#anti intersexism

[helpmeimblorboing]

All this gender stuff is really very simple : if someone tells you they want to be known by [a specific set of pronouns] or as [a specific identity] then listen to them

If you’re confused, ask. Trust me, they’ll be willing to explain

But for the love of all that is extant, be KIND

[gwemmieee]

I've just figured out some big things, and... yeah. It's not fair or sensitive to hold everyone to the exact same standard. Some of us have suffered a lot more than others, and the more you have suffered, the more you deserve grace when you're so exhausted that you slip up in your overwhelming and obsessive effort to be good to everyone.

I love giving space to anyone who's being honest about the ways they've been hurt. But once they've personally hurt me, or if the systemic issues they're describing have an even greater effect on me, I should not be held to as high a standard of perfection in how I speak and express my feelings. I should just be heard. Failing to treat me this way... I think that is the true definition of one-upping another's trauma.

From now on, I'm gonna be wary around masculine people who specifically only want to talk about their pain without giving me any space for mine as a very feminine woman. And similarly for cis people as a trans person. And wealthy people as a poor person. And neurotypical people as a neurodivergent person. And abled people as a disabled person. And parented people as an emotional orphan. And etc.

And from now on, if someone who is intersex, or BIPOC, or not white passing, or homeless, or less non-mad-passing than me, or more disabled than me, etc., is wary of me specifically because I unnecessarily forced them to have to silently process their own oppression just to be able to hear me, I'm gonna understand and respect that. It's so obvious to me now. Their oppression is not my fault, personally, but that doesn't mean they don't have completely valid reasons to find my presence actively exhausting. I'm not gonna be able to make that go away. I can either be sensitive to that or miss out on maximizing what connection with them I actually have access to.

And that doesn't mean I have to always turn the other cheek when someone is being just plain nasty to me, because I don't have to throw myself under the bus to be sensitive, and being sensitive doesn't mean I don't have my own limits.

We're honestly lucky to have all these academic and grassroots social justice discussions just a web search away. It's usually so fucking hard to ever know for sure whether another person has had it so hard that it's a struggle to be any better, or is just presenting that way to manipulate you. It's still really hard now. But our modern education and dissemination of marginalized groups' collective experiences shines a huge light on so much of it, and that gives us so much more opportunity to REALLY connect with folks from very different perspectives.

This feels like real feminism to me.

[satyrradio]

TERFs: oh you poor sexually disordered people being used by tras... we'll accept you tho :)

Intersex ppl: hey don't fucking say we're sexually disordered tf

TERFs: stupid fucking herms i bet you aren't even a real intersex person why don't you just kill yourself

[theforesteldritch]

I’m begging people at this point to realize that hate towards intersex people isn’t just. Fucking misdirected transphobia. Please for fucks sake learn that intersexism is a thing and that while transphobia and intersexism often go hand in hand and are used to reenforce the other, intersexism is not collateral damage from transphobia. They don’t just hate us because of a perceived proximity to transness, they hate us because we’re intersex. And will go about acting on this hate as such

[ugly-anarchist]

If you're perisex and make/use "neoAGABs" I'm gonna politely ask you to shut the hell up

Like, you can make jokes about agab but you can't be doing this bullshit. AGAB terminology was coined by intersex people to talk about our experiences, this is well known, but we coined these terms specifically to get away from the idea that female/male are our actual sexes. Just because I was afab doesn't mean I'm female or that I have a biologically female body or any of that.

We keep saying that agab is an event that happened and has no bearing on how your body looks or your identity but no one listens! Agab is not your sex! Please get that through your heads! And if you like neoAGABs because you hate thinking about your agab then just don't think about your agab! No one has to know that information and, again, it says nothing about your actual sex, gender, body, or anything else!

You can reject agab language without mocking intersex terms and experiences!

And, btw, we shouldn't have to baby you or say this "nicely" for you to listen. We aren't your teachers or parents who need to hold your hand through this "tough moment of learning", we are real people who are being hurt by the shit you're doing and we're allowed to be angry about it!

When someone says "you're hurting me" you don't go "say it nicer and I might stop" you just stop!

[oarfishing]

Alright, I'm sick of seeing TERFisms on my dash, so here's a handy list of TERF dogwhistles and talking points to think about before you reblog a post.

I've seen a few of these before, but it doesn't hurt to make more. Especially when we're seeing a lot of radfem rhetoric popping up in LGBT spaces from people who might not know better.

SCREENNAMES: these are terms that commonly appear in radfem usernames across the web

rad or radical

fem or femme

vulva, clit, uterus, womb, ovary, vagina, etc.

febfem

anything along the lines of "angry woman"

xx or chromosomes

wombyn, wimmin, womyn, etc.

LGB

feminist

BIOS: things that show up in radfem bios

♀ or ⚢

febfem

female separatist

female, human female, adult human female

xx

something along the lines of "the scary feminist you were warned about"; being an angry woman, being sick of being silenced, being an evil woman, being an angry lesbian

detrans (NOTE: detrans people are absolutely not always transphobic)

dysphoric female

males/men do not interact

LGB✂️

misandrist

feminist (NOTE: again, very few feminists are actually terfs, but this is commonly in terf bios alongside some of these other terms)

TERMS: terms that radfems use in their circles

TIM - trans-identified male, a way of saying transfems, trans women, and other trans people

TIF - trans-identified female, same as above but the other way around, less commonly seen

DSD - disorder of sexual development, a way to avoid saying intersex and to categorize intersex people as "still male or female" (you might see "males with DSD" or "females with DSD" for example)

females or males instead of women and men

alternatively, women and males to dehumanize men

"peaking" or "peaked" - referring to becoming radicalized as a radfem or TERF

womyn, wombyn, wimmin, wo**n, and any other spelling that takes "man" out of the term woman

mentally ill men/women

sex-based oppression

gender critical

"TIRF" - trans-inclusive radical feminist (don't be fooled by the name, they're very much not)

TRA - trans rights activist, derogatory

sex-based rights

female separatism/"women's land"

WBW - womyn-born womyn

autistic girls/children

troon - (ridiculous) slur for trans people

RHETORIC: general ideological themes in radfem rhetoric

men are inherently more violent than women

women don't or rarely rape men

(woman on woman rape is ignored by almost all radfems)

being nonbinary is a way to "stop being" your assigned sex while still acting as your birth sex

lesbians are not attracted to men/penises and can never have sex with men/penises (otherwise, you're bisexual)

men can and will never be lesbians

there is no such thing as a bi lesbian, only lesbians and bisexuals. labels are rigid and sex-based

all of the world's suffering is driven by men

women would be better off separate

an all-female society is utopia

sex is binary, and intersex people are "glitches" or "still male or female but DisorderedTM"

men should expect to be feared by women

female/female relationships are safer and more pure than straight or gay male relationships

men and women are more different than similar

intersex people should not be allowed in sports

intersex people and trans men are never in men's sports

terrible world events wouldn't have happened if women were in charge

men are stupid and aggressive

being a man is not a positive thing

men's problems are lesser than women's

penises are disgusting and vaginas and vulvas are beautiful

trans women are performing at being girls

trans men see themselves as above lesbians

attraction is sex-based

porn is rape

porn is inherently violent

watching porn makes you predisposed to inflicting abuse

BDSM is inherently violent and misogynistic

transitioning children (whether socially or medically) are being abused

"bitch" and "cunt" are slurs against women

only gay men can say faggot and only lesbian women can say dyke

When you see a few or more of these together, RUN! It's a terf.

[butchbarbieagainstterfs]

it shows how little terfs and other transphobes care about intersex people when we cannot even refer to ourselves as intersex without a) them insisting on saying we are people with dsds and saying or implying that being intersex doesn’t actually exist or b) needing to know our entire medical history to decide if we are intersex enough in their dyadic opinion

[estrogenism]

very very funny how intersex transfems are by far the most vocal haters of tme/tma as binary terms because of the way that perisex people use them to discredit intersex trans people's complex experiences. but sure it's just those horrible afab trans people again!!

[Plaintext: very very funny how intersex transfems are by far the most vocal haters of tme/tma as binary terms because of the way that perisex people use them to discredit intersex trans people's complex experiences. but sure it's just those horrible afab trans people again!! End Plaintext.]

(also do not fucking try to witch hunt these people. i will block you on sight, i cropped out the urls for a reason)

edit: reminder that this post was made first and foremost about intersexism, and while it's okay to discuss other forms of oppression in the tags and reblogs (especially since i tagged them as such), please stop trying to brush off the original point.

[intersexcat-tboy]

Maybe it's being intersex maybe it's being trans but I think the "force feminize our femboys, real femboys take e" jokes are all absolutely disgusting. I understand it's a joke about trans women eggs but it does not rinse the rancid taste from my mouth.

I was forced against my will to be feminized. I was traumatized, watching each day my body further betray me. Trans femboys exist. There shouldn't be barely ironic jokes about forcing or pressuring people into transitioning. Not in the sense of "one trans person represents all of us to bigots" but in the "we are fucking trans and should understand being against forcing someone into a gender. It's not funny just because you have the power" way

[satyrradio]

The term "DSD" upholds the sex binary. Using the term "DSD" upholds the sex binary. The term "DSD" was only created bc intersexists realized there was living proof that the sex binary is bullshit and went "well, since they don't fit into our made up sex binary, we'll just label them as disordered!"

I'm not a person with a DSD, I'm fucking intersex, bitch.

[tigerrsmn]

"Say their name!"

Call and response at the Twin Cities vigil for Nex Benedict, organized by Thomas Edison High Gender and Sexuality Alliance.

[It is important to say their name. What’s their name?

(Crowd) Nex Benedict!

Say their name.

(Crowd) Nex Benedict!

Say their name.

(Crowd) Nex Benedict!]

[1nky-quill]

I love the diversity of trans people

I love how each and every one of us has our own unique experience with our queerness

It truly inspires me every time to think about it, because even if all of us are different in one way or another we’re still part of the same community, we’re still a family in a sense.

That’s why is saddens me when I see so many other queer people cast people from the community because their experience with their gender and sexuality doesn’t align with their own experiences/what they expect that person’s experience to be.

Please love other trans people, all other trans people, because we only have each other, and I think it’s very special that we all have a different experiences with expression and sexuality.

[thee-radio-host-is-a-kookaburra]

was originally just gonna do this for intersex bc i'm intersex, but i decided to also make some for other groups also negatively effected by this

100% free to use 👍

[purpleflameb0i]

Terfs and radfems be like "don't reduce a woman only to her genitals and womb!!" And then do exactly that

[a-polite-melody]

No but, when people say “trans men really are the men of trans people” they think they’re saying something about trans men, when they’re really saying something about their own ties to gender essentialism and adjacent-ness to radfem gender critical arguments.

Because we all know you’re not just saying “trans men are men” with that statement, but that trans men are bad because they are men and this is because men are ontologically bad, that man is not a neutral gender that would be able to exist if we eliminated the patriarchy because man is a gender that only exists as a positionality in patriarchy above women. And if that’s how the gender of man is built that means the gender of woman is also constructed from this framework, meaning that the gender of woman is nothing more than a positionality within patriarchy below man, and so gender is meaningless.

Which is honestly why I think we’re seeing so much “AFABs can’t be transfem” because gender is meaningless to an extent, but we still need to create these separations, then we obviously should be doing that separation along the lines of sex.

It all just rolls back around into bioessentialism, in the end, even if that bioessentialism looks different from the bioessentialism born in cis circles. And the idea that there needs to be some binary, either based on gender, or sex, or both, that we sort people into. And so really, gender and bioessentialism just feed into intersexism.

[januscorner]

Perisex people need to fucking listen to intersex people when they say something is intersexist, you do not know better than them on their own lives experiences shut the fuck up