#and yeah. doesn't surprise me that there are intersex people in those spaces

[trans-axolotl]

feel free to ignore, cws for intersexism, salmacian community, drama that u do not need to waste energy on

as a questioning intersex person who's been around the perimeter of salmacian community spaces, they're deeply intersexist. "well-meaning" for sure, but difficult to navigate. endosex experiences are centered most of the time even when supposedly welcoming intersex voices. there was one discussion in the discord server a while back where folks were discussing intersexist terms used by some in the community to describe themselves and it was, despite the moderators intentions or whatever, deeply hostile. very heated, very quickly, and no opportunity to anonymously engage if you did not feel comfortable voicing an opinion amidst a flood of defensiveness.

some of the people involved were intersex, too, but that did not change that the atmosphere and handling did and continues to center perisex desires over intersex experiences and needs. ive felt really alienated there bc i just cannot relate to the majority of themdespite supposedly sharing similar euphoria. in fact, knowing more now about my bodymind, id say the experiences are pretty substantially different.

ive never seen a thoughtful defense of the term, and appreciate you going in more depth analyzing it. that should not be on you, but doing so helped this person. hope youre getting some rest in and staying cool.

honestly i appreciate this ask! it's rare that other people are like, actually honest and willing to acknowledge the intersexism in those spaces. i want people to be able to build community and share experiences and find relief from dysphoria/celebrate euphoria, but not at the expense of other intersex people. and i think until people are willing to listen and understand why so many intersex people are feeling hurt and angry about the dynamics in these spaces, things are just going to continue to become more and more exclusive of intersex people.

hope you have a good day as well, anon.

[doberbutts]

Sawbones podcast just put up an episode on sex and gender (called just that) and it was very thoughtful! I'm curious your thoughts if you listen to it. Have a great day!

So as you know I'm not usually a big fan of the McElroys again as always it's nothing to do with anything ~problematic~ they've done (honestly I don't know of anything problematic about them) and everything to do with not really liking their sense of humor BUT you [specifically] rarely have bad recommendations so I figured I'd take a listen.

Also out of all of them Justin is probably the one that grates me the least mostly probably because he did Taako and that was my favorite character from TAZ: Balance.

ANYWAY I'll record my thoughts as I have them since I have the day off and can devote some time to this:

So it seems like on first impression they're going to talk about intersex conditions which like, yeah we gotta bring those up because a lot of people aren't willing to talk about the spaces between "absolute male" and "absolute female".

Blah blah chromosomes- I don't actually know my chromosomes, I assume XX because if I do end up having CAH [likely] then with how much it's affected me I should be dead because the symptoms would present differently in XY babies and typically kills them. Most people don't know their chromosomes, as she says, so it's difficult to make the absolute statement that XX = female and XY = male because there are XY people who were born completely female-appearing and [rarely] sometimes with functioning sex organs capable of ovulating, menses, and live birth and XX people who have enlarged clitorises that look and function nearly identically as penises with the exception of urination and ejaculation who knows.

I did like that she brought up the difference between the label DSD, which is more medical, and intersex, which is more individual/referring to the actual person, and also added that it is up to the individual as far as which term to use and it's better to ask and adjust on an individual basis rather than assuming the community prefers one or the other.

I ALSO like that she brought up clinical examples of various people who have had children and late in life discovered they were intersex- the father of four children who presented with a hernia age 70 and found a uterus and a fallopian tube when the doctors went to surgically fix it. This may not be overly common, sure, but it does happen, and multiple cases state that you may never have a reason to guess that anything is different about you until you're surprised one day looking for answers to a completely different medical scenario. Like how I discovered my [probably] testicle and had to come to terms with the fact that that means I'm [probably] intersex overnight while coming down from the panic that I needed emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix that turned out to just be an angry ovarian cyst.

I ALSO like that she brought up that external is very different than expected as well- how babies are assumed one or the other at birth based on genital presentation and then puberty can just change things and she did bring up brain sex, which has a bit of a checkered history medically, all of which are good points.

Also typical talking points: 1.7% population re: red hair and green eyes, which is true, but you know people have been plugging their ears on that for ages. Also brought up not being able to using external genitalia or chromosomes to determine things like locker rooms, bathrooms, sportsball teams, etc because honestly it's true... where would people like me fit in with that? I got boobs and something that super doesn't look female in my pants and none of that has been medically augmented, in fact a lot of it was medically suppressed by way of forcing me to take estrogen, so would I have been allowed on the girls team or the boys team?

The gender stuff honestly is about the same typical stuff that a lot of trans people talk about buuuuut it does make me concerned for the same reasons because we are approaching discussions of gender from a very Western and Colonist point of view and it makes me... I guess a little leery, because we are inherently approaching these views as an outsider looking in and we need to make sure that we are representing these cultures appropriately and accurately without just saying things like "well other cultures have other genders".

Many of these cultures have very strict gender roles and when individuals did not align with those strict gender roles then others were grouped into a different category- often intersex individuals or those who were wlw or mlm were forcibly grouped into these categories, at times eunichs and infertile women were grouped into these, and sometimes it was simply what we would consider gender non-conforming. And, other times, it was/is an understanding of gender that was/is simply different from what we in Western society think of it, and I think she actually managed to explain that nuance fairly well and how it's really tempting to fall into that trap because honestly if you're not part of that culture and you're not trying to learn that culture then yes, you're not really understanding why these different genders exist and also like... if you don't have that sort of nuanced understanding then you have really no place to say whether these are "real" genders or even genders that would apply to [general] you.

Also discusses some of the problems with current gender understanding and gender roles as they are in the US and systems of how these power and oppression came to be, which is nice, especially for understanding how it happened within this country.