFy pick-mes prefers the term intersex instead of DSD! so glad this likely perisex person cleared it up for me and other ""dsd"" people that 'intersex' is no longer used/sarcasm
Oh! Okay! Funny bc every intersex I know hates the term dsd! Oh well!
Oh. That's a TERF in the intersex tag going after Imane Khalif. There is a TERF in the intersex tag calling Khalif a man, due to their insistance that a woman is trans when she is from a place where being trans is criminalized, all while using the term 'DSD' to refer to intersex people.
Not to be an annoying activist or anything, but I honestly really don't appreciate Kat Blaque, a PERISEX person, talking over intersex people because of what the infamously intersexist medical field has to say about PCOS. 'Doctors say that PCOS isn't an intersex condition' yeah and doctors have said that homosexuality is an illness. The medical field ain't perfect and can fuck up and grow.
I did NOT get put on hormones at 13 to 'fix' myself just for some perisex person to come along and say I'm not intersex because I don't have a medically recognized variation, despite the fact that things like CAH get misdiagnosed as PCOS and vice versa all the fucking time. Maybe we should take what the medical field says with a grain of salt and listen to actual members of communities. :/
It's really telling to me when a perisex trans person grips onto 'TME/TMA' for dear life. Just say you don't care about intersex people in the least, and downright hate us at the most. Your thinly veiled attempts at being most oppressed in the oppression olympics aren't cute and harm those of us who are erased and/or harmed by this god awful millionth binary you fuckers created.
hey can intersex people call out problematic shit perisex people say without someone opposing us like we just advocated for the murder of someone's grandma? A transmasc TikTok compilation on YouTube had a TikTok that advocated for perisex transmascs claiming to have a 'hormone deficiency' in order to pass, and I pointed out that pretending to be intersex to 'avoid' stigma is a super fucking shitty thing to do, and the creator was all like 'not only intersex people have hormone deficiencies uwu' like pal not only is that iffy in terms of factual correctness it's also just further erasure. I pointed out that entitled perisex transmascs shouldn't fucking go around telling people they have hypogonadism and this person's FIRST INSTINCT is to go 'well not just intersex people-' shut up please.
the worst thing about this is that it isn't even a unique experience. this happens to intersex people all the time, even this specific topic, because perisex people hate it when we tell them they aren't entitled to doing shit that erases us and shit I guess. cool intersexism from perisex trans people that's just so normalized that it can go under the radar.
hey can intersex people call out problematic shit perisex people say without someone opposing us like we just advocated for the murder of someone's grandma? A transmasc TikTok compilation on YouTube had a TikTok that advocated for perisex transmascs claiming to have a 'hormone deficiency' in order to pass, and I pointed out that pretending to be intersex to 'avoid' stigma is a super fucking shitty thing to do, and the creator was all like 'not only intersex people have hormone deficiencies uwu' like pal not only is that iffy in terms of factual correctness it's also just further erasure. I pointed out that entitled perisex transmascs shouldn't fucking go around telling people they have hypogonadism and this person's FIRST INSTINCT is to go 'well not just intersex people-' shut up please.
'haha I just have a hormone deficiency' shut UP. If someone asks you why your voice is so high or whatever the fuck you tell them it's none of their fucking business. you are beyond disconnected from reality if you think pretending to be intersex makes you safer, and this bullshit is so fucking intersexist to do to begin with. you just see us as something to protect yourself, not individuals, not people, just an argument against transphobes when called for and a disguise for YOURSELF. Jesus Christ I can't believe I didn't see this shit sooner. It's because, again, it's so normalized to turn intersex individuals into concepts and statistics that I didn't realize how people did it.
hey can intersex people call out problematic shit perisex people say without someone opposing us like we just advocated for the murder of someone's grandma? A transmasc TikTok compilation on YouTube had a TikTok that advocated for perisex transmascs claiming to have a 'hormone deficiency' in order to pass, and I pointed out that pretending to be intersex to 'avoid' stigma is a super fucking shitty thing to do, and the creator was all like 'not only intersex people have hormone deficiencies uwu' like pal not only is that iffy in terms of factual correctness it's also just further erasure. I pointed out that entitled perisex transmascs shouldn't fucking go around telling people they have hypogonadism and this person's FIRST INSTINCT is to go 'well not just intersex people-' shut up please.
Hello! I saw your post about TMA/TME being another binary and it being intersexist. I genuinely want to understand why you think so because the way I’ve seen it being used wasn’t meant to create another binary. It was just for people who experience transmisogyny to have a term for themselves. It’s not based on your agab or your sex. You don’t have to be (amab) transfem to be tma. Plus, in the spaces I’ve seen it being used, it’s understood that being tme/tma can change. One’s relationship to the term can be complicated. I’ve shared my point of view so if it’s okay, I’d like to understand yours.
I don't know how else to tell you this, but any framework that's essentially oppressed/not oppressed, at least in the way it can easily get used, is eventually going to char intersex people in the desire of perisex (and, let's be honest, widely white) trans people to come out on top in the oppression olympics. even if some people can actually acknowledge us for once, there are others who act like only perisex trans women can be 'TMA' and to hell with everyone else... except those who happen to be 'AMAB'. I've actually seen an intersex person in favor of it admit that it's completely based on what you were born as.
'"...maybe intersex people who were assigned female can be tma" literally NO THEY CAN'T the whole thing about transmisogyny is that it's based around your assigned gender'
that is the direct quote. do you see how this gets intersexist? intersex people assigned female at birth can be affected by transmisogyny, but some people don't want to think so because then their viewpoints explode. you say someone's experiences with TME/TMA can be complicated but I've seen more than enough people water it down to 'AMAB only', so whether or not it was not intended that way in its creation, it is still at risk to be used as a weapon to try to push everyone into gendered and often sex based boxes which, say it with me, hurts intersex people. it happens too much to just be coincidental.
if you want to listen to more intersex people about this, I suggest looking at this post (link) as well as this one (link). I'm tired of perisex trans people acting like us saying anything is such a fucking affront to them (/nay); they cover up their intersexism with cries that the person calling them out on it is simply 'transmisogynistic' and I'm tired of it. We're never listened to and used as a talking point when it suits perisex trans people if ANYTHING, and when we dare have a back bone about blatant intersexism in the trans community, perisex trans people lose their minds because we dared not stay in the shadows while letting the perisex people rule the conversation.
include intersex people in your body positivity too. stop being weird about bearded women, hypogonadism and 'micro dicks'. you're all about 'women don't owe you shit' and then turn around and act like men and intersex people need to fit your boxes of 'acceptable' men and women. we don't owe you shit either.
Include men in your body positivity. you are not body positive if you make fun of male pattern baldness, neckbeards, fatness, etc in men. these traits are just as worthy of acceptance regardless of if it's wrapped in pink bows or not.
It comes from the reality disconnected assumption that intersex people 'have it better' than perisex trans people, especially when we're cis. The ignorance is so bizarre and a lot of the time these people refuse to be educated.
I do wonder if the queer intersexists just think that intersex people are never assigned male or female at birth. That we freely get something like an X marker on our birth certificates every time and our intersex status is always known from birth. Do these people legitimately think a medical industry that sees sex as binary makes an exception for intersex people that is always correct? It just seems so disconnected from the real world.
I just saw someone say 'an intersex' in a post showing off their fetishistic edit of a real person, words cannot describe how much I hate that
same situation with PCOS. A lot of the people I've seen be against PCOS being an intersex variation are obsessed with the concept of 'real women', because to them being intersex would mean they're less than women. it's sad that so many people seem deal with this type of intersexism.
I believe that the choice to use the intersex label is and should always be a personal one, however I have noticed many people with Turner Syndrome not wanting to call themselves intersex because 'We are real women' and 'It's a female only condition - We don't have male parts'
Not only is this incredibly transphobic as we don't all identify as women but it also completely misunderstands what intersex actually means (any variation in sex characteristic considered which is not typical for males/females)
Being intersex has never made me less of a woman, I can be an intersex woman and I AM an intersex woman. They aren't exclusive terms?
hello perisex trans person, in front of you is a serious post by an intersex trans person talking about the rampant intersexism in the trans community, your challenge is to not go “im perisex but-” or “i thought intersex people didn’t want to be called queer?”, if you do, you will be automatically exploded, the hardest challenge of your life starts now