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SSI Restoration Act of 2021

i have never made a post like this before but i haven’t seen anyone here talk about it yet so i want to at least provide some links because this is extremely important for disabled people with or without benefits in the USA.

link to this tiktok

she doesn’t name the bill in the video but in the comments it’s clarified that the act referred to is the SSI Restoration Act of 2021.

“The Supplementary Security Income (SSI) Restoration Act of 2021 has been introduced in both the House and the Senate. The bill would improve the lives of millions of SSI beneficiaries around the country, including over 2 million older adults who are living below the federal poverty level due to inadequate benefit levels, and often lose or are denied benefits due to outdated eligibility rules.” (link) - summary from Justice In Aging, an organization dedicated to fighting senior poverty

“This bill restores a program that plays a key role in the security of millions of Americans. Specifically, it modernizes and improves SSI by streamlining and simplifying the claiming process, expanding the resources and income limits, and eliminating punitive reductions in benefits.” (link) - summary from the SSI Restoration Act Section by Section, linked on Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva’s website, in the social security tab

below is taken from the issue brief on justiceinaging.org regarding what the bill entails

• The SSI benefit rate will be increased to at least 100% of the Federal Poverty Level, adjusted annually, so that no one receiving SSI will be left to live below the poverty line.

• Couples will receive their full SSI benefit, totaling twice the individual rate, rather than a reduced marriage penalty rate.

• Low-income seniors and people with disabilities who can’t work enough to meet all their basic needs will be able to save up to $10,000 and couples will be able to save up to $20,000 for emergencies such as car repairs, new roofs, and other unexpected expenses, without losing benefits.

• Individuals will be able to receive up to $128 monthly from other sources, such as Social Security benefits or pension payments, without a corresponding loss in benefits.

• Individuals who are able to work will be able to earn up to $416 a month without being penalized.

• Individuals who live in households with others, including family members, will no longer be penalized with lower benefits through the in-kind support and maintenance provision.

• Individuals who transfer assets (even small amounts of money to a family member) will no longer suffer harsh penalties.

• Eliminate installment payment requirements and extend the time to spend down resources so that SSI recipients who have been waiting for months or years to obtain their benefits can receive the full overdue amount.

• Exclude retirement accounts from countable resources to allow people with disabilities to build up their savings for retirement and use those resources to pay for expenses in later life.

• State and local earned income tax credits and child tax credits will be excluded from income calculations in the same manner as general tax payments.”

here is a link to the official bill

here is the issue brief from justiceinaging.org on the SSI Restoration Act of 2021 which explains what would change about SSI in more detail, and has the list provided above

here is the FAQ (also justiceinaging.org)

here is a carrd made by myelasticheart on tiktok, which also details the bill, AND includes a script for calling representatives, as well as links for finding said representatives

please reblog

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The voidpunk flag is pretty set in stone now, but I really still cannot identify with it. 

For as long as the stripes stand for a small handful of marginalized groups, the flag will always exclude major parts of me because they aren’t represented by the stripes. 

Purple represents asexual people and non-binary people. Green represents aromantic people and neurodivergent people.

But where are physically disabled people? Where are the marginalized ethnic and racial groups? What of every other group that has ever been dehumanized?

The flag’s meanings were short-sighted and exclusive, and I think that as long as we’re using this flag, we need to re-define the stripes to stop standing for a handful of groups and to stand for broader and more inclusive concepts instead. Because as it stands, this flag prioritizes certain groups and cuts entire parts of my voidpunk experience out.

Make the flag more inclusive and stop symbolically prioritizing certain groups over others please.

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Preparations for this year's survey

Hello everyone!

As I'm sure you can tell by the title of this post, I'm currently making preparations for this year's survey. I plan to improve upon last year's survey, taking the flaws and criticisms of it into account, and I plan on making it more streamlined so that I can more easily compare between different groups of people.

That being said, I'd like to have some kind of "control group" for this year's survey. To do this, I'm making two separate versions - one for people with PCOS, and one for people without. However, I'm stuck on whether I should add any other qualifications for the control group (those without PCOS).

I've considered the following:

AFAB people without PCOS

AFAB & intersex people, all without PCOS

Anyone (AMAB, AFAB, and intersex people) without PCOS

Anyone with ovaries that doesn't have PCOS (*NOTE: this one would specifically be phrased this way, not using terms such as "AFAB" or "intersex")

I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. My initial thought was to limit the control group to AFAB people without PCOS because PCOS in and of itself is largely thought of as a feminine condition (within the medical community and among the world at large). However, I also want to be respectful and inclusive of different people's experiences and viewpoints. It's clear that PCOS is a condition people of all genders experience, and that some with it consider themselves to be intersex because of it. So I thought that maybe I should include intersex people in the control group as well. But then, should I just include anyone in the control group, provided they don't have PCOS?

The tricky thing is I want to include people who COULD have PCOS in the control group, but don't. That way, those in the PCOS group have everything else in common with the control group, except for the presence PCOS. That way, I can make a comparison of the two groups and see if there's any significant difference that may be attributed to PCOS. I worry that if I allow the control group to become too broad, that I won't be able to make that comparison or determine if PCOS could be that determining factor that determines the differences between the two groups. This is why I'm considering the option of making the qualifications be that those in the control group be people with ovaries who don't have PCOS. I will admit that I am relatively uneducated on the health experiences of those who are medically recognized as interex and have ovaries in any regard - is it possible to have PCOS in that situation? I apologize for my ignorance, I'm unsure how to find proper resources on the topic, as searching pretty much anything with both the term "intersex" and "PCOS" in it will end up with results involving the debate over whether PCOS itself is an intersex condition. If anyone has any good resources for this, I'd really appreciate it if you could send them my way!

What do you guys think? Does anyone have any ideas of the qualifications I should give to the control group, besides the lack of PCOS?

I appreciate any feedback!

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terfs + swerfs + other radscum fuck off and stop reblogging my posts and also delete thx

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hey I am not intersex but I have a question regarding the topic of a lack of representative language and terminology within the intersex community. specifically, I am wondering how many ppl in that recent discussion are from the global north? not to conflate being intersex with necessarily being queer or trans, but it came to my mind just now how the sub-Saharan African LGBT community/movement appeared to almost strictly use the acronym LGBTI or LGBTIA to describe itself in its infancy. Africa as a continent, with the slight exception of South Africa, is still very new to having queer communities but when we finally began forming support systems and advocating for ourselves, it seems organizers very much pushed or at least preferred to have intersex representation at the forefront of representation. I actually think I'm seeing the I being phased out in larger online queer spaces that include Africans in recent years, unfortunately, instead being replaced by LGBTQ. I identify as queer but like... idk that doesn't sit right with me. it's probably the result of modern day sexual minority discussion and advocacy being heavily influenced (for better and for worse) by Western/global north language and culture. :/

so i suppose my question is, have English-speaking intersex folks on Tumblr (which can become kind of echo-y between/dominated by the US and Canada; it just is what it is) looked to the global south's intersex terminology or advocacy groups and how they discuss themselves? I am not at all claiming they aren't having the same problem it's just... the internet feels big, but language and national barriers and vacuums like this exist and I think it's very common that similar groups from very different places miss out on supporting and empowering one another because of it. food for thought, perhaps? what countries have a longer history of intersex representation and advocacy, regardless of their level of mainstream visibility? which cultures? and how have they talked about their experiences, how have they developed their own terms?

oh and I hope it's clear I'm not saying people should just drop in and co-opt other cultures' intersex community's terminologies (history and context always matter), but I wonder if there's something to be learned this way? I hope this is a reasonable question and not insensitive. I really appreciate this blog and everyone who speaks about their experiences and struggles; it's important that we all strive to learn about and from one another, continuously, and this blog and the people who engage with it have taught me a lot just in the couple months I've been following you.

have a good one ✌🏾

Thank you so much for this question. I think you raise so many good points that are VITAL to address in the intersex community. It’s really true that the intersex community on tumblr is overwhelmingly people from the US and Canada, and I think a lot of the lenses that we use to discuss intersex language, terminology, and intercommunity issues are so influenced and mostly focused on US and Canadian intersex issues, which is honestly a problem! Like on one hand it makes sense that intersex conversations on here would be mostly involving American people since I feel like tumblr is overwhelmingly American, but I think that there needs to be more of a good faith attempt to look at and intentionally create spaces for international solidarity. I think that’s something that we really need to be aware of is that when we’re talking about intersex issues, we really need to steer clear of making overarching generalizations about what the “intersex experience” is or acting like American language preferences are inherently the standard. The intersex community on here is also so white, and there is a lot of issues with racism within the intersex community here-you really see white intersex voices getting prioritized over intersex people of color, and that’s a huge issue that we need to actively fight against. 

And honestly like I think there is also a trend just to focus on American intersex activism, when there are sucessful intersex activist organizations doing important work world wide. And it’s important to recognize and support demands and issues that are more regional-for instance, a key part of the statement made by African Intersex Movement in 2017 is calling for an end to intersex infantcide, which is not a demand that most American intersex organizations are making. And I think really robust intersex solidarity requires looking at issues that affect us world wide, and looking at how to incorporate that into our activism. 

You’re really right that we should be looking more to the global south and considering and developing some of our understandings based not just on American experiences, but also looking and learning from intersex organizations internationally. For instance, I know there’s been a strong intersex organization since 2000 in South Africa started by Sally Gross, which was quite a while before InterAct started really doing activism, and I think there’s so much to learn from people who have been doing the work for longer. Our resources page does have a list of intersex organizations broken down by country, which might be a good starting place to start to look at and learn about what unique issues intersex people in other countries have, and look at the amazing activism and important work that intersex people from outside of the global north are doing. We have so much to learn from eachother and I think acting like we don’t have anything to learn from intersex people outside of America is such an issue, and a perspective heavily influenced by white supremacy and xenophobia. 

This is getting a little long lmao, but to answer your question-honestly, I really don’t think most intersex people in the tumblr community are considering the global south in conversations about intersex issues, community, and language. (this is a little different in spaces off tumblr-I’m in some intersex spaces that have a lot of people from different countries, but these spaces are still English speaking.) And I think that’s something we should change! I’m going to post this ask as a call in for the intersex community on here-how can we change the way we approach intersex community issues? How can we work to deconstruct the idea that American intersex issues and scholarship are the standard? How can we learn from intersex activists and people from other countries-especially countries in the Global south, especially Africa-and how can we fight against the way we might have internalized racism and xenophobia that leads us to view intersex work from those countries as less important? How can we decenter whiteness in our intersex conversations? 

I’m not going to pretend that I have answers to all these questions, but I think it’s vital that we’re working on and addressing these questions, and building intersex spaces that intentionally make space for diverse intersex experiences, and that honor intersex work that is from other countries than America. 

I know I’m going to commit to doing more research to broaden my perspective going forward, and I’d like to invite other intersex people following me to do the same. 

Thanks for pointing this out. I really appreciate it. 

-Mod E

[inter--the--void]

I think the other thing I don’t like about “single” being a marked class is the implication that having romantic friends (aka gf/bf/partner) changes my identity in a way that platonic friends don’t

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Intersex Terminology Masterpost

Since we don’t have many terms, I decided to gather all the ones I had the energy for and compile them. Click the links to read more (pride flags too) and feel free to add on! 

General Terms

Intersex (Adj.) - A term to describe those who were born with a sex variation that led to having sex characteristics that aren’t traditionally male or female. Abbreviation is IS. Noun form is Intersexuality. Read more here.

Dyadic (Adj.) - A term meaning “of two” utilized by intersex people to describe people who are not IS. Noun form is Dyad(s). Other terms are perisex (likely not coined by IS people), endosex, and juxtasex (both coined by IS people). There is no consensus on what to call non-intersex people, but I prefer dyadic (although some believe it reinforces the sex binary).

Variation - A term used to refer to the cause of someone’s intersexuality. It is to be used instead of condition/disorder/etc. There are 3 main types of IS variations - Chromosomal, Hormonal, and Gonadal. There are some variations listed on LGBTA Wikia, the main source for this masterpost.

DSD - An abbreviation meaning either “difference of sexual development” or “disorder of sexual development.” The latter should not be used, and Variation is to be used over DSD. (Link contains list of Variations)

Intersexism / Inter(sex)phobia - The discrimination, prejudice, dislike, and hatred of and towards IS people.

Dyadism - [TW] The belief that being Dyadic is normal, correct, the default, etc., and that IS people are unnatural, wrong, diseased/deformed, insignificant, etc. Can also be called Perisexism, Endosexism, or Juxtasexism.

Assignment Related [TW]

Sex Assignment - Different from gender assignment, sex assignment is the process by which a person’s “biological sex” is determined. Everyone is assigned a sex and gender at birth, and for intersex people, sex assignment can be complicated and traumatic (see; IGM and Forced/Coerced HRT).

AXAB - Assigned “X” At Birth. For IS people who did not have a sex assigned to them at birth. A similar term is UAB.

AIAB - Assigned Intersex At Birth. For IS people whose intersexuality was recognized at birth. May be used in place of/alongside “AXAB.”

IAFAB / IAMAB - “Intersex Assigned Female At Birth” and “Intersex Assigned Male At Birth.” 

CAFAB / CAMAB - “Coercively Assigned Female At Birth” and “Coercively Assigned Male At Birth.” These terms are not intersex exclusive, [TW] but in the IS community are sometimes used to describe people who underwent IGM or other medical methods of assignment.

IGM - [TW] Infant/Intersex Genital Mutilation. Used by IS people in reference to the surgical procedures used to alter intersex people’s genitalia/remove internal organs in order to assign or reassign our sex and/or gender.

Forced/Coerced HRT - [TW] Forced/Coerced “Hormone Replacement Treatment” is an experience that probably deserves its own name independent of HRT, however is called this due to lack of terminology. It refers to the hormones given w/o proper consent to IS people in order to make us appear dyadic. It also may be given as a result of IGM impairing or destroying organs responsible for the production of certain hormones.

Gender Identity

Intergender - A gender that is in some form linked to being intersex. Also known as Integender or Mera (Hydragea/Idra).

Inter-Aligned - A gender alignment for nonbinary IS people whose gender is aligned with being IS instead of or alongside being masc-aligned or fem-aligned.

Duogender - A gender that is a combination of male and female as a result one’s intersexuality.  It can be considered a specific inte®gender. A similar term is Trans-Intersexual. 

Ipsogender - A gender modality for IS people who identify as the gender they were assigned, and may or may not identify with being cisgender due to their experiences with intersexuality, dydaism, and/or cissexism. Coined by an IS sociologist! A similar term is Advenagender.

Ultergender - A gender modality for IS people who do not identify as the gender they were assigned, and due to their intersexuality may or may not identify with being transgender.

Transmascfem / Transfemmasc - A gender modality for people who are both transfeminine and transmasculine as a result of being UAB, AXAB, or intersex.

Exparfem - A gender modality for IS people who relate to transfemininity despite being AFAB. Coined by @/integender.

Exparmasc - A gender modality for IS people who relate to transmasculinity despite being AMAB. Coined by @/integender

Transition Related

XTF - A term for IS people who are transitioning femininely, regardless of whether they’re cis, trans, etc. Also can be used by transfeminine or exparfem IS people opposed to MTF. 

XTM - A term for IS people who are transitioning masculinely, regardless of whether they’re cis, trans, etc. Also can be used by transmasculine or exparmasc IS people opposed to FTM.

Culturally Exclusive Terms

Ay’lonit - A term from Jewish culture for AFAB individuals “who [have] not shown signs of typical female puberty” - “presumed infertile” and have masculine sex characteristics (Source). Historically a term to refer to intersex people, but in modern times is used by both trans and intersex Jews.

Saris - A term from Jewish culture for AMAB individuals “who has not shown signs of typical sexual maturity; a eunuch.” There are two types: Saris Chama and Saris Adam. (Source). Historically a term to refer to intersex people, but in modern times is used by both trans and intersex Jews. 

Androgynos - A term from Jewish culture for a person possessing both male and female sex characteristics. (Source). Historically a term to refer to intersex people, but in modern times is used by both trans and intersex Jews.

Tumtum - A term from Jewish culture for “a person of indeterminate gender; one whose genitals are obscured or not clearly male or female.” (Source). Historically a term to refer to intersex people, but in modern times is used by both trans and intersex Jews.

Kathoey - A term used by people in Thailand who in English may be described as transfeminine, effeminate gay men, or intersex.

Please correct anything on here if needed! Especially the culturally exclusive terms (although please do so with appropriate sources).

Also, don’t just like, reblog too! I didnt know about a few of these terms and it’s so important for us to gather all the words about ourselevs we can.

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I know that a lot of issues surrounding intersex healthcare involve a lack of information about our bodies (on both our parts and on the part of doctors) and concerns about forced “treatments” that traumatize and harm us. It’s so obvious why over-medicalization of intersex people and forced procedures are harmful. 

But like ... I’ve been thinking about how I was raised recently. I was raised by Appalachian-descended folks, direct survivors of the Great Depression and their kids, in a rural place. I went undiagnosed with a lot of obvious stuff from childhood because nobody in my family trusted doctors or medicine, or would even have known what was going on with me, and if they did they never would have admitted it. They’d never listen to doctors or teachers who suggested there might be anything “wrong” with me, because they didn’t trust those authorities. And in all honesty, the doctors we had around weren’t very good at all. 

As a result, I went undiagnosed and untreated for a lot. Looking back, in all honesty, I could have been put on puberty blockers if we’d known I was going through it way too early. I knew something was “wrong” with me, that I was different, and other people pointed it out and it was horrible and humiliating and I had dysphoria from being in the middle of a very visible puberty at 9 years old. I WISH I could have been put on puberty blockers! I wish anyone around me had the knowledge or resources to have done that for me! Precocious puberty caused me to have more severe scoliosis, a height-related disability, and a lot of emotional trauma. But I didn’t have options for a different reason than people normally talk about. 

Usually we’re forced into treatments, coerced into them, have them hidden from us. Agency is denied to intersex people through forcing our decisions. But for me, I was denied agency because the treatment options weren’t there at all when I would have actually wanted some of them. I didn’t have anything forced on me so much as I didn’t even know I had the option to stop what was going on in the first place, and nobody told me it wasn’t normal or took me to the doctor or anything. And even if they *had* taken me to the doctor, I wasn’t in a place where we had great healthcare and I doubt anyone would have been well-educated enough to handle it. If I had been given the chance, I absolutely would have wanted to use puberty blockers so I didn’t start getting body hair at age 8. Nobody even said anything when I asked about my body, so I felt like an alien among every not-yet-pubescent kid in my elementary school. I knew I was different, and at the same time I didn’t have any clear idea how or why, and nobody else did either. 

I think class is something that factors into the ways intersexism plays out, and I just don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about this before? Idk. Throwing it out there. 

[inter--the--void]

As someone with chronic fucking pain and exhaustion with memory issues, having someone say something like “Just wait until you’re OLD LOL!!” doesn’t do anything but fill me with existential dread so, like, shut the fuck up. 

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I was only confined before my wheelchair.

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Any mental health treatment that communicates “you are disordered and the world is normal, so success means integrating into those norms” has as its goal social control, not healing

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I wish more attention was being brought to other aro issues… like, yeah us getting shitty comments from others about us being aro sucks, and media representation would be great, but there’s more to our problems than that. I’m tired of seeing people go “shut up, you’re not oppressed cause you don’t wanna date” when you can’t afford a house on a single person’s income unless that person has a really well paying job which most of us don’t. Being pressured into relationships I don’t want by my family is bad enough but being financially pressured into it is even worse.

[inter--the--void]

intersex dysphoria is your estrogen and testosterone battling for dominance and shifting the distribution of your body fat constantly so every other month or so you realize your clothes don’t fit the same and you can just never quite feel comfortable in anything

it’s also considering if maybe you should just “pick one” and go on some kind of HRT one way or the other, but feeling dysphoria at even the thought because you want your hormones just how they are despite it being an increasing pain in the ass 

it’s also realizing you walk a hormonal tightrope and it’s scary to think of what problems might get worse if you decide to fall to one side or another, and deciding that walking the middle and not disturbing things is probably just safer

like probably

but also like hell am i messing with my hormones, im too schizo/bipolar for that shit, i’ll just learn to navigate them doing whatever they want

[inter--the--void]

To be clear, aplatonic is an aro term that means you are not interested in a queerplatonic or quasiplatonic partner.

It does not mean that you don’t experience platonic attraction

[inter--the--void]

Hey so this just occurred to me, but does anyone else think that a lot of young people on this site are REGs (or radfems, in which I am also including antis), because inclusionist ideas are much more abstract and harder to understand?

Don’t get me wrong, some people are just shitty, but like, especially for people who aren’t heavily involved in the discourse, I think this might be true.

I mean, REG ideology is much harder to sustain in the long run, because you need to constantly keep adjusting it when new proof that you are wrong comes up (and that happens constantly), and eventually you end up arguing that things are so and so, “just because”; which is partially why I never stuck with any of it (also, I am not a naturally bigoted person), but I mean in the initial stages I think it sounds perfectly reasonable, especially if you can’t fully grasp abstract thinking.

To be an inclusionist (and intersectional feminist, in which I am also including anti antis) you need at least baseline knowledge of intersectional theory, liberal feminist theory and queer theory, where as to be a REG you don’t really need to understand much more than simple cause - effect.

Eg. “Straight people hate gay people, there are laws against gay people getting married, gay people get harassed if they appear to be too gay, therefore gay people are oppressed under homophia.”

Where as the idea that homophia is just a symptom of a much larger infrastructure set in place to privilege certain groups (I don’t even want to say the majority because according to some studies bisexuals may outnumber the straights; and we all know white people aren’t the majority and the 1% definitely are not), and it’s only a reflection of that structure, which acts in a multitude of ways to oppress different groups, in different but also similar ways, rather than the true cause of the problem; is obviously a much more complex and difficult to understand idea.

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The Alt+H forum is now open for public registration!

Are you nonhuman, fictionfolk, or plural? Anything else not-normatively and/or alternatively human? Questioning if you might be? If you’re looking for a discussion space that:

prioritizes experiences over labels

is more structured and slower-paced than a Discord server

features reasonable, inclusive and accessible moderation policies

takes alterhumanity seriously and advocates for real-world acceptance

why not give us a try? We’ve already got a small userbase made up of trusted members of our Discord server, but we’re looking to expand. Help us grow into an active community full of quality posts and quality people that feels genuinely good to be a part of!

Sign up here!

[inter--the--void]

This year, AUREA is leading the new Aro Census: a community-wide survey of people on the aromantic spectrum. The purpose of the census is to gain knowledge and through this, a better understanding of the aromantic community.

Participation is limited to persons identifying on the aromantic spectrum. If you are interested in potentially participating, follow the link above for more information.

We’d like to reach aromantic people who aren’t in touch with aro communities through social media, so please share with others who may be interested.