#intersexism

enby-life:

enby-life:

This isn’t funny or anything but transphobes are so fucking stupid. They are deeply and genuinely stupid. Completely and utterly stupid without a glimmer of hope for common sense, dare I say.

You think I’m kidding but I’m not. These people are STUPID stupid. UNIMAGINABLY stupid. Point blank dumber than rocks don’t know anything about what they’re talking about stupid. And ALARMINGLY fixated on their obsession with little boys’ penises. Like weirdly intent on circle-jerking to the idea of having hands-on control on kids’ genitals.

You’re right and you should say it

if intersex people undermine the sex binary and gender binary, why do so many people only mention us while arguing with queerphobes online. if our existence is so critical, why are we so forgotten and ignored. why aren’t we uplifted. why are we invisible.

intersexfairy:

i would just like to remind people that h*rmaphrodite is in fact a slur against intersex people (the h slur). don’t refer to us as that, either as individuals or a group - unless someone says it’s okay for you to call them that (some of us do identify with the term).

you. you know hermaphroditus was made intersex from sexual assault and then had the fountain it happened in “cursed” so that anyone who went in it would become intersex, right. that’s. that’s not comforting at all. please stop mentioning them

i would just like to remind people that h*rmaphrodite is in fact a slur against intersex people (the h slur). don’t refer to us as that, either as individuals or a group - unless someone says it’s okay for you to call them that (some of us do identify with the term).

my mom is also intersex - and she was bullied relentlessy. when her hair was short, her peers harassed her for “looking like a boy.” these same peers were violent with her. so, she’d almost always let the hair dresser do whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t cut it short. and it never made her happy.

but after literal decades, she finally got a pixie cut. a haircut she wanted. she looked so bright and happy after getting it, and she looks much more like herself. it wasn’t “just hair” for her; it was healing and joy. and i’m sure for some intersex, trans, nby, and gnc people reading this, it isn’t “just hair” for you, either.

if you’ve been holding off changing anything about your appearance because of bigotry or dismissal: please know that no matter what, you have permission to do what you want with your body. i and so many others support you. it’s never too late to do what makes you happy.

if i have to see someone act like just saying you have a hormonal imbalance - lying about being intersex - will protect you from misgendering again i think i might just cry

dont rb this, its a vent post not a hot take and it doesnt show all my nuanced thoughts on the matter, thanks

Intersex variations are not disorders.

“Disorder” it’s just an ableist paradigm created by humans

Reminder that if you think people can’t become intersex/perisex through medical transition you believe to the TERF/GC conception of sex as an immutable thing and/or that you are defined by your natal characteristics and not by your present material characteristics (again a GC/TERF thing) you basically align yourself with their beliefs.

It’s important to note that believing Intersex is immuable, knowing that intersex is relative to male and female also imply male and female are immutable things.

Sex & intersex aren’t static, unchangables but rather things that can be modified with our consent or not. Refering to medically transitioned trans ppl who were born perisex as perisex is materially false and sex-statism (GC/TERF belief) and imply for a trans woman that she is still a male and for a trans man that he still a female.

Medically transitioned trans ppl no loger have their perisex privilege since they no longer have sexual characteristics that corresponds to typical binary definitions of male or female.

Cry about it.

Sex can be fluid just as gender can be fluid.

This is for those who are against afab transfems and amab transmascs.

>Can u explain me why ? Why is it ok for u to segregate an identity on the basis of someone’s ASAB ? Isn’t what terfs actually do ? For them “woman” is AFAB-exclusive and yall act the same with transfem/transmasc. U use terf logic, u discriminate someone due to their genitals. ////

Why don’t you let ppl identify with whatever they want regardless of their asab and without telling them they are bad/wrong/not valid ? If an afab individual feel a connection to transfemininity, why they should be forbidden to identify as such ?

For me we should stop to imply that transfem= amab and transmasc= afab and start to recognize that some transfems are afab and some transmascs are amab (and others aren’t even afab or amab)

Sex assignement is an arbitrary act who don’t accure just one time in your life. Socially, people will assign you to a sex/gender category (often based on you appearence but not only). So if an afab is assigned to male by someone but they identify with a fingender/feingender they are in fact transfem/trans girl. Ofc, u don’t necessary need this experience to be a transfem. If u feel connected to the term for me it’s the most important.

I really don’t understand why so many ppl are so hostile towards afab/amab transfems/transmascs and have a very reductive vision of the sex/gender assignement process//

Again if an afab is comfortable with the label transfem, where is the problem if they use it ?They are not hurting anyone. Let them vibing.

A resource about afab transfems :

Afab transfem

But Nova! Why are you SO specifically angry towards the trans community about this when anyone cis or trans can be intersexist! Why not address it more broadly if you’re not trying to be transphobic????

Firstly: Not exactly angry. And any anger I do have is a result of the intersexism I face DAILY from the people I surround myself with. Anger towards intersexism is justified no matter WHO it comes from, and if it’s coming from my peer group, that affects me more directly and immediately.

Second: Do you think one intersex person alone can stand up to the monolith that is Intersexism in society? Or like, the three I personally talk to plus me? Or do you think it might be easier if I first build understanding in a community I trust to care about us before trying to tackle the bigger picture? Y’all personally know what it’s like to fight for the right to exist in your own body as the gender you identify with, I have to do that daily AND justify my gender and trauma and existance to trans people and I shouldn’t have to.

My options are to get more people who could actually care to actually care so that I can build solidarity and understanding OR I can actually lose my mind from how suffocating and violent intersex erasure feels. There’s no third option for me. Shaving and working to “pass as cis” isn’t a fucking option, and I shouldn’t have to hide my intersex features to earn respect.

“Becoming a T*RF” isn’t a fucking option either despite people legitimately thinking that’s what I’m doing for some reason because I literally just don’t fucking function that way. I don’t see gender as your genitals and I never fucking have or will, I don’t think trans people are harming ANYTHING by transitioning or by trying to fit binary definitions of gender. By matter of existing, trans people are helping deconstruct the gender binary and how it is defined in a way that is WONDERFUL to see. We exist in the same binary gender hell together, we’re doing what we can to cope with it and since my identity as a woman is something I’ve had to fight for, I fucking empathize when having a binary gender label and fitting into it is valuable for an individual. I have lived a life where I worked hard to pass and saw value in modifying myself to do so, and I fucking get it! And genuinely, if you think I cannot be angry at intersexism otherwise that makes me a bigot, YOU are being intersexist. Period.

I’m one fucking intersex person who has NO choice but to air out every single piece of my personal trauma and medical history to everyone, cis or trans, in order to be taken seriously. Imagine if you had no choice but to do so as well, because you don’t have a fucking community. I’m goddamn tired, folks!!

Y’all can have so much empathy and understanding when a trans person speaks about how scary and dysphoric puberty was for them because their body started developing in ways that didn’t align with the gender they either did identify with or would eventually identify with but when an intersex person who identifies with their agab tells you that their puberty resulted in their body developing in a way that made them dysphoric and resulted in trauma from both abuse and self abuse with absolutey NO community to turn to and very likely kept as a secret in isolation, people roll their eyes and write it off as “you’re just mad ppl think you’re trans” and it’s so fucking maddening

People will unironically be like “I think cis people who don’t know they’re intersex because it has been hidden from them who hate themselves and work hard every single day to “pass” as their agab in order to avoid the intersexist abuse and harassment that we all know comes from existing outside of the defined binary have privilege because they clearly WANT to be doing what they’re doing”

And I think that’s fuckin,, something

Is passing privilege the same thing as having cis privilege? Is it a privilege to have a body that you’ve been forced from your youth to alter just so you don’t face abuse? Is it a privilege to be defined out of every conversation about the complexities of gender identity and presentation, to the point that even claiming “intersex” feels like intruding in a space that isn’t ours?

If you like. Only care about intersex people IF they identify themselves as trans, you are being intersexist. If you think that an intersex person who has a body that inherently does not fit into a binary definition of male or female can EVER have what y’all define as Cis Privilege, you are being intersexist AND erasing our experiences and trauma. If you specifically only raise intersex voices if the person is trans, because you lack the perspective to understand that all intersex people are suffering and are erased so heavily that you simply don’t understand, you are being intersexist. Society has worked so FUCKING hard to erase us, don’t play into that shit simply because the language you’ve always used to speak about gender has also always excluded and erased us. GROW AND LEARN.

Trans intersex voices are extremely important and carry a lot of insight and nuance! But the thing is: ALL intersex people live in the same system that forces us into binary boxes, and this comes with suffering that is unique to being intersex that doesn’t fucking go away if we don’t use perisex terms to describe our gender. I shouldn’t have to call myself nonbinary, a term that for me separates myself from my fight for my identity as a woman that I’ve faced my entire life due to being intersex, for people to take me goddamn seriously.

And if you’re an intersex person who thinks other intersex people are more privileged based SPECIFICALLY on how they personally define their gender, despite knowing that intersex people ALL face varying levels of intersexism and someone who looks blatantly outside of the binary like myself would never be treated as a fucking human much less a woman, you have some fucking internalized intersexism you need to sort the fuck out. I don’t have to redefine my gender, y’all need to LISTEN.

rexandpictures:

n-o–v-a:

n-o–v-a:

Anyway after a long day thinking about it, ranting about it, crying about it, I’m starting to think it’d be easier to just accept that I have been defined out of cis because the way people define cis privilege almost never applies to me in actual lived experience and the things people tell me are examples of MY cis privilege are examples of fetishization and dehumanization of me as an intersex person and not, like, flattery or something, so maybe I’m just A Nonbinary Intersex Woman.

Like, I’ve kept the label cis specifically because I’m autistic, cis LITERALLY means “identifies as agab” and I identify as my agab, and despite being a woman who doesn’t fit into the binary whatsoever, I feel like an intruder in nonbinary spaces because I’ve fought so hard my whole life to cling to my womanhood and it’s so important to me that people KNOW I’ve had to fight my whole life for my womanhood and to accept my intersex body but also

Fuck it, I guess. I’m just an intersex woman who exists outside of the binary. Don’t tell me how to define it otherwise.

But also, like. An intersex person who looks the way I do because I stopped hiding my intersex traits after a lifetime of doing so out of self hate thereby subjecting myself to daily abuse and misgendering for the sake of accepting my body as it is firmly refusing to redefine myself for the sake of perisex people’s comfort reclaiming “cis” for myself as a way to firmly define my struggle with my gender identity and dysphoria rather than to separate myself from it, because to be cis and to look the way I do while existing as an intersex woman is to go entirely against the definition of the binary aesthetically and to redefine what someone who is cis can even look like, and to ME PERSONALLY that sounds punk as hell but y’all aren’t on my level of intersex galaxy brain shit

(nova im sorry if this is too much of my own projecting. i aim to speak in solidarity with you from my own frustrations.)

to the ppl in the notes trying to helpfully offer encouragement of “identify however you want!” this isnt about that, it’s about how exhausting it is to have to be seen as political and rebellious just by doing the day-to-day of existing as we are, but then still not being afforded the space to talk about what that means for us. non intersex “allies” need to step up and acknowledge the reality of nuance and intersectionality instead of just leaning so hard on the cheap narrative of cis people being a bad monolith or whatever is driving this. you cant claim that this person can just do whatever she wants identity-wise when it’s this fucking exhausting to do EVEN when Just Being, and expect her to continue to accept the painful reality of being ignored for it. it is not about waiting for isolated instances of friendliness and encouragement either, it is about a culturally wide issue even with self proclaimed progressives not taking people as they are, and not putting their money where their mouth is regarding intersectionality, not listening to intersex people who happen to be also cis* and are trying to talk about that experience being what it is. im tired of the essentialism and the worthless black-and-white thinking that leads people to the conclusion that the answer to this is “identify how you want! :)))”

(* even though we cant seem to fit into either cis or trans the way people want us to)

take what she is saying to heart. instead of telling her to identify however she wants, understand that there are barriers to doing so and to being taken seriously because a lot of people see “cis” and write that person off. being trans doesnt mean you get to permanently have the mic on gender. and its not up to you to bestow “identify how you want” onto intersex people like its fresh news. transness and intersex experience are not perfectly the same, but trust that intersex people are already (and honestly probably chronically) wrestling with their self definitions. we are already very used to accepting that we will have to self define in the face of what the world wants us to be, INCLUDING in spaces that are meant to defy cisheteronormativity. non-intersex trans people need to stop claiming ownership of what is not actually a trans-only experience. especially not while using intersexism as a supporting statistical argument about biology in every gender101. this is about having to use certain words to be taken seriously even BY trans people, who don’t know how to listen to cis voices when it doesnt seem convenient. (but also consider: acknowledging similarity in struggle without needing to lump things together as The Same or being diametrically The Other is a good thing for movements.)

i say this as a trans intersex person who struggles with nonbinary-hood that, at times, feels imposed upon the self instead of organically chosen all the time. cis people are not inherently an enemy. cis people have perspectives and stories we need to listen to and cis does not preclude a person from having important and valuable gender perspectives. having a bingo of ~all the marginalized experiences and labels~ shouldn’t be the thing that earns respect and attention.

this is not an identity crisis seeking friendly encouragement, this is a struggle against rhetoric and cultural bias, grounded in identity terminology that you people take way more seriously than the humans who use them.

also, there is no “community” the way a lot of people seem to think there is. you cannot claim that things are welcoming on behalf of “the” community when a person is literally expressing that their experiences and claims of identity are routinely not taken seriously, In Those Spaces. the idea of that community is a myth.

intersex people are mistreated. cis or not. allies need to take that pill. gender is not so clear cut as This or That, and that is the whole point of gender liberation. come ON.

No, thank you for this. I appreciate knowing that someone is like, getting where I’m coming from. As an intersex person who looks the way I do, I functionally am just. An intersex woman. I don’t HAVE to add cis there. I don’t have what y’all define to be cis privilege, I’m fucking intersex and literally nobody reads me as a woman, much less a CIS woman, and the reason I use cis is so personal to MY experience as an INTERSEX WOMAN in a way that feels valuable to me.

And this isn’t a costume I can just take off, this is my body. This is my unaltered body. To “pass” as my own assigned gender is to work super fucking hard every day, which is torture, not a privilege, and not anything I consented to when I was assigned female at birth, and I refuse to do that for anyone anymore. I did that shit for FIFTEEN YEARS, every single DAY of my life!! I wasted SO much time hating myself holy fucking shit!!!!!!!

The contrast between my intersex body and my identity as a cis woman is inherently not within the defined gender binary. Neither cis perisex NOR trans people NOR even some intersex ppl want me to use that word comfortably, because nobody believes that about me OR they use it to erase me, but tbh? Fuck that. My gender exists outside of the binary, I’m intersex, and I’ll describe that however the fuck I want.

One of the reasons I’m so like. Idk, intense I guess? About talking about how perisexist language affects intersex people is like.

I have the language to talk about my intersex experiences in a way to get people to understand me. I have had to walk a careful tightrope of not upsetting perisex people by using language that doesn’t belong to me, because language simply does not EXIST for the intersex community.

We have such little language to describe our experiences and so when people use transphobic language behind their threats of violence towards us, transphobic slurs against us, and we don’t know how to describe that, and and we’re like “i think i’m experiencing transphobia somehow? Even tho i’m not trans?” We’re not attempting to appropriate trans language or speak over trans experiences, we’re trying to figure out what the fuck intersexism actually is and find a way to talk about it to people who are also experiencing the same abuse. I never even heard the word “intersexism” until 2019.

I also didn’t start even THINKING about calling myself intersex until 2019. Before then, I was just a cis woman. With a beard. And a “masculine” build and frame that started developing that way when I was eleven that I was then put on hormones to “correct” (it didn’t). And a voice that sounds like the twink from Glee, not like a Real Woman’s Voice. And before the beard, I spent a decade and a half obsessing over making my body “pass” as “female”. And I experienced dysphoria and deep self hate, I was still misgendered regularly without the beard and with full makeup, I still experienced medical abuse for the majority of my life on the basis of having an intersex condition that I didn’t know WAS considered intersex by the community.

I didn’t know I was intersex until 2019. I’ll be 30 in July 2021. I’m JUST finding my voice as an intersex person, in a way people are hearing me and listening and understanding me. But before I identified as intersex, I was just. A cis woman. Who didn’t know there was language for all this abuse and pain and trauma, who didn’t know there was the potential for having a community of people who understand my struggles and whose struggles I can understand.

And when you’re Just a Cis Woman with PCOS, what are your options for community? There’s groups for women with PCOS, sure. They’re all hyperfocused on the best ways to lose weight, the best ways to become fertile, the best ways to be more Female. To remove body hair, quick outpatient cosmetic surgeries that can help feminize you, to reduce your body to a fragment of itself just so they can pass as female in cis perisex society. This is not only internalized misogyny, but internalized intersexism to not even realize everything you’ve been conditioned to believe about your body being inherently disgusting and wrong and not “female”. These are people living with deep self hate every day, working hard to “pass” so that they don’t have to face the reality of how people treat you if you don’t.

And I know another woman, with PCOS, who grew out a full beard for years. She’s cis, bi, and was a sideshow performer. She never had the language I have now, nor the specific community of friends and peers I have to learn the things I have. She was abused badly regularly and always reacted loudly and angrily, which is her right. Part of that abuse was people in the trans community accusing her of appropriating their struggle, because she’s just a cis woman who can grow a beard, if the abuse and violence she’s experiencing is THAT bad, she should just shave and get her cis privilege back, right?

But telling an INTERSEX PERSON who doesn’t have the language to describe their experiences to alter their bodies in order to deserve respect is so fucking intersexist and gross. But she did shave, she left sideshow, she moved across the country even to get away from it all. And as far as I’m aware, she still likely doesn’t know her experience is an intersex one. None of that is privilege. Hiding her intersex traits to stop receiving death threats and having men actually try to attack her on public transit isn’t a privilege. Intersex people trying to seek validity and community being told by trans people that our pain doesn’t matter if we aren’t also trans are not privileged.

I’ve legitimately had at least three women now, in their 50s and 60s, in grocery stores (before covid) approach me, ask me if I’m a woman who grows a beard, and then break down crying TO ME A COMPLETE FUCKING STRANGER IN KROGER OR SAMS CLUB about how they’ve fought hard every day of their life to hide their fucking beard, how their HUSBAND OF DECADES isn’t allowed to touch her face, and it haunts me. These are not fucking privileged cis people who happen to grow a beard they can hide, these are intersex people who don’t have and never will have the language to describe their fucking struggles.

And if you think this is me trying to center cis problems or something and not me pointing out that the erasure of intersex people and our struggles is so fucking REAL that most of us have NO IDEA we are intersex or that we’re experiencing intersexism that doesn’t align with the standard perisex cis experience, that’s fucking on you, buddy.

And again, I’m trying to build solidarity and understanding between the intersex and trans community by educating on intersex experiences. If reading this makes you want to be angry at trans people, fucking stop, because it’s not the fault of trans people that cis perisex people have so thoroughly erased us and that’s why I’m educating. If you wanna be angry at me for any of this, you’re literally just dealing with your own intersexism and need to sort that shit out. “Cis” was never a word that considered or included intersex people and our experiences. 

anarchistmemecollective:

bog-frog:

daydur:

bakedbrielarson:

mariacallous:

The fight for abortion and reproductive rights [handshake emoji] the fight for trans rights

Can someone with editing skills add disability rights please?

Ask and ye shall receive

megsaestheticcrisis:

eleiinium:

j-uwu-ish:

Seeing ppl say they want “intersex features” (meaning. A working penis and vagina) is so fucking insulting because that’s not even an intersex thing! Intersex people aren’t a monolith, and also that’s not a thing we have. Those surgeries exist but that doesn’t make you intersex. You CANNOT transition to being intersex no matter what surgeries you have, it’s something you’re born as. “I want this feature which means I feel empathetic to intersex folks” I am beating you with a stick

The tags too, because I feel they’re important

[ID: a series of tags that read, “I’m looking directly at perisex trans folks with this one. Your dysphoria/euphoria is not an excuse to be intersexist. Check your intersexism and learn the correct language to describe what you want. As an intersex trans person I am tired of this bullshit. It’s so hurtful and isolating when I see trans communities having convos about how they want intersex bodies, or wish they were intersex`, or specifically want intersex genitalia. Like fuck off. We’re more than our bodies. End ID]

Does this apply to people on the non binary spectrum as well? Cause I hope not.

Gender dysphoria is a difficult thing to describe, so sometimes it manifests as wanting intersex features/genitals.

When I first started questioning my identity I expressed wishing I had intersex features because I wasn’t sure how else to express it. Please understand that it doesn’t come from a place of intersexism

Yes, this absolutely, positively applies to nonbinary trans people!!! That is why I reblogged it!

Seeing ppl say they want “intersex features” (meaning. A working penis and vagina) is so fucking insulting because that’s not even an intersex thing! Intersex people aren’t a monolith, and also that’s not a thing we have. Those surgeries exist but that doesn’t make you intersex.You CANNOT transition to being intersex no matter what surgeries you have, it’s something you’re born as. “I want this feature which means I feel empathetic to intersex folks” I am beating you with a stick

Your response is intersexist and clearly indicative that you did not actually read nor take in the post. Instead, you reacted defensively and jumped to conclusions. Accept that you acted intersexistly, educate and inform yourself, and then do better. Don’t get self-defensive and claim you couldn’t have possibly been intersexist because you are 100% capable of intersexism. You parroted back the exact excuses OP just described as intersexist.

I believe this is a good place to start educating yourself on the intersex spectrum and so why what you said and defended was inappropriate and intersexist: https://interactadvocates.org/intersex-definitions/

And please apologize to OP for your response once you have taken some time to cool down, read, and gather yourself. You responded directly to a post that displays these vulnerable tags:

Your dysphoria/euphoria is not an excuse to be intersexist. […] Like fuck off. We’re more than our bodies.

Subjecting the OP to exactly the ignorance and objectification they are talking about here. Their call out post is not the place for you to process your hurt about being called out. That’s something for you to do privately. Remember, perception > intent, so even if your intent wasn’t specifically malicious, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful or prejudiced or based in a basic ignorance of the intersex spectrum and intersex issues.

Your struggle is valid - but your struggle doesn’t get to overwrite actual intersex people’s experiences or struggles, either, and it doesn’t give you a pass to perpetuating the hurt of others.

~Mod Pluto

eleiinium:

j-uwu-ish:

Seeing ppl say they want “intersex features” (meaning. A working penis and vagina) is so fucking insulting because that’s not even an intersex thing! Intersex people aren’t a monolith, and also that’s not a thing we have. Those surgeries exist but that doesn’t make you intersex. You CANNOT transition to being intersex no matter what surgeries you have, it’s something you’re born as. “I want this feature which means I feel empathetic to intersex folks” I am beating you with a stick

The tags too, because I feel they’re important

[ID: a series of tags that read, “I’m looking directly at perisex trans folks with this one. Your dysphoria/euphoria is not an excuse to be intersexist. Check your intersexism and learn the correct language to describe what you want. As an intersex trans person I am tired of this bullshit. It’s so hurtful and isolating when I see trans communities having convos about how they want intersex bodies, or wish they were intersex`, or specifically want intersex genitalia. Like fuck off. We’re more than our bodies. End ID]

trans-axolotl:

doctors have a interest in “curing” intersex children. that is the main and oftentimes only purpose of intersex medical treatments, to “cure” a problem that doesn’t exist. I think this is best understood with the larger framework of the ideology of cure: the medical industrial complex is set up in a way where cure is defined as eradication and prioritized above all else, and things that disabled people might want or need (accessibility, freedom from pain, political power) are dismissed as insignificant unless they help promote cure. The ideology of cure is part of the reason why we are sold prenatal genetic testing for Down Syndrome and eugenic abortion, why we are sold skin lightening creams, why the diet industry exists, why homosexuality was in the DSM: the ideology of cure is a deeply, deeply ableist, racist, oppressive structure that is integral to the way the medical industrial complex operates. And the ideology of cure is why intersex medical abuse exists. 

Most “treatments” that make up the standard of care are treating cosmetic issues rather than legitmate, life threatening issues like salt wasting crisis. And even the treatments that provide life saving care are often wrapped up with other interventions that provide no benefit and are focused on “normalization.” Look at any of the rhetoric that doctors use in their research studies and private letters: they blatently admit that most interventions have no necessary function besides normalization, and are very clear on their racist, ableist, homophobic, standards for “normal.” As an intersex person, when you go to the doctor to try to get the help you might want (having some type of stable hormone levels, addressing anemia, dealing with adrenal crisis), much of the time you are also coerced or blatently forced into other treatments such as hair removal and nonconsensual hormone therapy. The first concern of doctors is usually trying to make you as dyadic as possible, whether or not you’ve expressed interest in those treatments. The medical industrial complex does not want intersex people to exist, and as a result there is a whole industry and people who have built careers off of surgically and hormonally trying to force intersex people to be as close to dyadic as possible, nevermind the harm this causes to us. 

Intersexism does not exist in isolation: much of the stated reasoning behind intersex medical intervention is to prevent children from growing up to be gay or trans. The only intersex adult considered acceptable is one who is able to have heterosexual sex, have biological children, and who is gender conforming. None of this is hidden: I have had all these things said to me by my doctors, and much medical literature is very blatent about their reasoning for things like sudden hormonal intervention and surgery. (Look up anything about dilators and intersex children to see how bad this gets–major content warning for child sexual abuse.) Much of intersex medical experimentation is tied to the incredibly violent, antiblack history of medical experimentation in gynecology. Things like the hirituism scale often use explicitly racist language to discuss body hair, and white supremacist beauty standards are embraced by doctors in the way that they suggest treatment. Intersex bodies are seen as a threat by doctors, in many ways because we challenge the status quo by existing naturally: to let us grow up healthy would be to admit that biological sex is a social construct, and would prevent them from trying to shape us into their ideal, white, heterosexual, cisgender, compliant as-close-to-dyadic-as-possible adult. 

Intersex medical abuse is particularly violent and blatent, but it is not an anamoly in the way that the medical industrial complex works. All disabled people are fucked over by the ideology of cure, not just intersex people. And part of this violence is the way intersex people are encouraged not to identify as disabled. The medical industrial complex is happy to label us disordered, sure–but not disabled. That is very intentional: they want us to buy into the idea that we need to be cure-eradicated, but don’t want us to feel any type of community, solidarity, or political power. Disabled community is fucking powerful, and intersex people having access to this type of community is such a threat to intersexism. Having access to our own self-identification, advocacy, and autonomy, directly challeneges the ideology of cure that wants us to label ourselves as disordered in a way that only the medical industrial complex can “fix.”

Intersex people do not need to be cured. And in order for us to actually fight against the violent harms that we are facing, we need to understand why they are happening and who else these systems of power are harming. Intersex medical abuse needs to be understood not just as a one-off issue of doctors abusing power, but rather as a prominent example of the harms that the medical industrial complex causes by being oriented around cure. 

Okay to reblog by anyone, and here’s some sources if you want to learn more: 

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare

List of Academic Studies about intersex medical abuse