#anti intersexism

[beyond-mogai-pride-flags]

A[n intersex-inclusive] progress pride flag that explicitly includes disabled, altersex, a-spec, and ethically non-monogamous people.

The altersex symbol and intersex symbol interlock, to showcase unity within the varsex community.

The a-spec compass and ethically non-monogamous heart are both within a single symbol, to showcase the unity of going against amatonormativity.

Whenever I reblogged this post by @dhddmods, the flag and its meanings above got lost, so I'm reposting. -Ap

[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.

[serioussideblog]

Sports desegregation now!

The segregation of sports by sex or gender is wrong on many levels. It hurts transgender people, it hurts ALL women, it hurts intersex people, it hurts people with certain disabilities (in particular women with ADHD or PCOS are two examples I can think of), and it hurts people of color. It’s arbitrary and divisive. It doesn’t benefit women at all.

Know who does benefit? Big corporations, white cishet perisex able men, and TERFs. That’s about it. It’s not fair.

Sports should be about skill and performance. To make a competition truly enjoyable and fair, each side must possess whatever abilities the sport requires, in roughly equal measure, and nothing else really matters.

If a sport requires you to run fast, all that should matter is that the players can run fast - not the physical appearance of the runners, not that one of the runners has to take Adderall for ADHD, not what kind of private parts the runners have, not testosterone or estrogen composition, not gender identity of the runners, nothing else. The ONLY question should be if they can run fast.

If a sport requires you to be able to balance on top of a moving object, then the only thing that should matter is whether the athletes can balance on top of the object. Appearance shouldn’t matter, identity shouldn’t matter, unrelated abilities shouldn’t matter, none of that should matter.

If a sport or game requires quick thinking, the only thing that should matter is the players being able to think quickly. If a sport requires upper body strength, the only thing that matters is that the players have strong upper bodies. If a sport requires people to have good reflexes, all that matters is how good the reflexes of the players are.

Let me put this into further perspective. I’m autistic, and one of the things that I struggle with is motor skill deficiency. It affects both my gross motor and fine motor abilities, but my fine motor skills are slightly worse. Thus, if a sport requires coordination, then I should either only do it for fun with someone else who is just as clumsy as I am, or I should just sit it out so I don’t get hurt. Other aspects of my autism don’t matter, the fact that I am white affords me no advantage, the fact that I am a cisgender perisex woman means nothing, and unless the sport also requires one to be good at directions or time or any other mathematical skills or related skills, my dyscalculia doesn’t matter. But I can absolutely smoke most people in games that involve intelligence, provided that cognition (in particular with regards to social interaction and organization of thoughts), coordination, mathematics and related abilities, etc. won’t be involved. And in a running race, I am amazing as long as I am evenly matched with regards to coordination. What’s that? I shouldn’t be good at running because I’m a cisgender perisex woman? Well, guess what? I can run fast. That what matters. And I have a friend who is bizarrely blessed in the coordination department, despite having both autism and ADHD - two conditions that can affect coordination. If I were competing against him in, say, a running race, I might lose, not because I’m a woman and he’s a man, but because he can control his feet better than I can control mine. We’re both fast, but when you trip and fall easily, that can set you back. And my awkward gait doesn’t help. With that said, I might be able to win, because again, we’re both fast. Assuming terrain was very even, we’d be fairly matched. My dyscalculia would not matter in any scenario, the fact that we’re both white means nothing, and again, the fact that we’re both are different genders doesn’t matter. I have another friend who, if we were in a dancing competition, I would probably beat him, because his coordination is worse than mine and, well, I do have some sweet moves because I’ve been practicing my whole life through dance. It would probably depend on dance style, though. Things that don’t matter? He’s a teenage boy and I am an adult woman, and also the fact that he’s brown doesn’t matter. Provided we each have adequate space I would absolutely win, but we’d both have fun.

Sports. Desegregation. Now.

call me ignorant but i genuinely don’t understand why sports have to be split up by gender.

[ridibulous]

MFs will go We hate the gender binary! And then proceed to make another gender binary that hurts people to circumvent their old binary that hurt people which was made to circumvent that older binary that hurt people and so on so forth ad nauseum

[ugly-anarchist]

People on this site cannot or intentionally refuse to distinguish between systemic oppression and lateral mistreatment and it's a massive problem.

Me talking about how other queer people target me for having masculine traits isn't me saying that cisallohet perisex men are oppressed for being men and feminism sucks and lesbians are evil.

Me pointing out how late diagnosed autistic people treat me like an other for getting a diagnosis early isn't me saying late diagnosed people are privileged and have power over me.

Me saying that aroaces have mistreated me and pushed me out of aspec spaces as an alloaro isn't me saying that aroaces are my oppressors and they don't belong in aro spaces.

"Can the people who are in the same community as me but have different experiences please stop treating me like shit" isn't me saying that I'm the most oppressed person on the planet and no one but me suffers. I'm just asking you to stop treating me like shit. That shouldn't be a controversial statement.

Not everything is about privilege and oppression, sometimes people are just dicks and maybe it's you.

[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.

[osokasstuff]

["you" is used as general you and isn't directed at anyone personally]

radical take: you can't know someone's agab if you haven't seen the moment of assigning it.

(intersex) people get reassigned with different gender later in life. sometimes after days, sometimes after weeks & months & years passed from birth.

trans labels are not indicative of agab.

body parts are not indicative of agab.

how someone is raised is not indicative of agab.

you can't always know whether someone is trans or intersex by their look.

if someone is visibly trans/intersex, it doesn't mean you can tell their gender by their look and moreso tell their agab (by assuming it being "the opposite" (binary shit) of their gender).

if someone tells you they're trans/nonbinary/intersex/otherwise genderqueer, you still can't tell their agab because you don't know their experience and medical history.

and oh, you shouldn't try to guess someone's agab at the first place.

(i can't believe "you can't tell someone's agab" and "you shouldn't ask someone's agab" and "what is in the stranger's pants is none of your business" are hot takes in the end of 2024 on tumblr).

[walks-the-ages]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but regurgitating Radical Feminism talking point of

"Men are all Inherently Evil, Physically Superior, and Predatory to Women"

does not, in fact, do anything for Actual Feminism where the main talking point is

"We are all Human Beings and we're not Intrinsically Different based on the gender some random doctors decided on at birth"

and you're not doing anything for Queer Solidarity either when you go around proclaiming that all men, including trans men, are these evil oppressive monsters who have advantages in life based purely on their gender (even if they are trans men who are not out of the closet yet, apparently) , and I'm not sure why on earth the new crop of Trans-Inclusive Rad Fems think that being 'proud misandrists' is going to save them from being targeted by cis transphobes??? You can't win protection from transphobes by throwing your fellow trans community under the bus, and when you go around saying that all men are disgusting oppressive predators who have never done anything for the queer community ever and have never experienced any true oppression ever its like. ....

.... what the fuck is wrong with you?

Did you forget the AIDs crisis exists?

Did you forget the gay and bi men exist?

Did you forget that Black men exist??

The world's oppression does not begin and end with trans women, and if you're happy to throw the rest of the trans community under the bus so you can feel superior, I don't know who the heck you expect to have your back when you need help, because everyone else has already been run the fuck over, because you fucking threw them in the road because you somehow still think Respectability Politics is gonna save you instead of leaving your Exclusionist Bubble the community that ends up alone and isolated.

Trust me. Life is a lot more bearable and hopeful when you don't go around insisting an entire 50% of humanity is evil based on their gender. Try talking to your fellow trans men, trans mascs, nonbinary people and intersex people before you make another post about how """theyfabs have it so easy and trans men are inherently privalaged and evil because they're men and they shouldn't talk about reproductive health or the need for safe abortions because that's just speaking over women""" 🤦🤦🤦

[voidpumpkin]

People really are failing to see what the 'sex begins conception' thing means. It's not a misconstruing of science, it's an ideological assertion, asserting three things. Firstly it exists as part of the 'life begins at conception' rhetoric insisting that a part of identity is already there at conceptiin because of the second point of 'sex as personhood'. That who you are is defined by your sex, insisting upon misogynistic bioessentialist rhetoric, one that denies trans people and intersex people, one that labels women as lesser. And lastly it not aligning with biology is the point, it's an asserion that actual science is irrelevant, nuance can be discarded, their ideology is 'fact' and must be accepted as fact, that they have the power to make ideology reality.

[leotheloaf]

Hi, y’all, in the coming years it is more important than EVER that we have a strong queer community.

What we ARENT gonna be doing, is forming separatist movements, or rekindling old ones, or dogpiling each other over who “gets the right to speak” about their own oppression. We ARENT gonna be throwing the most “unpalatable” queers under the bus to try to appeal to cis/het/allo people. We ARENT gonna be abandoning our trans and nonbinary siblings. We ARENT gonna be abandoning our intersex siblings, and we A R E going to be INCLUDING them in our activism. Respectability politics gets us nowhere. Infighting gets us nowhere. Separatism gets us NOWHERE. Shape tf up y’all

[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]

Me: I've been targeted by people for my perceived masculine traits. I've been told that my high T levels as an intersex person make me inherently more likely to be abusive, aggressive, or assault someone. I call this anti-masculinity because it feels like the most accurate term to describe my experiences and the way they align with what other queer people have also experienced.

Someone, for some reason:

[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.

[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.

[chimeraaas]

Something that’s NOT discussed enough is the way that baeddelists / transradfems are Really Fucking Weird towards amab or camab non-binary people too, or just. Trans women of color.

Radical feminism - INCLUDING ‘trans-inclusive radical feminism’ - is and always will be inherently tied to fascism and white supremacy.