Rating things I sometimes hear perisex queer people say related to intersex people based on how valid/correct I think they are!
1: "Intersex people are biologically nonbinary, which proves the existence of genders other than male/female."
This sucks. Intersex people are not biologically nonbinary, because being nonbinary typically has to do with gender, not sex. However, I am giving this the slightest amount of credit, simply because at least it acknowledges that intersex people exist and that genders other than male/female exist. I see this statement a lot and honestly it sucks. Intersex people and nonbinary people can be valid without one explaining the other. 1/10
2: "Some people aren't afab or amab. Those people are called intersex."
Bad bad bad I hate it. Asab/agab language has a lot of shitty things about it, most notably in the way it harms trans and intersex people. Like, y'all know that intersex people are usually still assigned male or female at birth, right? Often through IGM. And there's also those like me, who were reassigned male or female later after birth. We're still intersex. It's INCREDIBLY rare for intersex people to not be assigned a sex/gender at some point in their life. There's literally no truth in this. 0/10
3: "Intersex people can't have both."
If you're familiar with my blog, you already know my thoughts on this statement. I debated on whether or not I should add this one here, since I've seen it come from other intersex people a lot too, but whatever. I'm going to give it at least some credit for the ATTEMPT to teach people what ambiguous genitalia is actually like on intersex people, but it falls short in so many ways. Links to more of my discussion on this sentiment here: Link 1! Link 2! Link 3! 1/10
4: "Intersex people aren't actually a third sex, they are just males and females with disorders of sexual development."
Fuuuuck youuuuu. The only reason this one isn't a 0/10 is because it's technically true that intersex people aren't a "third sex", since there's a virtually infinite amount of ways for us to be. But also, it's incredibly disrespectful to call intersex conditions "disorders of sexual development", or "DSDs". Intersex bodies aren't disorders, we are just atypical. 1/10
5: "Being intersex means you are a mix of male and female."
No, wrong. Being intersex means you are born with atypical sex traits, or have atypical sex traits develop without external reasons. (Some variation is allowed in this definition, depending on what intersex person you're speaking to. And that is okay!) There are plenty of intersex people whose traits aren't a mix of male and female. Also, this is disrespectful to transgender and nonbinary perisex people who consider themselves to be a mix of male and female, or who have a mix of male and female sex traits from HRT, surgery, etc. I'm not going to give this statement any credit, because I can't find anything true about it. 0/10
6: "This is my intersex oc! Can you help me write a sex scene for them?"
A lot of intersex blogs get asked this, and it gets annoying. They often don't specify what intersex variation/traits their oc has, since they think being intersex is one specific thing. And like. You can probably figure out how to write a sex scene for an intersex character all on your own if you just listen to us talk about our experiences with sex/masturbation instead of dumping your specific idea of intersexuality on us and expecting to get advice other than "research actually intersex people using intersex-supportive sources". I will give this one credit for attempting to be supportive of intersex people, though. 3/10
7: "I wish I was intersex."
I sympathize with you. This sentence almost always comes from a place of dysphoria, but the person saying it usually doesn't realize what being intersex entails. We're almost always still forced into male and female boxes, with IGM and forced HRT. Being intersex wouldn't alleviate your dysphoria, because you'd still likely be forced one way or another. They also don't specify what kind of sex traits they want, because they think being intersex is one specific way of being. Perhaps a better statement you could say would be "I wish I had sex traits atypical of pericis males/females," because there's nothing wrong with that, and that is in fact achievable! You can get HRT and surgeries to also have atypical sex traits, and it's completely fine, awesome, valid, and normal. You can do all that without being intersex, and often times it's easier to access the HRT and surgeries you need when you're perisex. I rate this sentence in between bad and good, because it usually just comes from a place of misunderstanding, and can be corrected with some explaining. 3/10
8: "Intersex people are awesome and I should give them my money."
