Perisex moment! "I don't think hermaphrodite is a slur because you don't get called that in COD lobbies"
The lack of shame some perisex people have when speaking over intersex people is astonishing at times.
OOP uses she/it and any commentors misgendering her will be blocked. These people may misgender me but I will not stoop to their level. You do not have an excuse, I am saying this up front and center.
A slur does not necessarily have to be used as perjorative the majority of the time in order for it to be a slur. Slurs are words that first and foremost have a history of use to dehumanize marginalized people for their identity. (Also hermaphrodite definately IS used as a perjorative sometimes. You don't see it because you're not intersex and haven't experienced it.)
An example of a slur not usually used as a perjoratvie (in modern day) is the E slur for Inuit, Yupik, and other far northern indigenous people.
I don't think I've ever heard someone say that word as an insult. Most people who say that word legit just think it's an acceptable term to use for those people groups. Most will stop once corrected, because it's not actually said out of any sort of hatred but rather from ignorance (that is directly the fault of a racist society normalizing racist terms). It's still a slur because it's associated with racist anti-indigenous sterotypes and comes from colonizing forces committing genocide.
To me at least, this has some significant paralells with how the H slur is used and treated. (Indigenous people please add input if I got anything wrong). Most people that call intersex people hermaphrodites are just uneducated. Most will stop calling intersex people that word when corrected. But the thing is? that word is still commonly used in other contexts because it was adopted into zoology.
I don't really know how to say this, but one of the oldest forms of dehumanization is to compare/equate/categorize marginalized people as animals or more similiar to animals than the majority. That is EXACTLY what the adoption of hermaphrodite (The ONLY word for intersex people at the time) into zoology did and actively still does.
It was a word originally used for intersex people. It is strongly associated with literally centuries of systematic infantacide and mutilation. It is a label, a metaphorical brand, that intersex people were given denoting us as quite literally monsters throughout history. As in, intersex children were literally seen as inhuman demonic creatures and culled at birth. The creature we were seen as? the 'hermaphrodite'. That is why we were killed, and still are in many parts of the world, and in the rest of the world we're subjected to medical abuse to 'remove' our 'monstrous' traits. This stretches back far before it was ever a diagnosis or a zoological term.
Slurs are derogatory regardless of context. The reason you don't say them is out of respect for the marginalized people they have been used to harm. You obviously hold no respect for us.
ISNA was shuttered in 2008. It was a great resource in its day, but it hasn't been active in very nearly two decades. The intersex rights movement is in its infancy. Our flag was made only 12 years ago. IGM/CIMI is still practiced very nearly worldwide. Slurs for us are still used in science and medicine. We have been actively and largely successfully suppressed. Most of us don't even know we are intersex because of the way we are "corrected". ISNA was first and foremost concerned with the bare bones basics of intersex rights. Like for example our bodily autonomy and requests not to be referred to as slurs. Every human rights movement starts somewhere.
There are also just not that many intersex activists and thinkers compared to other groups within the queer community. I am literally the only intersex public speaker for like four counties around me. I've spoken at every event mentioning intersex people at my local community colleges because they literally do not have another vocal intersex person in the area that will do public speaking. They have new trans speakers every time.
The idea that hermaphrodite is a slur is new. Like literally every other thing about the intersex rights movement. It's also just objectively true and generally agreed upon by people actually educated on intersex history and liberationist ideas.
Baeddel has been historically used to refer to both transfeminized people and intersex people. It's blatantly denying history to claim that this term is not intersexist. Literally one of the synonyms for this word is the H slur.
first result upon googling the word.
This isn't difficult information to find. I honestly don't believe you actually did any unbiased reserch on this.
The idea that we are 'looking for a slur to legitimize our oppression' is absolutely fucking asinine and nasty. I'm being so fr. You are straight-up intersexist and just calling anyone who calls that out a transmisogynist in order to dodge criticism.
In general the widespread labeling of intersex activism generally as transmisogynistic has been pissing me off. It obscures actual transmisogyny in queer spaces if you're just using it for literally anybody having any objection to anything a perisex trans woman says about us. Believe it or not, I care about the plight of transfeminized people and I do see transmisogyny in queer spaces. I have seen and corrected it from people I am close with. I do not have any tolerance for that shit. I also have no tolerance for intersexists.
You need to ask the intention behind these intersex people criticising your perisex-centric gender theory ideas. Are they being bigoted or are they fellow community members providing you with input on how to improve your worldview and sex variant activism? Because those are different fucking things. I don't particularly care that you're calling your intersexism transfeminism, it's still intersexism regardless of what lies you tell about it. It's the same when TERFs call their intersexism feminism. That's not trans/feminism. No bigotry is progressive.
Call out transmisogyny, not intersex people talking about their own lives and history and contributing to transfeminism and gender theory generally. If that is your intention, anyway. I honestly, in my heart, do not believe your main issue with intersex activism is it's apparent transmisogyny. I belive that you are resistent to intersex people being included in your movement because you are perisex and most perisex people have deep-seated intersexist ideals that they are extremely resistent to having challenged. Intersex people providing input and tweaks on language and theory challenges that intersexist worldview you hold, and so you seek to dismiss us. What better way to dismiss us than to label us as bigots?
If it doesn't matter why take the time to post this? Why do you feel so goddamn entitled to an opinion on shit you have no fucking say in? Genuinely. I hate perisex audacity sometimes. Being transfeminine (or any queer identity) doesn't make you an expert on every other marginalized group's issues. It just doesn't. And I'm sick of people who can't admit to themselves that they are not a reliable source on every kind of oppression.
