#i am actually the intersex nonbinary outlier but I'm p sure that has more with being raised gender neutral for my formative years

[wukodork]

If it's something that has outward physical ambiguous traits, yeah. Iirc, most kinds of intersex aren't really gonna be affected by the kind of surgery you're thinking of. Surgery absolutely does happen (I personally know someone whose parents were asked "do you want a boy or a girl" right after they were born bc it was ambiguous), but it's more than that. Intersex people will get put on hormones without their consent, get dragged from doctor to doctor once they hit puberty to find out what's "wrong" with them. The old "circus freak" type of bearded ladies were likely intersex women - having more testosterone than what's acceptable for women will cause you to grow facial hair even though it's far less than what's considered normal for men. I'm literally able to grow a better beard than some men I know. These are just tip of the iceberg things off the top of my head for one kind of intersex experience where the intersex status isn't even known until adulthood.

Reminders:

"Intersex" means "someone born with sexual characteristics that don't fit quite well in the male/female sex binary."

"Intersex" is not synonymous to "non-binary". In fact, being intersex has nothing to do with gender at all. Intersex and trans people have many struggles in common, but if you're talking about trans-specific issues you really don't need to say "intersex and trans people".

Intersex people can be trans. Intersex people can also be cis. Intersex people, in the majority of countries, are assigned a gender at birth just like everyone else.

"Intersex" doesn't necessarily relate to genitals. When I say "sexual characteristics" it can also mean secondary sexual characteristics, hormone levels, chromosomes, and probably a bunch of other shit I forgot about. Please stop reducing intersex people to their genitals.

(On that note, having both working sets of genitals is at best extremely rare and at worst physically impossible. Sorry, intersex people can't fulfill your futa fantasies. Please stop tagging futa shit as intersex. The two are unrelated.)

Please. This pride month remember that intersex people like. Exist. Intersex folks are not hypotheticals they're not "that one letter we gotta tack at the end of every queer post and never think about any further" they're. People. Remember that they exist. Every year I have to make a post like this one where I explain the very basic things you can learn by reading the intersex wikipedia page because people see "intersex" and make assumptions as to what the word means without actually reading the dictionary definition. Please remember that intersex people exist, I looked up "intersex pride" on tumblr and half the posts I saw were a variation of "happy pride to people of all genders and sexualities!" when being intersex has nothing to do with either gender or sexuality. Please. I understand that you guys don't mean any ill, but I am very tired of making basic posts over and over.

And inb4 someone tries to strike dumb discourse on this post: I live in a country where it is legal and encouraged to perform surgery on intersex infants. Looking up "intersex athlete controversy" returned to me like three different cases of athletes who were coerced into surgery without being informed of all the risks and having to lead with lifelong consequences for it. When I say "remember intersex people" I don't mean "uwu intersex people are valid" I mean they're a demographic whose literal human rights are constantly spit upon. I don't give a shit if you think intersex people belong or not under the queer umbrella or what you think are the proper qualifications to identify as intersex literally everytime I talk to an intersex person I hear a variation of "my doctor straight-up lied to me to get me to undergo medical procedures to make me normal without my consent or input" I think people should be aware of that actually I think it's more important than arguing over labels.