Since some new athletes subject to gender (sex) testing are getting a lot of spotlight shined on the transphobic elements of this practice, please can people keep in mind the intersexist nature of sex testing. While many concerns raised about athletes’ gender/sex are related to transphobia, the material reality is that these people aren’t trans, they are intersex. These tests reveal that these women have hyperandrogenistic conditions that make them intersex. They are experiencing oppression based on having an intersex condition. This isn’t “oops we oppressed a cisgender person who might have been trans,” it is the intentional oppression of people who are intersex.

LGBT activists have been vocal about intersex issues for several decades, because establishing the legal right to bodily autonomy for intersex persons is basically inseparable from establishing the right of trans persons to that same legal autonomy over their own bodies. many intersex persons prefer not to be grouped together with LGBT causes; however, the vast majority of LGBT activists would agree that performing “corrective” surgery on intersex infants - to force them to adhere to a largely fictional gender binary - is pretty fucking evil.

There’s a lot of bullshit around the gender binary and the “basic biology” arguement that breaks down the second you look in any college-level textbook. The amount of people born intersex clocks in at 1.7% of the world’s population and people try to pretend it doesn’t exist because of that low percentage. However, following that logic, they must also believe that people born with naturally red hair, 2% of the world’s population, must also be fictitious. Except that clearly isn’t the case. One hundred and thirty-two MILLION people are born intersex and the vast majority of them have their bodily autonomy ripped away. That shit has to stop.

[ID: a series of tweets by #EndIntersexSurgery (@pidgejen)

Anyways, let’s start with what I thought I once knew about myself. When I was 18, I discovered I  wasn’t like other girls. My medical records read “male pseudo-hermaphrodite 46 XY” & other BS terminology that pathologised my healthy/beautiful intersex body.

I discovered then that I had been diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS); my XY body couldn’t fully utilise androgens (like T) and so I developed mostly like a typical female person externally.

For me, this meant that I had a somewhat “ambiguous” looking body (aka a non-binary body) and the doctors performed 3 unnecessary cosmetic surgeries to make me look more like a “normal” girl:

gonadectomy

Clitorectomy

Vaginoplasty

Not to mention, they lied to me about ALL OF THIS and then forced  me to take Premarin (a low dose of estrogen made from extracting the hormone from pregnant mare’s urine)

Anyways, I got in touch with a new endocrinologist recently thanks to my therapist at @RushMedical who suggested I see him.

He did something no other doctor has ever done. He asked me if he could see my medical records, all of them, and then took time to read of them.

He even reached out to other experts in his field when he was confused by something.

Wow. We love humility in medicine.

Anyways, he ends up suspecting something is up and that perhaps my PAIS diagnosis is wrong.

He then orders me a genetic test. Thanks to covid it took almost half a year to get the results, but a month or so ago I got them back.

Turns out, I don’t have PAIS, I actually have something known as NR-5A1. Now this is big news mostly because 1. It supports my thesis that docs who deal with intersex kids don’t know shit…

And 2. P/AIS intersex folks are believed to not be able to utilise androgens and so we’re often only given estrogen (never T), forcibly “feminised” with fucked up “cosmetic” surgeries, and forcibly assigned female.

Doing what they did to me was fucked up enough, but now realising that they didn’t even have the diagnosis right – and that I can utilise androgens – is fucking infuriating beyond belief.

We need to #EndIntersexSurgery y’all like yesterday.

credit to @our.pride_ on Instagram

Bisexual

Transgender

Lesbian

Gay

Non Binary

Pansexual

Asexual

Genderfluid

Intersex

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIDybBtrHO4/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

I made a handy diagram

Hot take for yall:

Every single person saying "sex is real, it's gender that's not real" to support trans people needs to sit down and think about how that affects intersex people.

Sex is literally made up. Sex characteristics? Real. Genitalia is real, hormone levels are real, chromosomes are real... But dividing those into two boxes isn't real. We arbitrarily threw together the two most common combinations of these traits, called them male and female, and said fuck everyone who doesn't fit into that.

Sex isn't some holy thing that only the most radical people want to destroy, it's a farce used to justify the medical abuse of intersex people. If you want to be an ally to intersex people, please take the time to think about these things. Think about the way we talk about sex and how it might be hurting intersex people.

Using "assigned gender" language, legitimating the idea of a sex binary, calling intersex types "conditions"/"disorders"/etc., comparing intersex people to animals with diverse sex characteristics, and not listening to or acknowledging intersex people are all things people need to stop doing if they want to be allies to intersex people.

I'm trans as well as intersex, I know that supporting trans rights is incredibly important, but it should not be done at the expense of intersex people.

CW intersex surgeries, interphobia, trauma mention, mutilation mention. . I’ve always found curious how invisible intersexuality is, not only in the society as a whole, but in the queer community too, considering we’re around 1.7% of the population. That means that 1 in 60 babies is intersex, 800.000 people in Spain! We’re soooo many! So, because I know a lot of queer folks want to learn about intersexuality, I decided to write this post to shed some light on our identity. Here are some facts, struggles and misconceptions that intersex folks have to deal with. . 💛Sex, same as gender, is a social construct. It doesn’t mean it’s fake, but that it’s completely subjective. In trans circles it’s common to talk about “gender assigned at birth” and “biological sex” without taking into account how hurtful that concept is for trans and intersex folks. Sex is also assigned at birth, and the doctor who determines it decides which factors are considered, and which aren’t. That’s the reason why some babies and children are forced to undergo surgeries, while others never find out they’re intersex or they realize when they’re adults. . 💜Intersex people present genitalia, gonads, hormonal levels or chromosomal patterns that don’t fit in the binary definitions of male or male. The most “visible” case of intersexuality is genital variability, but we also include people whose sexual chromosomes are XXY or X0 (only one X chromosome); teenagers that are XX whose bodies produce barely any estrogen, so their breasts don’t grow and they don’t have periods (which is my case); or fetus who are XY but are exposed to high levels of estrogen during pregnancy so they develop what is considered “female” genitalia. . 💛Intersex bodies have been heavily pathologized in medical manuals the same way that trans and queer identities have been. Intersexuality isn’t a disorder! Human bodies are diverse, and they have always been. In fact, the “perfect” male or female body doesn’t exist at all: it’s an invention, a binarist ideal to aspire to; the more inforced are gender roles, the more pressure we put on intersex bodies to conform. . Part 2 coming soon! [ID in Alt Text] https://www.instagram.com/p/CDPMhZFB17Y/?igshid=1ssn3ywzq40ms

INTERSEX FOLX HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED

1.7% of people are intersex, 2% have green eyes, and 1.5 percent are redheads, but yeah red is a natural hair color, green is a natural eye color, and being intersex is a 'deformity'. Keep pretending gender isn't a social construct

0.0006% of people in the world live in Ireland and we all agree that People Live In Ireland.

Hey um, the 2019 Intersex Inclusion Survey is mainly being circulated in TERF circles right now, which I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain is uh… Bad? So please take it! Please circulate it! Share it on and off Tumblr!

You don’t have Intersex or LGBTQ+ to take it!