Intersex transfemmasc manwoman. Formally assigned female at birth, informally reassigned male after intersex diagnosis, frequently socially degendered. SCDC.
I made this blog to talk about intersex-related topics, how gender identity and transition can be different for intersex people, and transfeminism + whatever is the equivalent term used for transmasc advocacy.
Stances under cut.
Relevant Stances:
- Transfems can have been AFAB and transmascs can have been AMAB, but I think identifying as âAFAB transfem/AMAB transmascâ is unnecessary out of context of specific discussions. Willing to hear this out, I just donât really get it.
- TME/TMA are not useful identifications. Every transfeminine person has not experienced every single aspect of transmisogyny, and it is therefore more useful to individually address when you are speaking from experience or speaking with general knowledge.
- Transandrophobia exists. There is no word that will make detractors happy, so I donât care what word people choose to use. Transandrophobia appears most popular and commonly used at this point in time, so this is the term I will use as well.
- Calling intersex variations âconditionsâ is not the same as calling them disorders. Intersex people can choose to refer to their individual variations as conditions.
- Intersex variations can be associated with or directly cause physical health issues and disabilities. Intersex activism is necessarily entwined with disability activism.
- Hyperandrogenic PCOS is an intersex variation. As are many other unofficially recognized conditions.
- I donât really want to touch syscourse here, but I generally lean anti-endo. If that matters to you there it is.
SCDC, sex chromosome discordant chimerism, or 46XX/46XY chimerism, is an intersex variation in which, instead of developing into two separate twins, an XX embryo and an XY embryo fuse at some point in development. This results in a type of chimerism (there are multiple, only this type is inherently intersex) in which one person carries typical female and typical male cell lines. SCDC is extremely varied in presentation and can, essentially, look like just about anything.
I think that there is some merit to the notion that being trans, in some cases, is a manifestation of some kind of as of yet undetermined intersex variation. I do not think it would account for all trans people or serve as the one true reason people are trans, but I think it stands to reason some people would have sex-gender incongruence for some kind of âneurological intersexâ reason as people say.
However. It doesnât matter either way. In order for âintersexâ to exist as a meaningful sociopolitical identification, it cannot reasonably include people who are trans solely on the basis of them being trans. It is not solely (or even mostly) a scientific/medical label, it is primarily a sociopolitical label. Sometimes the meaning of a term is determined by literal objective fact and sometimes the meaning of a term is determined by what do we actually use it for? What is the purpose of this term in the social context we reside in? As it stands, it would not be useful for this term to include trans people because we socially categorize and subsequently treat these two things differently. This would remain true even if scientists discovered tomorrow that actually all trans people have an identifiable genetic intersex condition that causes them to have these experiences, because all of society and culture up to then still informs our lives and experiences and language.
I don't say this to be cruel, but, genuinely, I don't understand why a perisex person afab would identify as transfem.
Usually I see three types of people in the category of perisex person afab who identifies as transfem, those being:
1.) The perisex detransitioner afab who was a trans man and is now detransitioning into a woman, which leads to the belief that, because this person "was a man" and is now "transitioning into a woman" they are then a trans woman.
2.) The perisex nonbinary or transmasc person afab who sets "clocky trans woman" as their gender goal and seems to take euphoria from presenting in what they perceive to be the 'transfeminine look' and perhaps being mistaken for a trans women from time to time.
3.) The perisex feminine nonbinary person afab who believes that, because they are both trans and a woman, or both trans and fem, that makes them a trans woman/fem by definition.
I have..a problem, with all three of these.
I suppose for this discussion, it is important to talk about my own definition of what it means to be transfeminine. To me, a transfeminine person is somebody who 1.) Has a somewhat feminine aligned gender identity, 2.) Has been forcibly masculinized and/or denied femininity (whether this be socially, legally, medically, by their body androgenizing, etc), and 3.) Experiences or is part of a class that can be expected to experience transmisogyny.
Now, obviously, perisex people amab with a feminine gender expression meet those criteria. Intersex people's identities, I'd argue, are a case by case basis. Because assigned gender at birth is a single event and intersex people experience such a wide range of medical experiences, puberties, physical presentations, socially imposed genders, etc, I believe it is both possible for an intersex person amab with a feminine gender to not consider themself transfeminine, and for an intersex person afab with a feminine gender to consider themself transfeminine, depending on the specific experiences of the individual. Also as a side note, while they are not transfeminine, a transneutral person amab may experience transmisogyny depending on their presentation despite not identifying as transfeminine.
Now..I have yet to see a compelling argument, for how a perisex person afab would experience transmisogyny. And the thing that bothers me is that I've yet to see a perisex person afab even attempt to argue that they experience transmisogyny, or that they have been in some way forcibly masculinized or kept out of the cis female experience.
In other words, it seems like most perisex people afab who identify as transfem are trying to cut the social barriers preventing transfeminine people from presenting as femininely as well as the concept of transmisogyny altogether out of what it means to be transfeminine, and I find this..concerning. If detransitioners, transmascs who see transfemininity as an aesthetic, and perisex afab demigirls are all "transfem", then that nudges transfeminine people out of their community and forces them to redefine themselves just to talk about their oppression which those same perisex people afab can often be the perpetuators of.
Furthermore, I have problems, with how a lot of the 'honeybee transfem' community speaks about trans women.
The "My transition goal is to be a clocky trans woman" people are just blatantly transmisogynistic, they assign trans women a 'look' (based on charicatures) and they fetishize that look. It isn't fun or cute, you can use different words to describe your transition goal.
Detransitioners might make more sense on some level, but I take issue with the concept that you can define transfemininity as "being a man and then choosing to become a woman", not to mention that detransitioners lack many barriers to womanhood, do not seem to regularly experience transmisogyny, and are frequently used as a literal terf talking point.
Out of the three I typically see, the "Well, I'm trans and I'm a woman, what am I supposed to call myself?" crowd are the ones I have the most sympathy for, because I understand the language breakdown. But fundamentally transmisogynized people need community labels and co-opting those labels as someone who is not transmisogynized is harmful to the transfeminine community, especially when these people seem to consistently refuse to engage with transmisogyny as a concept.
And something a lot of these interpretations also have in common is viewing trans women not as a specific type of women who face forced masculinization/denial of womanhood/transmisogyny, but as a freaky third gender or as 'woman but not', which..is a transmisogynistic framing. Trans Woman is not a gender, it is a type of woman, the same way disabled woman or woc are not genders, but rather, types of women who experience certain types of marginalization. Trans woman is not a gender it is a class that experiences certain types of marginalization I have yet to hear perisex femmes afab argue they also experience.
And..if I'm being honest, the way perisex women afab are not only platformed but centered in the honeybee community really shows. For a label which was ostensibly created to be open to all trans women/fems regardless of their agab, I often see it assumed that honeybees were inherently afab, to the point where there have been discord servers and communities in the honeybee tag which explicitly frame themselves as afab transfem severs.
That is blatantly pushing our trans women amab (both perisex and intersex) from the community, as well as intersex trans women afab, or just..anyone who doesn't want to disclose their agab, which, again, wasn't not disclosing your agab/decentering the trans conversation around agab the stated purpose of this community?
I don't know. As an intersex trans woman who prefers not to state my agab but does consider myself transmisogynized, I have concerns with the rhetoric and behavior of many perisex people afab who claim the transfem label with seemingly little understanding of transmisogyny or desire to hold community with transmisogynized people.
Which is really hurtful for me, especially, because I don't feel comfortable in a lot of general transfem spaces (afraid of being viewed as an invader for being an intersex person who will not state my agab), but also don't feel safe in honeybee centered communities because of the transmisogynistic rhetoric that is allowed to run through these communities.
I don't know. I'm not saying this to cause a fight, I don't wish harm upon anybody and I think if anybody is being bigoted it is mostly a lack of understanding. I do not think anyone is evil for their stance on these labels, nor do I think I'm the ultimate arbiter of truth.
If I'm misinformed, please point out to me what I've misinterpreted, I am genuinely willing to hear arguments for how perisex people afab can be transmisogynized. I truly do have my doubts, but I am always willing to listen and adapt.
Otherwise, do any likeminded people have resources to communities for transfems that would welcome people of my stance?
Thank you, and I'm sorry for any upset some of my current stances may cause.
one issue i have with many anti-transmasculinity discussions on here, is the way anti-transmasculinity (or whatever term is currently in circulation) gets conflated with the oppression of other marginalized men, especially in conversations about structural power.
it is generally true that marginalized men often oppress the women in their communities. black women, for example, experience some of the highest rates of intimate partner violence, and most perpetrators are black men. practices like FGM exist in african countries, where african men mutilate the bodies of little african girls. across many marginalized groups, we can point to clear, well-documented examples of sex- and gender-based subjugation, including instances where marginalized men collude with white supremacy against marginalized women (go look up âweavechimp,â then search it on twitter to see who primarily is using it).
so, when it comes to intersectional and black feminismâwhich transfeminism was nurtured byâit isnât hard to avoid any other form sex/gender-class analysis and say: âtrans men oppress trans women! thatâs basic intersectional feminism!â
but this ignores the actual positionality of trans men. it hallucinates when it comes to transmasculinity. it relies on extrapolating from movements where that framework does apply, and where (cis) menâs liberation does not depend on feminist politic, so men are excluded from feminist analysis by default.
the issue is not the exclusion of marginalized cis men from conversations about sex-gender liberation. the issue is the lack of material analysis of trans male oppression, because if you think about this stuff for more than a few minutes, that entire thing falls apart.
there is no cis man who can be forced to get pregnant and then denied an abortion. there is no cis man who can be legally or socially compelled to wear a hijab. statistically, trans men are more vulnerable to rape and sexual assault than any other group, but especially cis men. trans male liberation is uniquely intertwined with feminist liberation politic, because trans men are directly subjected to misogynistic systems in ways cis men are not. this is why extrapolation does not work.
like, black femicide is overwhelmingly perpetrated by black cis men. east asian cis men have created entire online networks dedicated to sexually degrading, harassing, and blackmailing women in their lives. in MENA, cis men murder women in the name of âhonour.â these are concrete examples of marginalized men exercising patriarchal power over women in their communities. there is no trans analogue to this.
trans men are not killing trans women at disproportionate rates. trans men are not disproportionately raping or abusing trans women. trans men do not have traditions of trans female genital mutilation, trans female breast ironing, or trans female foot binding. trans men are not subjecting trans women to forced marriages, bride burnings, lobotomies, acid attacks, or honour killings. there is no trans female coverture, where trans men absorb the existences of their female counterparts. trans men do not dominate medical institutions and deny trans women care. there is no historical or contemporary system that could reasonably be described as a âtrans male patriarchy.â
in fact, when we examine these same misogynistic practices, we find that trans men are often subjected to them, and have never facillitated them. trans men are killed in the name of honour. trans men experience FGM. trans men face extremely high rates of sexual and domestic violence.trans men are forced into marriages, compelled to wear hijabs, denied medical care, and left in pain. these are not abstractions. trans men face the direct consequences of transgressing the feminine role in society.
the people who disproportionately enact violence against trans women are not trans men. they are cis men. the people who disproportionately enact violence against trans men are also cis men (and a sizeable number of cis women).
the capacity of trans men to collaborate with patriarchy is not unique or exceptional. what is distinctive is how violence against trans men, and collusion against them, is minimized precisely because they are framed as beneficiaries rather than as targets of misogyny.
so no, anti-transmasculinity is not analogous to the oppression of marginalized cis men as a group, trans men are not simply "cis men with vaginas." transmasculinity is it's own experience, and anti-transmasculinity must be understood in it's own context. treating it as anything different obscures the ways trans men are positioned within misogyny and patriarchy, and it ultimately undermines both feminist analysis and analyses about anti-transmasculinity specifically, because it becomes clear that all these essays, these books, these academic articles about transmasculinityâare all based in daydreams, or imagined examples of "what should be true," rather than material analysis, a.k.a., "what is actually true."
all of this is true, as long as you correct every instance of "cis" with "cis perisex." we as a community and grouping need to get more familiar with talking about intersexism and also trans/cis intersex men.
A very large chunk of intersex women and girls arenât allowed to be pro athletes in track or running anymore and I wish more people were talking about it or hell, even just knew about it. I wish there was more of an outcry. I wish people cared more about defending intersex people in sport because why does it seemingly only fall on intersex athletes themselves to fight this shit at great cost to their privacy and safety.
Because they aren't going after intersex people at all. They are going after trans people and you are just the civilians they massacre along the way. The average if it doesn't even know what an intersex person is. Nobody is trying to propagate systemic intersexism, because they are not aware of it or you.
Us trans people care about this issue, because them harassing us is hurting you and we don't like that
But you need to understand the idea of "intersex sports" at all doesn't exist, and if it did you would be getting treated a lot worse, trust me!
Your situation is bad, and I'm sorry for that. Us trans people are literally right next to you in the boat trying not to drown
The quote in your bio is pretty relevant at the moment.
The average person doesnât know intersex people or much about them, but weâre not really talking about average people. Politicians, doctors, and other authorities who are in charge of sports? They know about intersex people. The sex testing of intersex people in sports goes back much further than when trans people were at the forefront of peopleâs minds. Sex testing has been used since the 1930s through violating examinations, solicitations of nude photographs, chromosome testing, and SRY tests. These were all MANDATORY and done for every athlete at a certain level UNTIL the 90s. Testing is NO LONGER widely practiced, and itâs at risk of being BROUGHT BACK as a common occurrence.
And back in those times, the average person very much did not know what a trans person was, nor did the average person know what an intersex person was. Because average peopleâs knowledge isnât what is used to make laws and regulations.
If you donât know what kind of systemic intersexism exists and how it impacts intersex people, you are entirely self-reporting your ignorance on the matter, and you are showing how systemic intersexism forms âan average personâsâ view of intersex people: the average person thinks we donât exist because politicians and doctors have already drowned us enough for you to think that.
In other words: as soon as you weren't relevant to the culture nobody paid attention to you. The whole reason we stopped doing those tests was because a bunch of cishet people who weren't cheating kept finding out they had elevated T levels because they were intersex or because the Olympics (which had a very racialized history) wanted to gene test people to give them the medals they earned for athleticism
And just because I correctly pointed out that modern John Q Public doesn't know about you nowadays doesn't mean I'm ignorant about you dumbass. Believe it or not there's a pretty significant overlap between us. A very high amount of intersex people present as trans and it's very interesting to hear you complaining about intersex sports in a time the history books will remember as the trans panic, particularly targeting trans people in sports. You aren't who they are going after here. They are confusing you for trans people.
Sorry that's happening to you. It sucks being victimized by this. You are like the Puerto Ricans getting targeted by ice. You aren't even their target (in that technically they should have no interest in you as you are by nature not the group they seek to oppress) but because you look like US you are catching strays
Also, us trans people talk about intersex issues pretty often. Our issues and yours are intertwined at a pretty fundamental level (not having societal expectations forced upon us for the way we present and having our bodily autonomy violated by nature of our birth)
And yes, we knew what trans people were literally a hundred years ago (almost 2 hundred actually) we know that because the institute in Berlin the Nazis burned down was literally about studying homosexuals, trans people and intersex people. The zeitgeist didn't know about us but academic elites did.
Again, we are literally in the same boat. Our issues are intertwined. This isn't a trans person erasing intersex people or making your issue about us. it's a trans person saying "fuck, bro, I know how that feels" AS MY EXISTENCE IS A MORAL PANIC. It's acknowledging that they stopped doing those tests for you because they don't give a shit about you except when you are born and they "correct you". It's about acknowledging they are only doing those stupid fuckung tests again is to hurt US and now you get to suffer them again. But they stopped the tests for you. They knew how stupid they were and now because trans people visibly fucking exist they are gonna put both of us through that again. Don't forget those tests were specifically targeting us back then too. The stereotype of "man competes as woman, haha tr*nny bad" is as old as the fucking Olympics. If your knowledge of history ends where it affects you, you don't care about history just grievance peddling.
like yeah, I know the history of intersex people and how you get treated. But the public as a whole isn't crying for your heads on plates like they are for us. And THAT'S the point in trying to make. There are elements of intersexism. But it's not an openly societal issue where you are getting attacked in the street like we are. And when you are attacked it's because they think you are US.
If you scroll past the recent horny and 'fuck ice' posts I used to talk about and reblog lots of intersex issues posts. Believe it or not the nature of my existence requires me to be aware of intersectional nuances. It's annoying to hear intersex people act like they aren't another small front on the war for body liberation, freedom from gender essentialism and not being blamed for the way you were born.
My point still stands: sorry your boat is sinking. I'm literally right next to you bailing water while trying to not get hit by the cannon balls aimed SPECIFICALLY at me. I'd be happy to agree with you about how bad this sucks when -OH SHIT- I'm not getting actively AIMED AT. sorry you are catching strays... But right now you aren't the target with all this sports shit. We are. Sorry you are catching strays. Intended or not it's not fun getting shot
Reblogging since you blocked OP so no one will be able to see what you are saying.
An intersex person (WHO IS ALSO TRANS) made a post about intersex people and how they are targeted.
You want it both ways that this is about how laymen understand the world, but then when I say laymen werenât familiar with trans people in the early 1900s, your example is book burnings by the Nazis. Who were not laymen. I think thatâs a suitable parallel to my point, however, which is that NOT average people, doctors and politicians, know what intersex people are, and they systematically destroy us. They stopped doing those tests because far more intersex people exist than fits the narrative that a sex binary is real.
They know that Imane Khelif and Caster Semenya are not trans women. It is easy to appeal to the specter of something the public broadly recognizes, but thatâs propaganda, not âthey only actually care about trans people.â Otherwise, sex testing that reveals someone has an intersex variation but is otherwise cisgender⌠would just allow them to compete. If it were truly the case they donât care about intersex people at all, it is very easy to confirm someone has a specific intersex condition and is therefore cisgender and allowed to be in sports, and they could ban JUST trans people. They donât do this because they hate intersex people TOO and have always hated intersex people.
And making âcorrectionâ a tiny little footnote as if the mass mutilation, selective abortion, and infanticide of intersex people is nothing compared to the treatment of trans people is frankly insulting. I assure you the doctors (who are not average people and know what intersex people are) did not get so confused and I think I was trans when they designated me male as an adult because my ultrasound revealed I wasnât born with ovaries. Because there are simply experiences that will never apply to perisex people, and no one feasibly *can* confuse âyou have both XX and XY DNA linesâ for anything other than an intersex condition. Intersex people are very difficult to confuse for perisex trans people outside of specific social contexts. For those of us who are regularly in medical contexts dealing with our intersex variations, we would never possibly be âconfusedâ for anything except the diagnostic label for the type of intersex we are. No doctor thinks I âlook like you,â they think I look like me, and that thing is not acceptable regardless of my gender identity (which is trans too, by the way).
There is nothing intersectional about denying the experiences of group B because itâs actually entirely about group A, while you lecture people who are both A and B and deny their part in your group in the process.
A very large chunk of intersex women and girls arenât allowed to be pro athletes in track or running anymore and I wish more people were talking about it or hell, even just knew about it. I wish there was more of an outcry. I wish people cared more about defending intersex people in sport because why does it seemingly only fall on intersex athletes themselves to fight this shit at great cost to their privacy and safety.
Because they aren't going after intersex people at all. They are going after trans people and you are just the civilians they massacre along the way. The average if it doesn't even know what an intersex person is. Nobody is trying to propagate systemic intersexism, because they are not aware of it or you.
Us trans people care about this issue, because them harassing us is hurting you and we don't like that
But you need to understand the idea of "intersex sports" at all doesn't exist, and if it did you would be getting treated a lot worse, trust me!
Your situation is bad, and I'm sorry for that. Us trans people are literally right next to you in the boat trying not to drown
The quote in your bio is pretty relevant at the moment.
The average person doesnât know intersex people or much about them, but weâre not really talking about average people. Politicians, doctors, and other authorities who are in charge of sports? They know about intersex people. The sex testing of intersex people in sports goes back much further than when trans people were at the forefront of peopleâs minds. Sex testing has been used since the 1930s through violating examinations, solicitations of nude photographs, chromosome testing, and SRY tests. These were all MANDATORY and done for every athlete at a certain level UNTIL the 90s. Testing is NO LONGER widely practiced, and itâs at risk of being BROUGHT BACK as a common occurrence.
And back in those times, the average person very much did not know what a trans person was, nor did the average person know what an intersex person was. Because average peopleâs knowledge isnât what is used to make laws and regulations.
If you donât know what kind of systemic intersexism exists and how it impacts intersex people, you are entirely self-reporting your ignorance on the matter, and you are showing how systemic intersexism forms âan average personâsâ view of intersex people: the average person thinks we donât exist because politicians and doctors have already drowned us enough for you to think that.
A few days ago I wrote a post for dhddmods, the user that coined the terms wolffipathian and mulleripathian, asking them to reconsider their position due to the offensive nature of the terms they were trying to popularize. I laid out my position in several points and asked them to reconsider.
They blocked me. And judging from what they've said since, it looks like they're interpreting any criticism of these terms as being harassment and they're totally unwilling to reconsider what they've said.
So.
I think I made some good points about why no one should use the terms wolffipathian and mulleripathian and I don't want them to stay locked in a post that no one will ever see, so I'm going to repost them here.
Long story short, these terms are just palette swaps for biological sex and they are just as transphobic and intersexist as that suggests.
They give people a new set of words to misgender trans people and classify intersex people as abnormal. Don't use them.
The terms wolffipathian and mulleripathian were coined to provide the intersex community with terms to diagnose sex-based disabilities. The have not achieved that goal. Instead, they're offensive to trans people and they add confusion to discussions of intersex conditions.
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The terms wolffipathian and mulleripathian are transphobic and contribute to the misgendering of trans people
dhddmods, who coined these terms, said that they should not be applied to sex traits because those traits are seen across perisex and intersex people. Their reasoning is that describing sex traits with these terms would be intersexist because it would position perisex people as normal and intersex people as abnormal.
Instead, the terms refer to sex broadly, in the same way that perisex people are classified as male or female. dhddmods has been clear that the terms are meant to replace concepts like male sex or female sex.
That's the first problem. That means these terms are just reskins of biological sex. They don't provide information about sex traits, only a person's biological sex. And biological sex isn't a description of someone's biology, it's a social construct that exists to classify people as male or female on the basis of the shape of their genitals at birth.
As a term, biological sex confuses gender with sex traits while also denying the existence of anyone who isn't a perisex cisgender man or woman. Instead of actually being a useful way to describe biology, it's just a way to stamp an identity on someone as part of the gender assignment process.
The gender assignment process works like this:
The doctor assigns a baby's identity (gender)...
By examining their sex trait (genitalia)...
Using biological sex classification (the categorization of people based on their genitals) to rationalize their choice.
This results in the child being assigned a gender, stamping an identity on them.
Gender assignment is forced and coercive because we do not get a choice in how we are assigned and we face intense pressure to conform to our assigned gender.
Renaming biological sex terms to wolffipathian or mulleripathian just repeats those same mistakes using new words. This results in the same kind of misgendering that happens when people use biological sex to misgender trans people. It's the exact same thing.
Let's look at an example.
Instead of calling a trans man biologically female, he'd be called an altered mulleripathian. Here's how that misgenders him:
The word altered creates the implicit assumption that perisex female is normal and the trans man is abnormal because he's altering that normal configuration.
It reinforces the idea that a trans man is fundamentally female, just altered in some fashion. Again, this positions female as the default.
Since biological sex is about stamping identity on someone, this is assigning the trans man the identity of being a female.
And since gender is the sex trait that forms a part of identity, that means assigning a trans man the identity of female is misgendering him by denying his identity as a man.
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Relying on biological sex instead of talking about sex traits is intersexist in addition to being transphobic
If we're discussing biology, sex traits differentiate in two different directions. In most circumstances, that means people are going to wind up with the sex traits that we consider most typical, all lined up together. This is why most people are perisex cis men and perisex cis women. The processes that create human sex traits are just biological programming trying to achieve that particular goal.
The complication comes from how those traits can vary from the typical forms:
Some atypical traits can be described as ordered. If you're rolling a die with 20 sides, sometimes you roll a 20. The biological process expressed without malfunction, it just landed on one of the rare results instead of one of the typical ones.
Some atypical traits can be described as disordered. If you're rolling a die, sometimes it falls off the table or lands on a side instead of a face. The biological process didn't function as it should or was interrupted in some way, resulting in an extremely rare result instead of a typical one or a rare atypical one.
We can tell the difference between these two forms by looking at their frequency of occurrence.
Ordered, typical traits are most common. Ordered atypical traits are somewhat rare. Disordered atypical traits are extremely rare.
The extreme rarity of disordered traits is likely due to being selected against in our evolution, because of the added pressure they put on the general and reproductive health of a person with a disordered trait. Ordered traits, on the other hand, don't create enough of a problem to interfere with overall health or reproductive health.
Examples:
Trans people have an ordered atypical expression of gender and likely occur at a rate of somewhere between 1% and 3%. Gender isn't lined up with other sex traits in the typical configuration.
Intersex people with PCOS have an ordered atypical expression of the endocrine system that likely occurs at a rate of somewhere around 5%. The endocrine system of people with ovaries differentiates and functions, but is vulnerable to complications and malfunctions.
Intersex people with AIS have a disordered atypical expression of the endocrine system and likely occur at a rate of somewhere around 0.001% to 0.005%. The endocrine system cannot fully differentiate because a biological process does not function.
None of this positions perisex people as 'normal' or 'the standard' and denying this kind of discussion doesn't combat intersexism.
Intersexism comes from the refusal to acknowledge that all of these traits are normal, some are just much rarer than others. And of the rare ones, some of them are the result of a malfunctioning biological process while some are just rare variations.
Talking with this level of specificity doesn't hurt, it helps. We can't combat intersexism by grouping people into wolffipathian and mulleripathian because it only obscures all of this. Because, just like biological sex, they flattens all of the complexity of sex trait configurations and intersex conditions.
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Wolffipathian and mulleripathian don't help the conversation around intersex and trans issues, they only interfere with it
What sort of benefit is provided by replacing biological sex with new words? It doesn't avoid misgendering people, as I described above. Biological sex, being a social construct used to deny the existence of trans people and intersex people, is the problem in and of itself. Coming up with new words for that same idea doesn't fix anything, it just disguises it.
This is similar to the way that some people need to refer to assigned gender because they can't talk about sex traits without feeling uncomfortable.
When it comes to medical concerns, it's better to teach people to talk in terms of sex traits. People with a penis is fine to use, it's not necessary or accurate to require people to use AMAB when not all AMAB people have a penis and some AFAB people can develop one or have one installed. Just like how it's better to talk about how some people can give birth instead of saying women or AFAB, because not all AFAB people can give birth or have developed the physical traits to do so, and men who can give birth generally don't want to be referred to as a woman.
And when it comes to talking about intersex conditions, it just recreates the same normal/abnormal categories that biological sex creates. Dressing it up in new words doesn't eliminate that implication.
Or, in other words, they don't help the conversation. At all.
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In conclusion, don't use these terms. They're not useful and they're broadly offensive to trans people, while also making discussion of intersex conditions more difficult at best.
I am not upset at the creator of these terms or people who like them, but the decision to make the new intersex terminology mullerian/wollffian is so unbelievably frustrating to me. Why did we just pick a random anatomical term to refer to peopleâs development?? And why do the âtypical developmental pathwaysâ not coincide with the anatomy these words describe? You can have âtypical mullerian developmentâ (external vulva and estrogen puberty) and literally not have internal mullerian structures. Like people with cAIS have typical mullerian development?? And people with PMDS, literally persistent mullerian duct syndrome, pretty much always have âtypical wolffian developmentâ unless they have another variation too.
Yeah these terms are extremely bioessentialist while also being extremely biologically illiterate. I do genuinely find it upsetting and concerning to see these terms popping up.
I am someone who was born with Persistent Mullerian Duct Syndrome and like you said I had a penis and testes and even if I hadn't been surgically altered still would have gone through "typical wollfian developent", because the presence or absence of wollfian/mullerian ducts have literally fuck all to do with how someone's body will develop / what kind of puberty they will experience.
The way our bodies develop is almost entirely a function of our endocrine systems and whether or not they are estrogen or testosterone dominant, and the cool thing about that is that we've actually been figuring out cool and exciting ways to manipulate the endocrine system to adjust the ways our bodies develop for thousands of years.
We genuinely don't need to adopt new versions of "immutable biological sex categories". What we need is for people to get a lot more comfortable with the idea that "biological sex" is also a social construct and, just as importantly, is not immutable.
Reassigned Anomaly After Birth/RAAB/Anomaly Intersex
This flag was inspired by being told I had/was an "anomaly" at the appointment where I learned I was in fact intersex.
The circle design is to represent statistical outliers. It's essentially a pie chart where the bright purple part is the small chunk of the population that has intersex variations. And of course I tried to stick with the yellow and purple circle design.
I never said that clitoromegaly couldn't occur in PCOS or NCAH on their own? What the fuck are you on??? đđ Reread what I sent because you are GROSSLY MISINTERPRETING what I'm saying. I was listing out multiple reasons why someone with PCOS or NCAH might have clitoromegaly and the different forms of genital variations we can have BECAUSE OF OUR VARIATIONS or in comorbidity with. The note about prenatal androgenic exposure was just an add-on about another possibility that can happen due to having a birthing parent who has hyperandrogenism! You are literally doing pancakes vs waffles.
Your "hyperandrogenic PCOS is intersex" in pinned is performative as shit if you're going to argue this hard against someone who actually has PCOS talking about my own experience and knowledge. Also saying only hyperandrogenic PCOS is intersex is actually intersexist as fuck and oversimplifying PCOS as a variation. Stay in your lane.
I am open to an explanation as to why other forms of PCOS are intersex. Itâs not really something you can just google and get information for, so I hope youâll understand why I would ask for an explanation.
I can understand all of the information you provided as valuable, I just canât understand why it was presented the way it was. Consider it my being overly semantic or an elaboration rather than an outright contradiction. Everything you said was true, I havenât really denied this, I just find it presented in a really odd manner that I feel can be misinterpreted (clearly has been) in ways you, again clearly, did not intend.
It is true that these things can vary in people with PCOS and NCAH, but singling them out does inherently make it seem like discussing something specific to these conditions.
I donât particularly care about getting aggressive if you feel upset by my misunderstanding you, itâs totally fine actually, but I want to clarify I am approaching this with a willingness to understand. When I say âI donât understand,â itâs not rhetorical, it is simply the actual case.
You are grossly misinterpreting what I sent to intersex-experience. I made it pretty clear actually that the cause of clitoromegaly in PCOS & NCAH infants is prenatal exposure to androgens. I was saying that someone could have PCOS/and or NCAH, but be born with genital ambiguity to prenatal androgen exposure. I'd appreciate if you didn't insult my intelligence.
Clitoromegaly can occur in âpureâ PCOS/NCAH the same way perisex people can take testosterone and grow T-dick. More ambiguous genitalia like clitoromegaly + labial fusion + atresia, etc, can be caused by prenatal T exposure like described, or some other form of co-occurring variations.
I donât see what the goal of saying people with PCOS/NCAH can have ambiguous genitalia is in the way you said it. People with any variation can have ambiguous genitalia for unrelated reasons or from a second variation. It seems to me that this is just going to contribute to the misinformation surrounding intersex variations. Saying âthis specific set of variations can co-occur with this variationâ would at least be more helpful than âPCOS can have ambiguous genitaliaâ which is true but misleading in the way you presented it.
Your intelligence is not in question, your ability to present facts in a non-misleading manner is.
Hi! I have diagnosed PCOS and possibly undiagnosed CAH-X. I used to suspect having NCAH.
It is fully, entirely possible for someone with NCAH, and also for someone with PCOS to have congenital/natal (or naturally occurring) genital ambiguity. These variations are a spectrum. Some people with these variations may not have genital ambiguity, but some can. Genital ambiguity may not present in PCOS or NCAH until puberty.
Some people with PCOS and other variations of CAH are also born with "minor" genital ambiguity that doctors may choose to just ignore. In infants with PCOS, this is often more to do with the environment of the birth giver's body. Clitoromegaly can be present in infants of a birth giver who also has PCOS due to exposure to androgens during fetal development. (I don't see why this also couldn't occur in infants with NCAH as well, if the birthing person also has NCAH, thus exposing the fetus to androgens similarly.)
I also want to note that when searching clitoromegaly on the Cleveland Clinic website, the first condition listed that could cause clitoromegaly is PCOS. PCOS is a sibling variation of NCAH, and surely if PCOS can result in clitoromegaly, so can NCAH.
There is also more to genital ambiguity than clitoromegaly. Clitoromegaly refers to a clitoris that is larger than one inch, which can still look pretty small, especially if you're plus-sized. (Like myself.) There's also labial fusion (including partial), which can potentially occur in individuals with PCOS and NCAH due to hypoestrogenism. There's also labial hypoplasia. There's less of a link between NCAH and VH (vulvar hypospadias) than with CAH, but it's also still entirely possible. There's probably more that I'm missing. It's also important to note that intersexuality and intersex variations, specifically, are underresearched.
I just wanted to share this for anyone here who thinks that NCAH or PCOS can not result in genital ambiguity because they definitely can.
thank you for sharing this information for others!
This is bizarrely misidentifying the cause of genital ambiguity in these cases. Exposure to androgens prior to birth is a separate, second intersex variation that the people with PCOS/NCAH being referred to here would have. Their parent having PCOS/NCAH obviously genetically caused them to as well, but the ambiguity being caused by someone elseâs PCOS/NCAH does not make it caused by their own PCOS/NCAH. Think of the cases of people with the same exposure in utero who donât develop PCOS/NCAH as adolescents/adults. Theyâre also intersex, but they have one variation (ambiguity caused by androgen exposure), and in the cases that go on to develop PCOS or NCAH, they are developing a second variation in someone already intersex from birth.
Clitoromegaly is commonly developed later in life in hyperandrogenic conditions, and identifying this as having ambiguous genitalia is a separate matter, since in that case most people with PCOS and NCAH develop ambiguous genitalia in that way. But when itâs from birth, anon has clearly identified the cause in the ask, and prenatal exposure to androgens is not the same as PCOS/NCAH.
I think we should talk about how one of the core aspects of transandrophobia is ableism. They do not think transmascs are confused girls, they think transmascs are disabled girls. The rhetoric of ROGD and similar revolves around the concept of young autistic and mentally ill âgirlsâ transitioning instead of dealing with their disorders. They lack many friends due to their disabilities, so they easily are âpreyed uponâ by older transmascs (because the theory is not that trans women make girls trans, it is that other trans men convince them. This is the entire basis of the âsocial contagionâ of transgender identity amongst people AFAB).
The stance that transmascs are âjustâ treated as âconfusedâ refuses to acknowledge the actual goal of refusing autonomy to what they perceive as girls who are too disabled to know who they are or what they want. It is not nearly as trivial as people make it out to be.
And this is how you get adult disabled people who, completely separate from their disabilities OR having known any trans people their whole childhoodsâtrans men OR trans womenârealize theyâre trans (and that theyâve been trans) and simply.
*Heavy sigh.*
Because people in general donât listen to us or respect our bodily autonomy anyway. So as much as weâre glad to have sussed out a source of discomfortâto be able to heal some self esteem things and find pride and community rather than nameless despair, unrelated to being disabledâthereâs a definite, like.
âYou gotta be kidding me.â
At play.
Because they already werenât listening. And you just know the âyou just wanna be strong because youâre bitter about being in an wheelchairâ commentsâthe âyou felt uncomfortable and isolated and in pain growing up because of autism and Brittle Bone surgeries,â accusations, that being trans is a convenient excuse the âmedical realitiesâ disproveâwill be right on the tips of their tongues.
So youâre grateful and all. To have the puzzle click into place. Be able to dress more masc, plan for top surgery, make better friends, not hate yourself so much. To conceive of a world where you get to be beautiful.
But the internalized âmaybe Iâm just mad I wasnât a good enough girl for themâ is loud, and so much louder to refute when these extra ableism layers are being constantly thrown at you. And part of you honestly thinks:
âThe deck was already stacked enough as it is. Did we really NEED this card, universe?â
I think we should talk about how one of the core aspects of transandrophobia is ableism. They do not think transmascs are confused girls, they think transmascs are disabled girls. The rhetoric of ROGD and similar revolves around the concept of young autistic and mentally ill âgirlsâ transitioning instead of dealing with their disorders. They lack many friends due to their disabilities, so they easily are âpreyed uponâ by older transmascs (because the theory is not that trans women make girls trans, it is that other trans men convince them. This is the entire basis of the âsocial contagionâ of transgender identity amongst people AFAB).
The stance that transmascs are âjustâ treated as âconfusedâ refuses to acknowledge the actual goal of refusing autonomy to what they perceive as girls who are too disabled to know who they are or what they want. It is not nearly as trivial as people make it out to be.
There's also the way trans men and disabled men are infantilised, which acts in really similar ways. As a disabled and trans guy the way people often remove my agency is often pretty indistinguishable regardless of whether they're doing it cause I'm a trans man, disabled, or some combination. And I specify disabled men cause it seems to be more common for disabled men to be treated that way. And from my own experience (although I don't think there's a lot of studies out there look at this) the way people treated me as a disabled 'cis woman' is different from the way people teat me as a disabled 'cis' man (to be clear, both bad, it was a shift from refusal to acknowledge any difficulties -> infantalisation and overexagerating difficulties). And ultimately I think there's a lot of similarities between how I get treated as a disabled man and how I get treated as a trans man- and honestly while the attitudes to trans men can also be read as misogyny/based in misogyny ('poor little girl doesn't know what she wants') it's way more explicit and severe when directed at trans men in a way that is similar to ableism directed at disabled (cis) men.
You DO know that "demedicalise intersexuality" means "stop practices such as nonconsensual genital surgery and forced/coerced HRT that aim to make intersex bodies fit the sex binary," not "incorrectly insist that there are no medical conditions connected to intersex variations," right ???? RIGHT ????
I think we should talk about how one of the core aspects of transandrophobia is ableism. They do not think transmascs are confused girls, they think transmascs are disabled girls. The rhetoric of ROGD and similar revolves around the concept of young autistic and mentally ill âgirlsâ transitioning instead of dealing with their disorders. They lack many friends due to their disabilities, so they easily are âpreyed uponâ by older transmascs (because the theory is not that trans women make girls trans, it is that other trans men convince them. This is the entire basis of the âsocial contagionâ of transgender identity amongst people AFAB).
The stance that transmascs are âjustâ treated as âconfusedâ refuses to acknowledge the actual goal of refusing autonomy to what they perceive as girls who are too disabled to know who they are or what they want. It is not nearly as trivial as people make it out to be.
we are treated as if we are not capable of knowing our own best interests, especially by the medical establishment
we are constantly spoken over and erased even by nominal allies
we are stereotyped as being stupid, bullheaded, socially inept, and oversensitive
after we undergo medical treatments meant to improve our quality of life, our bodies are subsequently treated as not only repulsive but also somehow tragic ("you were so beautiful before" etc)
when we complain about our problems, we are treated as whiners asking for special treatment
And it gets even worse when a trans man actually is disabled of course, I remember watching a video about a trans guy with cerebral palsy who didnât have control of his muscles and wasnât able to speak, and heâd just gotten top surgery and the internet lost their fucking minds over it. The amount of infantilisation was disgsuting, saying shit like âhis parents deserve to go to jailâ when he was a grown man, or treating him like he wasnât able to make a single cohesive decision about his own body and the only explanation for his surgery must have been that he was forcefully mutilated.
Iâm pretty sure authorities got involved because so many people were acting as if heâd been physically abused when he was literally just a guy getting top surgery. Trans men already have so little autonomy granted to them, but we musnât forget that this goes twofold for trans men who actually are disabled. Like, thereâs a reason there are laws trying to be passed in the UK where trans youth seeking gender affirming care need to be tested for âneurodevelepmental conditionsâ first (presumably so they can be denied that care if they end up diagnosed).
I think we should talk about how one of the core aspects of transandrophobia is ableism. They do not think transmascs are confused girls, they think transmascs are disabled girls. The rhetoric of ROGD and similar revolves around the concept of young autistic and mentally ill âgirlsâ transitioning instead of dealing with their disorders. They lack many friends due to their disabilities, so they easily are âpreyed uponâ by older transmascs (because the theory is not that trans women make girls trans, it is that other trans men convince them. This is the entire basis of the âsocial contagionâ of transgender identity amongst people AFAB).
The stance that transmascs are âjustâ treated as âconfusedâ refuses to acknowledge the actual goal of refusing autonomy to what they perceive as girls who are too disabled to know who they are or what they want. It is not nearly as trivial as people make it out to be.
we are treated as if we are not capable of knowing our own best interests, especially by the medical establishment
we are constantly spoken over and erased even by nominal allies
we are stereotyped as being stupid, bullheaded, socially inept, and oversensitive
after we undergo medical treatments meant to improve our quality of life, our bodies are subsequently treated as not only repulsive but also somehow tragic ("you were so beautiful before" etc)
when we complain about our problems, we are treated as whiners asking for special treatment
notice the parallels
Eyes Full Of Homophobia @interchromia - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
