#intersex anon

[bonefall]

i dont think people are upset that the erins "weren't creative" enough with Moonpaw, they're upset that she's just. not a chimera. thats just a longhaired tortie and they justified it with chimerism. which is extremely insensitive because chimerism is a real medical thing that can cause issues in every species, including humans for those that dont know, and thats like. a big thing.

like, yay some disability rep (depending on how they write it. it wont be good. ughh) but like. its not going to be considered a disability when it can be in some cases. they are just going to say "ohh shes so special!!" like some people say with autism in this age (the infantilization of it) and its gonna be. weirdddd

anyways. sorry for ranting in your inbox.

Hey. Woah. THIS is insensitive and I don't know where you're getting this from. NONE of the three types of natural chimerism are a disability and it is extremely rare that fusion chimerism leads to medical complications.

Do not spread misinformation about a genetic condition because you're annoyed about the writing team confusing a common tortie fur pattern with chimerism. THEIR mistake is ultimately harmless. What YOU'RE doing is stigmatizing.

Quite frankly, after seeing a bunch of posts and receiving several asks about this, I don't think half of the people who are getting mad actually know anything about chimeras. I sure as fuck hope it's just ignorance, and that you aren't out here trying to call the state of being intersex a disability.

But I can fix ignorance. No need to assume malice. I will explain what chimerism is, and why you should stop going around implying it "causes issues in every species."

Chimerism is when a single individual is comprised of cells from two or more fully fertilized zygotes. There are two BROAD types of chimerism;

Artifical

Natural

Artifical chimeras are common with the advent of modern medicine. Ever had a blood transfusion? Organ transplant? You are a chimera. Or at least were for a while.

THIS can lead to complications and can cause disability, but it's not what Moonpaw is. She would be a type of natural chimera, which in and of itself has THREE subtypes;

Micro chimerism

Blood chimerism

Fusion chimerism

Microchimerism is so common that I could make a Your Mom joke out of it. It's caused by the passage of cells between the fetus and placenta during pregnancy. Everyone who has ever been pregnant is a microchimera.

While it can lead to complications, it can also be beneficial. Pregnancy could be considered a type of temporary disability, but no one would expect disability rep from every character who had ever given birth.

Blood chimeras are common in species whose twins typically share a placenta, such as cows and marmosets, but very rare in animals like humans and cats which usually don't. It occurs when tissue between two twins is exchanged through the umbilical chord. This type of chimera often ends up with a mixed bloodtype, hence the name.

This is the cause of freemartinism in cattle, when fraternal cow twins cause a sister to share her brother's hormones and act more like a bull. A type of intersex condition, not a disability-- so I sure HOPE you aren't trying to imply THIS should be "disability rep."

And even in the other case, would you automatically expect disability rep from a character that has two blood types?? No. Just like you wouldn't automatically expect disability rep from every character that had ever been pregnant, or every character who had ever needed a blood transfusion

And lastly, the one that Moonpaw ACTUALLY is. A fusion chimera. These are created when two fully fertilized zygotes fuse into a single individual.

These are extremely rare because you can't usually TELL when an individual is a chimera. There is no obvious physical difference between the "halves," with some cases of doctors insisting that patches are just weird birthmarks. They live their entire lives with normal health problems like non-chimeras. It mostly causes complications when DNA testing results in a false negative-- because the offspring of a fusion chimera occasionally end up being their genetic nespring.

Or, the two "halves" are male and female, causing gonadal differences. These people aren't disabled, there's nothing wrong with their bodies, but they're subjected to unneccesary cosmetic surgeries as children because they are intersex.

Say it. SAY IT. INTERSEX. I N T E R S E X. IM GRABBING YOU BY THE SHIRT AND SHAKING YOU THEY ARE INTERSEX.

Can some intersex conditions cause disabilities? YES. Are intersex conditions inherently disabilities? NO. Even when you're discussing infertility as a disability, tread VERY CAREFULLY because intersex people are fighting very hard to lift the stigma over their bodies.

Speak with care. Do not equate being intersex with being disabled. They are two different things.

You can be both and sometimes one could contribute to the other, but BEING intersex IS NOT a disability.

VERY rarely, even MORE rare than standard chimeras which are already very very rare and massively underreported because they are so unremarkable, a fusion chimera will happen LATE in utero. THIS can contribute to a chronic autoimmune condition where the cells reject each other, which is a disability.

And by rare I mean one case. Literally one. Of the 50 reported fusion chimeras in the review I'm referencing, Taylor Muhl was the only one with this. 4 were discovered via congenital abnormalities (unknown if connected to the chimerism b/c they were only tested because something was already wrong), 17 had fertility issues, and the remaining 28 didn't report immune conditions or birth defects but INTERSEXUALITY.

ANOTHER condition is often lumped in with chimerism, by people who do not know what chimerism is, which is mosaicism. Mosaicism, when there are two different sets of genes resulting from the same zygote, is NOT chimerism. MOSAICISM can be a cause of disability. CHIMERISM is usually not.

(Read the review in depth, as it includes mosaic cases for the sake of completion.)

They can both be fertilization errors, but are not the same thing. Follow me, I'm only going to woefully simplify a complicated topic once,

CHIMERA = Two zygotes in one body

MOSAIC = Two bodies in one zygote

CHIMERA = usually fine

MOSAIC = usually bad

And the last possible places you could be getting the idea that chimerism "causes disability" from, to my knowledge, is 1. This study that says the loss of a twin in early pregnancy increases the chance of congenital defects in the survivors (has barely anything to do with chimerism, this link is tangential, vanishing twin syndrome does not necessarily mean it was absorbed by its sibling)

Or, 2, this study of several animals where they correlated rates of benign tumors to % of chimerism based on SPECIES. BLOOD chimeras. It's COWS AND MARMOSETS AGAIN. The study ITSELF calls for further targeted research of chimerism cause of susceptibility to cancer.

It couldn't even link new growths or malignant tumors to chimerism in the mammals of its study. WE'RE mammals.

Correlation does not equal causation. Statistics 101.

So no. That's not "a big thing." Chimerism is fine, they're just very likely to be intersex if they're a fusion chimera of a male and a female zygote. Do not imply intersexuality is a disability. Please get mad about the actual ableism in the series, not the team being clueless about tortie patterns.

Also everyone say you're sorry to intersex Moonpaw. I better see you people making intersex Moonpaw pride flag edits as penance IMMEDIATELY.

UPDATE: Anon apologized! Growth! I still think this is an important post, especially in the context of the wider fandom conversation, so I'm leaving it as-is. Please feel free to reblog.

UPDATE 2: Clarification on infertility as a disability because I didn't word myself very well in one section!

[cyndi-yeah-that-one]

Your PCOS is intersex post is great and I kind of want to add on since some people seem to not be understanding it.

PCOS can be misdiagnosed as CAH, which is a medically recognized intersex condition. These people who say PCOS isn't intersex really makes it feel like someone who goes 20, 30, even 40 years being diagnosed with CAH, only to later find out it was PCOS MUST have the intersex label revoked.

Or how about people who have CAH and were misdiagnosed as PCOS for years and then find out they're intersex and the amount of identity confusion that could cause?

If PCOS can be so easily misdiagnosed as CAH and vice versa, how is one intersex and the other isn't? I've seen so many stories of them being misdiagnosed (both ways, might I add) and I'm sorry, but if they're that easy to misdiagnose as each other, then I don't understand how one is intersex and another isn't.

I don't have much to say outside of preach sister

(gender neutral version of sister. Sibling doesn't have the same ring. Brother doesn't either)

[intersexy-guy]

I'm so still confused by people who insist that being intersex is a social construct rather than a biological condition.

Like do you think the next time I have to go to my doctor because of autoimmune issues due to my intersex chimerism condition I can just tell my doctor, "No worries, it turns out that being intersex is a social construct! I don't need help at all!" ?

[sister-lucifer]

💸⭐anon again!

Intersex flag dividers, please :) the yellow flag with the purple circle :D

I love the one that's in a post with your Wales one but I adore variety

💜💛Intersex Dividers💛💜

please like, reblog, & credit if you use!

[DIVIDER REQUESTS ARE OPEN!]

DNI: TERFS, endo, proship, pro ana, nazi, MAPs, zoophiles

tag list: @ghostboneswrites2 @savanaclaw1996 @lordhavemercyyyyy @odysseuscore @bloodythornsandskulls @und3ad-mutt

[if you’d like to be on the tag list for dividers, please leave a message in my inbox]

[intersexfairy]

would a castrato/eunuch be intersex by nowadays standards?

idk i just live here. i dont know enough about the history. and i dont quite like applying modern terms to roles & identities meant to be understood in the social framework of their time + culture.

but as a related thought. if a change in sex characteristics is like... a genuine choice made my someone, i feel that fits more under the trans umbrella. if not, intersex umbrella. or maybe a third more nuanced thing not yet popularized. this is a general POV, nuance exists, and i am just one person and can be wrong.

[looks-to-the-moon-cock]

Me: hey so that character from that anime has intersex symbolism and such, here's some links as to why.

This fucking jackass: you're fetishizing Japanese people.

Me, Leaning in real close (text in bold): If you're implying intersex people don't exist in Japan. I will boil you down into a broth for my cats.

[gettinontopic]

How am I racist? Other people are constantly trying to get through to you about transmisogyny and you instead choose to constantly try and hide behind being black, acting like that makes you immune from transmisogyny. You can still hurt transfems of any race with the way you talk about opression. You think men are an opressed class who's so so victimized by the mean women and fems of the world that you wont listen to those same actually opressed women.

Maybe if you were more willing to listen onstead of bloack a bunch of us every time we disagreed with you, you would u deratand how you're perpetuating more misogyny than any trans woman/fem whos using a few words not perfectly.

Btw, the standards you put on our words isn't fair and then you turn around and demand we be okay when your word litteraly implues we can opress you.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

How are you racist? How are you r a c i st?? You have to be kidding me! This must be a joke. Your laugh of the day. Your haha of the week.

I d not hide behind being black. Youre sick for implying that. Like many black people before me I beg my community to remember the nuances that come with my race when they talk and a bunch of them spit in my fucking face. They tell me they want the right to opress me (As if their whiteness doesn't already allow that) or they try and argue how another class of trans women is still below me in their sick opression math. They are not below me because this is not a ranking of who has it worse. Me and trans women are working together to rid the world of transphobia.

I have never on my ENTIRE blog said that men are so opressed by women. Words in my mouth moment!! I have said that the patriarcy, a system of opressions, opresses men and encourages the worst in human behavior to survive and be safe.

Those womens opression doesn't matter more than mine. All of our opression matters equal ly. We are all fighting for our rights and safet. There is no reason we need to form a line and force someone to wait a turn. I am not speaking over woman to call out the abuse to to trans men, trans masc, and other nonbinary people. Nor is it speaking over women to make sure intersex voices are included and heard when its said that negtive stereotypes and standards of men hurt them too.

Funny you claim I block all of you but you seem to have no clue how many have me blocked on the word of a racist discourse blog or who blocked me after I rightfully call out their racist remarks. It grossed me out that you assume I can't hold good faith discussion and not that maybe some of you blocked me first for talking at all. Also lmao guilt tripping me for using my block feature to keep my spaces safe and comfortable. Why, did I block your main and you've bee seething?

I'm not bothered by a few incorrect words. I'm litterally pissed at the racism, exorsexism, and blantant transphobia thats been thrown my way and the way of many other trans people at this point in an attempt to stop us from speaking about opression that affects us.

*Slow clap* What standard? The standard not to write transphobic ass shit about trans men/masc? Where you blantanly lie about our experiences ? To the point you're also lying about our nonbinary experiences? To the point where your lying about intersex and multigender and even sometimes other different trans womens experiences? I watch this happen in resl time and you have the audacity to ckme in my inbox and tell me I'm word policong you? Right before admitting you don't want us to have our word bc you still won't learn it's definition!! Fuck.

I am proud of myself. I am so proud of my beautiful nonbinary black fucking ass that you WISH you could have what I do.

[rwuffles]

You can't just make up an AGAB. You weren't 'assigned puppy at birth', why are you mocking the language/acronyms used by intersex people to discuss intersexist oppression? Do you just hate us? Do you think our struggles are a joke? That these acronyms we use to convey the way we were abused and forced into a violent binary are just cute little labels for you to play with? These aren't like genders, xenogenders, literally fine. I'm xenogender. But I'm also intersex and I recognize that AGAB terms are important in discussing how we are harmed by the world around us. Please stop mocking our language.

neo agabs are a microlabel that were created in order to reject agab binaries and remind people that they're 1.) not entitled to tell everyone what genitals they have ( which, telling people your agab doesn't do in the first place ) and 2.) that agabs are a harmful binary that the medical system sorts us into. if you're going to be upset about the usage / coining of neo agab terms, then why only attack me instead of everyone else who uses them? i know multiple intersex people who are fine with the usage & coining of neo agabs, which is why i continue to use them and coin them for myself. there is also a very high chance that i'm intersex myself, anon; i say i'm perisex because i literally cannot talk to my doctors about it without putting myself in danger due to my family situation.

i am aware afab / amab were created by intersex people, but i wasn't totally aware of that 5 MONTHS AGO. WHEN I MADE THE FLAG. i was also told by an intersex person at the time that making the flag would be fine, which was why it got loaded into my queue in the first place.

i'm not trying to erase nor talk over intersex voices. if you worded this nicely to inform me of everything, it would be fine and i would post it with new information for people to know. the assumption that i made apuab in bad faith is also like, seriously? to assume i made apuab because i thought it was a "silly little label"? i made it because of how i view myself and my physical body due to trauma; i shouldn't have to clarify or justify why the fuck i identify as it because you assume i'm using it in bad faith.

i am not personally holding the intersex community back and yelling "no!!! stop talking about your oppression!!!! stop using my silly terms to talk abour your oppression!!!!" i know what it's like to have my language taken and told it's not significant or that it shouldn't be used. i want to use my platform to uplift everyone's voices, and by being an asshole when you're trying to "inform me" you're not doing jackshit.

if you're going to be an asshole when "informing me" about anything, don't send a fucking ask at all.

[cyndi-yeah-that-one]

it's weird how people will come into your inbox and tell you that a condition the largest intersex organization in my country recognizes as intersex is not intersex

LOL you're so real for this

[anti-terf-posts]

I love being intersex!!! I love my facial hair and my thick body hair. I love my high pitched voice and I love my curves, I love my hair and my eyes and the tilt of my nose and I love how feminine yet masculine I look!!!! I love how being intersex has given me a more interesting relationship with gender. I love how my body looks and feels. I love everything about being intersex, because sometimes it might be up to me to make that intersex joy I love seeing, but damn if I'm not doing it!!!!!!! I love how maybe being intersex made me trans or maybe it didn't! Who knows and I think that's beautiful!! I am who I am despite everything and they wish to tear my body apart, force me onto medications and sedate me for surgeries to make me "normal", but I am here and I am laughing and loving and living proudly because how better to spite them than to fully enjoy life as an intersex person?

ok this made me cry a lil 😭 /pos

I'm so glad that you're able to find happiness in a body that society tells you "isn't normal" 🥹 every intersex person deserves to feel that way, because it's something to be proud of! each of you are an amazing person, so never forget that ❤️

[wheelie-sick]

As a perisex trans person I don't understand how people can say oh we don't like the gender binary it's stupid screw the binary then turn around and act like sex is so binary and important it's something we should enforce when if they actually listened to other people it's not

yeah... they destroy one binary but refuse to destroy another. honestly though it goes even deeper than that

there is a huge problem with perisex trans people believing strongly in the sex binary. it drives a lot of the way people think about intersex people and intersex experiences. often I'll see other trans people arguing that intersex people are "disordered males or females"-- the exact same points that TERFs make about us. when they're not doing that they tend to establish intersex as a third sex with a very rigid definition and then subsequently dump the rest of intersex people back into "disordered male" and "disordered female" categories. they created a sex trinary.

...but a lot of perisex trans people will acknowledge that sex is not binary. usually this acknowledgement comes when it's convenient for them (arguing with people) intersex existence is constantly brought up as a "gotcha!" in arguments about the existence of nonbinary people. an exorsexist will say "nonbinary people can't exist because biology only allows for male and female!" and trans people will say "but intersex people exist! haha gotcha!!" which has a huge range of problems I could elaborate on but the main ones are

sex ≠ gender

exorsexists usually know about the existence of intersex people they just consider us "disordered males" and "disordered females"

they use us as an arguing piece for debate and then drop us in the trash. their care for our existence begins and ends at how we can help them.

that particular point was part of the main problems with what happened. it wasn't just that intersex people were deliberately erased from the activism it was also that they had been using us as a tool to argue. we were a helpful widget for arguing with TERFs but then after we had served our purpose into the garbage we go.

[agendercryptidlev]

your intersex post failed to mention anything about transmisogny, which is at the forefront of the whole discussion at the Olympics

While I wholeheartedly agree that intersex people are affected by the transmisogyny that so often targets them, the purpose of my post was to give attention to the aspects of the intersex experience that do not correlate to the trans experience, as those are the areas of intersexism that perisex trans people most often ignore. Most people talking about the olympics were entirely ignoring the intersexism at play to exclusively talk about transmisogyny, once again only caring about intersex issues when you can view them through a framework made by a perisex trans person. Intersex people are often targetted by the same people who target perisex trans people, but this is not because of their proximity to the perisex trans experience, more so it's that those who are hatefully transphobic are usually just as, if not more, intersexist.

[looks-to-the-moon-cock]

Your post about Watanuki is nonbinaryphobic as hell.

Yeah yeah whatever. Be intersexist then. I'm literally transneutral and intersex. I literally have no issue with nonbinary headcanons with intersex characters. But I see it for EVERY intersex character, especially if they use intersex imagery. So fuck off.

[intersexfairy]

do you think of intersex as a spectrum? like including those who are intersex-adjacent (aka mesosex). I was thinking in making a flag but I can't elaborate much how defining it

Gonna add a big disclaimer that I'm not the coiner of the term mesosex, so I'm only answering this post as I understand the term.

I do see intersex (and sex as a whole) as a spectrum, but it seems like the point of mesosex is that it blurs the line between perisex and intersex. Perisex means near the binary, because no one really 100% fits it. Intersex is about being outside or between it.

So with how sex development and the binary work, there's no clear threshold for intersexuality. Even if someone has an intersex variation, they may fall outside the binary so "minorly" that they don't feel like they fit intersex or perisex experiences... and to that extent, Im not sure if mesosex was meant to cover trans perisex experiences or not, as i unsurely implied in another ask.

So my answer to this ask is... maybe?

[cyndi-yeah-that-one]

what anon(s?) probably doesn’t understand is that PCOS is a diagnosis of exclusion. a lot of intersex people get slapped with the PCOS diagnosis just because of a lazy doctor who doesn’t want to do the excluding. I know people with PCOS with high T who don’t even have cysts on their ovaries.

I didn't even know this to begin with, but you raise a good point!

[zarnzarn]

https://www.tumblr.com/zarnzarn/765463941817253888/after-the-events-of-three-in-the-morning-safe?source=share

Does this mean that none of the female Olympians gave Athena the talk. Also Athena doesn't get periods?

thats the thing, whos out here about to talk to the proud goddess of wisdom, who is already full-grown and walks around with her head high, favoured by the tempermental stormking and twice as snappy, cold and unfriendly?

(Metis had warned her, before she used the last of her essence to push Athena out. Be careful, she had cautioned, already fading. Her mother rarely smiled, and did not smile now, a hand on her cheek the extent of her dying affections. If you were a full woman, he would have not given you a second thought. A son is prophesized to be his downfall, and a son you will never be. Still- you have been born half a man, so you must be careful and cautious, never falter, NEVER reveal your true nature. The others will never help you. You will be on your own. Survive.

I understand, Athena had said, straight-backed. Then she had turned and left.)

she never bleeds, understands vaguely it is one more aspect of a full woman that she has not been born with. does not give it much thought, other than hiding it. there are strategies to plan, after all, and she has no time for these kind of things.