#intersex books

[intersex-support]

hello! i newly figured out i am intersex, however i haven't been able to find much content talking about intersex experience, history or community, when i first realized i was queer originally i found a lot of content like that and found it helpful, and i was wondering if there's any recommendations you might be willing to give about any content on being intersex or intersex creators who you think people should know about!

Hey!

This ask honestly made me really happy, because when I was searching for people and resources to share with you, I realized how much stuff has been created in the past 5 years. When I was diagnosed as intersex, I felt like there was so much less stuff than there even is now, so it makes me really happy to know there is more stuff, even if it's still hard to find.

Some of the things I've put on this list are outdated or might include perspectives that I don't completely love, but might include important historical context. It is also a very US centric and English language centric resource, although I have linked to organizations in other countries and would love if people added on recommendations to intersex resources in a variety of languages. As always, take what resonates with you and leave behind the rest!

Books:

Cripping Intersex by Celeste E Orr

Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Elizabeth Reis

XOXY: A Memoir by Kimberly Zieselman

Intersex (For Lack of a Better Word) by Thea Hillman

In September, Alicia Weigel is releasing her memoir Inverse Cowgirl.

In August, Pidgeon Pagonis is releasing their memoir, Nobody Needs to Know.

Fiction books:

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Intersex #ownvoices books, collated by Bogi Takács

Films:

Every Body directed by Julie Cohen is in theaters right now, and will eventually be on streaming services.

Ponyboi directed by River Gallo

Intersexion directed by Grant Lahood

Articles + misc:

Hermaphrodites with Attitude newsletter-content note for h slur and some other outdated language. Very important history though <3

Jazz Legend Little Jimmy Scott Is a Cornerstone of Black Intersex History by Sean Saifa Wall

What it's like to be a Black intersex woman by Tatenda Ngwaru

9 Young People on How They Found Out They Are Intersex by Hans Lindhal

Teen Vogue's series of intersex interviews

After years of protest, a top hospital ended intersex surgeries. For activists, it took a deep toll by Kate Sosin

Intersex Awareness Day: A Demonstration that Inspired a Movement

Normalizing intersex: Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics

Music-Ana Roxanne

Youth&I-intersex youth zine

Juliana Huxtable-Visual Art

Youtube channels:

Emilord-videos about AIS and surgery.

Jubilee Intersex video

Hans Lindhal-videos on a wide variety of intersex topics.

What's It Like To Be Intersex? | Minutes With | UNILAD

What It's Like To Be Intersex As/Is

Pass the Mic: Intercepting Injustice with Sean Saifa Wall

Intersex Organizations:

Link to org list

People/orgs to follow:

Sean Saifa Wall

Alicia Weigel

River Gallo

Hans Lindhal

Fàájì/funk

Jahni

Justin Tsang

Intersex Awareness (fabulous direct action organizing in the US-keep an eye out cause we're gonna do more this year!)

Liat Feller

Jubilee

Crystal Hendricks

Mari Wrobi

Intersex people, please feel free to add on more resources, art, writing, and people that you like!!

[intersexbookclub]

Discussion summary: Left Hand of Darkness

Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic in science fiction that explores issues of sex/gender in an alien-yet-human society where the aliens are just like us except in how they reproduce. These aliens, the Gethenians, can reproduce as either male or female. They spend most of their lives sexually undifferentiated. Once a month, they go into heat (“kemmer”) and their sexual organs activate as either male or female (it’s essentially random).

Here's a summary of the discussions we had on 2023-08-25 and 2023-09-01 about the book:

HIGH LEVEL REACTONS

Michelle (@scifimagpie): even though it was written by a cis straight perisex woman there is a queerness to the writing that feels true and that she nailed. There is a queerness to the soul of this book that still holds up, that's true and good, and I cannot but love and respect that.

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): this book is such a commentary on 1960s misogyny. Genly is a raging misogynist. It takes a whole prison break and crossing the arctic for Genly to realize a woman or androgyne can be competent 👀

Dimitri: [Having read just the first half of the book] I wonder if it keeps happening, if Genly keeps going "woaaaah" [to the Gethenians’ androgyny] or if he ever acclimates. It's been half the novel my guy

vic: yeah a book where a guy is destroyed by seeing a breast makes me want queer theory

vic: [it also] makes me feel good to see how much has changed [since the 1960s]

THE INTERSEX STUFF

A thing we appreciated about the book was how being intersex is contextual. The main character of the book, Genly Ai, is a human from a planet like Earth, who visits Gethen to open trade and diplomatic relations.

On his home planet, and to Earth sensibilities, Genly is perisex - he is able to reproduce at any time of the month and is consistently male.

But on Gethen, Genly becomes intersex. On Gethen, the norm is that you only manifest (and can reproduce as) a given sex during the monthly kemmer (heat/oestrus) period. 

The Gethenians understand Genly as living in “permanent kemmer”, which is described as a common (intersex) condition, and these people are hyper-sexualized and referred to as Perverts.

At this point it’s worth noting that depiction is not the same as endorsement. Michelle pointed out the book is very empathetic to those in permanent kemmer. LeGuin does not appear to be endorsing the social stigma faced by these people, merely depicting it, and putting a mirror to how our own society treats intersex people.

Throughout the book, Genly is treated as an oddity by the Gethenians. He is hyper sexualized. He undergoes a genital inspection to prove he is who he says he is. 

When Genly is sent to a prison camp and forcibly given HRT, he does not respond “normally” to the hormones, the effects are way worse for him, and the prison camp staff don’t care, and keep administering them even if it’ll kill him. 

Two of us have had the experience of having hyperandrogenism and being forced onto birth control as teenager, and relating to the sluggishness of the drugs that Genly experienced, as well as the sense that gender/sex conformity was more important to authority figures (parents, doctors) than actual health and well-being.

Another scene we discussed the one where Genly is in a prison van en route to the gulag, and a Gethenian enters kemmer and wants to mate with him and he declines. He is given multiple opportunities over the course of the book to try having sex with a Gethenian, and declines every time, and we wondered if he avoided it out of trauma of being hyper-sexualized & hyper-medicalized & having had his genitals inspected.

We discussed the way he described his genital inspection through a trauma lens, and how it interacts with toxic masculinity - in vic’s terms, Genly being "I am a manly man and I have don't trauma"

Those of us who read the short story, Coming of Age in Karhide, noted that once the world was narrated from a Gethenian POV, the people in permanent kemmer were treated far more neutrally, which gave us the impression that Genly as an unreliable narrator was injecting some intersexism along with his misogyny

WHY IT MATTERS TO READ THIS BOOK THROUGH AN INTERSEX LENS

Elizabeth: I’ve encountered critiques of this book from perisex trans folks because to them the book is committing biological essentialism, and dismissing the book as a result. I think they’re missing that this book is as much about (inter)sex as it is about gender. I think they’re too quick to dismiss the book as being outdated or having backwards ideas because they’re not appreciating the intersex themes. 

Elizabeth: The intersex themes aren’t exactly subtle, so it kind of stings that I haven’t seen any intersex analyses of this book, but there are dozens (hundreds?) of perisex trans analyses that all miss the huge intersex elephants in the room.

Also Elizabeth: I’ve seen this book show up in lists of intersex books/characters made by perisex people, and I’ve seen Estraven listed as intersex character, and it gets me upset because Estraven isn’t intersex! Estraven is perisex in the society in which he lives. Genly is the intersex character in this story and people who misunderstand intersex as being able to reproduce as male & female (or having quirky genitals smh) are completely missing that being intersex is socially constructed and based on what is considered typical for a given species.

WHAT THE BOOK DOESN’T HANDLE WELL

The body descriptions. As Dmitri put it: “ Like "his butt jiggled and it reminded  me of women" ew. It was intentional but I had to put the book down. It reminded me of transvestigators and how they take pictures of people in public.” 🤮

Not pushing Genly to reflect on how weird he is about other people’s bodies. We all had issues with how Genly is constantly scrutinizing the bodies of other humans to assess their gender(s) and it’s pretty gross.

vic asked: “how much of this is her reproducing violence without her knowing it? A thing I didn't like was how he always judging and analyzing people's bodies and realizing others treat him that way. And I wish there was more of his discomfort about this, that it made him feel icky.”

Dimitri added: “I really wanted him to have a moment of this too, for him to realize how much it sucks to be treated this way. As a trans person it's so uncomfortable. What are you doing going around doing this to people?”

Using male pronouns as default/ungendered pronouns. Élaina asked why Genly thinks a male pronoun is more appropriate for a transcendent God and pointed out there’s a lot to unpack there.

OTHER POSITIVES ABOUT THE BOOK

Genly’s journey towards respecting women, that he still had a ways to go by the end of the book. vic pointed out how “LeGuin was straight, and she loves men, and is kinda giving them the side-eye [in this book]. Her writing about how Genly is childish makes me really happy. It’s kind of hilarious to watch him bang his head against the wall because he’s so rigid.” 

To which Dmitri added: “I agree with the bit on forgiving men for stuff. I don't know how she [LeGuin] does it but she really lays it all out. She gives you a platter of how men are bad at things, how they make mistakes that are pretty specific to them. She has prepared a buffet of it.”

Autistic Estraven! As Michelle put it: “autistic queer feels about Estraven speaking literally and plainly and Genly not getting it”

The truck chapter. Hits like a pile of bricks. We talked about it as a metaphor for the current pandemic.

The Genly x Estraven slowburn queerplatonic relationship

The conlang! Less is more in how it gets used

MIXED REACTIONS

The Foretelling. For some it felt unnecessary and a bit fetishy. For others it was fun paranormal times.

Pacing. Some liked how the book really forces you to really contemplate as you go. Others struggled with a pace that feels very slow to 2023 readers.

WORKS WE COMPARED THE BOOK TO

Star Trek (the original series) - we wondered if LHOD and Genly Ai were progressive by 1960s standards, and TOS came up as a comparison point. We were all of the impression that TOS was progressive for its time but all of us find it pretty misogynist by our standards. The interest in extra-sensory perception (ESP) is something that was a staple of TOS that feels very strange to contemporary viewers and also cropped up in LHOD

Ancillary Justice - for being a book where characters’ genders are all ambiguous but the POV character is actually normal about how they describe other characters’ bodies.

The Deep - for being another book in a situation where being able to reproduce as male and female is the norm. The Deep was written by an actually intersex author, and doesn’t have the cisperisex gaze of scrutinizing every body for sex. But oddly LHOD actually winds up feeling more like a book about intersex people, because it features a character who is the odd one out in a gonosynic society. In contrast, nobody is intersex in the Deep - everybody matches the norms for their species, which makes the intersex themes in the work much more subtle.

Overall, as vic put it, “there's something to be said about an honest depiction that's not great, especially when there's no alternatives”. For a long time there weren’t many other games in town when it came to this sort of book, and even though some things now feel dated, it’s still a valuable read. We’d love to see more intersex reviews & analyses of the book!

[duckprintspress]

Intersex Awareness Day: 6 Book Recommendations!

October 26th is the annual Intersex Awareness Day! Considering how many millions of people in the world are intersex, it’s depressing how rare it is to find books by intersex people or that feature intersex characters. Our crew of contributors to these recommendations list knew of six we’d recommend. As always, representation may be explicit or implied, so is potentially open to interpretation. Note that some intersex people consider themselves queer and some do not. We opted to include these books under “queer” for the tagging and shelving systems we use, but we do so with the understanding that not all intersex people are queer and that being intersex doesn’t automatically mean a person is queer. The contributors to the list are Nina Waters, Meera S. and an anonymous contributor.

At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery by Shou Arai

At age 30, Shou Arai came to a realization; they had no gender. Now they were faced with a question they’d never really considered: how to age in a society where everything is so strongly segregated between two genders? This autobiographical manga explores Japanese culture surrounding gender, transgender issues, and the day to day obstacles faced by gender minorities and members of the LGBTQIA+ community with a lighthearted, comedic attitude.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.”

So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

Nabari No Ou by Yuhki Kamatani

Apathetic schoolboy Miharu Rokujou is content to meander through life in the sleepy village of Banten. But his quiet existence is shattered when the Grey Wolves of Iga, a powerful ninja clan, attempt to kidnap him in broad daylight. Only then does Miharu discover that the ultimate power of the hidden ninja realm – a power that can do both great good and great harm – is sealed within his body. As battles erupt among rival ninja clans seeking to control him, Miharu must overcome his apathy and learn the ways of the ninja if he wants any shot at survival.

Ring by Kōji Suzuki

A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure.

Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece’s inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan tokyo teeming with modern society’s fears to a rural Japan – a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic–haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape’s mystery before it’s too late – for everyone – assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip.

The Day of Revolution by Mikiyo Tsuda

Kei Yoshikawa is a feisty young boy, troubled by problems at home and annoyed at school. One day after a sudden fainting spell, Kei is examined by the doctor and given shocking news – he is actually supposed to be a girl!

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West – a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

What are your favorite books with intersex representation? Please do tell us, we’d love to read more!

You can view this rec list as a shelf on the Duck Prints Press Goodreads profile! Or shop the three that are in print and available on Bookshop.org by visiting our affiliate shop.

Want to get these rec lists, info on new releases, and more, right to your e-mail inbox? Sign up for our mailing list! Want to be a contributor to these rec lists? Patreon backers who join our Discord and also join the conversation!

[ipsogender]

Asking fellow intersex people about use of h-word in biology

Hello fellow intersex tumblr people! I wanna get a sense of how other intersex people feel about the use of the h-word in biology and what alternatives, if any, should be used, to ensure that intersex people feel comfortable when there's discussion of species that reproduce as both male and female.

I'm asking both as a co-organizer of @intersexbookclub (plenty of scifi and fantasy have aliens/fantasy species that reproduce as both male & female) and as somebody who works as a science educator. There is an explanation of alternative terms below the poll if they're new to you! Please only vote if you know you are intersex.

Explanation of Alternative Terms

Biologists distinguish two types of h-word:

Simultaneous H-word. Species that can reproduce as both male and female at the same time. Botanists call this "cosexual" so there's already an alternate word for this.

Sequential H-word. Species that can reproduce both ways, but only one way at a time. Botanists call this "dichogamous" so again, alternate word available!

But to the best of my knowledge, there's no existing alternate word for referring to both cosexual and dichogamous species.

The opposite of the h-word in biology is gonochoric, which refers to species that reproduce sexually but individuals are either female or male.

The term "non-gonochoric" gets used in the scientific literature to refer species that are cosexual, dichogamous, or who reproduce asexually (e.g. through parthenogenisis).

I spent a bunch of time brainstorming ideas for coining a term to replace the role of the h-word in biology. The term I'm happiest with is gonosyne, designed to contrast with gonochoric. Gonochoric comes from old Greek affixes (gono- for generation, now associated with reproduction; -choric for separated). Whereas syn- refers to together/combined, so gonosyne for together/combined gonads.

Let me know what makes sense for you, if you have questions, or feedback!

[kodiescove]

An Unkindness of Ghosts

Tw: institutionalized racism and segregation, off screen rape, corporeal punishment

Representation: black, (possible) autism, intersex, transgender and nonbinary identities

I chose this book for black history month and I honestly feel like it was the right choice.

One thing you must know is this book is rather heavy. I feel like I have walked away from this book with a better understanding of these problems, and the ways they affect different people inflicted with them.

I found the storyline to be captivating, and to make up for the heavy feeling in my chest that formed from reading about the struggles the characters faced at the hands of their oppressors.

The prose were well written, and each character felt unique compared to each other instead of each character being the same which could have so easily been the case.

If you would like a great story about an intersex woman unraveling the mystery of her mother's death, that explores the depth of racism, I highly recommend this book.

[intersexcat-tboy]

Here's the direct link to purchase (:

I'm writing a book called "Navigating Modern Medicine From Outside the Binary" and it's currently listed for #presale from GreasyGrass Cooperative Press, the first Indigenous-led nonprofit printing cooperative of its kind.

I've been a part of GreasyGrass since the beginning, and am thrilled to announce that we also have an Intersex Visibility/Pride pack that is here just in time for Intersex Awareness Day, which is October 26.

greasygrasspress.vip

[trans-axolotl]

one of the reasons it's really hard for a lot of intersex people when intersex topics are on the news cycle is because the public's reaction reveals how little anyone knows or cares about intersex people, including people who call themselves our allies. almost every time intersex topics are trending, the discourse surrounding them is filled with misinformation. people who only learned today what the word intersex means jump into conversations and act like an authority. endosex/dyadic/perisex people get tripped up over things that are basically intersex 101, with tons of endosex people incorrectly arguing about the definition of intersex, who "counts," DSD terminology, and so much more. i've seen multiple endosex people say today that they've been "warning intersex people" and that we should have known that transphobia would catch up with us eventually, which is an absolutely absurd thing to say given the fact that consistently over the past ten years, it has often been intersex people sounding the alarm on sex-testing policies and also the fact that many, many intersex people are also trans, and already are facing the impacts of transphobia. there is an absolute failure from the general public to take intersex identity seriously; people seem not even able to fathom that intersex people have a community, history, and our own political resources. instead, endosex people somehow seem to think they're helping by bringing up half-remembered information from their high school biology class which usually isn't even relevant at all.

and this frustrates me so fucking much. not because i want to deny the impacts of transphobic oppression--i'm a trans intersex person, trust me when i say i am intimately aware of transphobia. this frustrates me because there is no way we can achieve collective liberation if our "allies" fail to even engage with basic intersex topics and are seemingly unaware of the many forms of intersex oppression that we are already facing every fucking day. if you are not aware of compulsory dyadism, if you are not aware of interphobia, if you are not aware of the many different ways that intersex people are directly and often violently targeted--how the fuck do you think we're going to dismantle all of these systems of oppression?

if you were truly an intersex ally, you would already KNOW that this is not new, and would not be surprised--interphobia in sports has been going on for decades. you would know that we do have a community, an identity, a history--you would have already read/listened/watched to intersex resources that give you the background information you need for allyship. you would know that although there is a really distinct lack of resources and political education, that intersex people ARE developing a political understanding of ourselves and our oppression--Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr and their framework of compulsory dyadism is one example of how we're theorizing our oppression. It's absolutely fucking wild to me how few people I've seen actually use words like "interphobia" "intersexism" "compulsory dyadism" or "intersex oppression"--endosex people are seemingly incapable of recognizing that there is already an entrenched system of oppression towards intersex people that violently reshapes our bodies, restricts our autonomy, and attempts to eradicate intersex through a variety of medical and legal means.

you cannot treat intersex people like an afterthought. not just because we're meaningful parts of your community and deserving of solidarity, but also because intersex oppression impacts everyone!!! especially trans community--trans people will not be free until intersex people are free, so much of transphobia is shaped by compulsory dyadism, the mythical sex binary, all these ideas of enforced "biological sex" that are just as fake as the gender binary.

it makes me absolutely fucking livid every time this shit happens because it becomes so abundantly clear to me how little the average endosex person knows about intersex issues and also how little the average endosex person cares about changing that. i don't know what to say to get you to care, to get you to change that, but we fucking need it to happen and i, personally, am tired of constantly being grateful when i meet an endosex person who knows the bare minimum. i think we have a right to expect better and to demand that if you're going to call yourself our ally, you actually fucking listen to us when we tell you what that means.

okay for endosex people to reblog.

[verdantmeadows]

So many recent events have given me so little faith in many perisex people, especially transgender ones, to actually be intersex allies. They cannot fathom the idea that something is intersexism and about intersex experiences. They especially cannot fathom the idea that something is PRIMARILY DRIVEN by intersexism. They cannot understand that intersexism isn't a byproduct of transphobia and that bigotry against intersex people isn't "misguided/misdirected/mistaken transphobia" but it is INTERSEXISM. And of course, intersexuality isn't talked about unless it's due to a controversy around an intersex person. Even when we are being oppressed and misgendered and belittled for being intersex we aren't even getting the dignity of the intersexism we face acknowledged. It's just transphobia. Abuse doesn't exist towards us. It's transphobia. We don't exist.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

@leichenliebe

Intersex Resources: Books, Art, Videos

Here's a list with some resources to learn about intersex community, history, and politics! These include some academic sources and some community sources. I'd love to add sources in other languages and that focus on countries besides the United States, so if anyone has recommendations, please let me know. Continually updating and adding sources.

Reading list:

Intersex History:

"The Intersex Movement of the 1990s: Speaking Out Against Medical and Narrative Violence" by Viola Amato.

Hermaphrodites with Attitude Newsletters.

Jazz Legend Little Jimmy Scott is a Cornerstone of Black Intersex History By Sean Saifa Wall

"Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Activism" by Cheryl Chase

Chrysalis Quarterly: Intersex Awakening, 1997.

"What Happened at Hopkins: The Creation of the Intersex Management Protocols" by Alison Redick.

Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Elizabeth Reis.

Intersex Politics

“A Framework for Intersex Justice.” Intersex Justice Project

"Creating Intersex Justice: Interview with Sean Saifa Wall and Pidgeon Pagonis of the Intersex Justice Project." by David Rubin, Michelle Wolff, and Amanda Lock Swarr.

"Intersex Justice and the Care We Deserve: ‘I Want People to Feel at Home in Their Bodies Again." Zena Sharman.

Critical Intersex edited by Morgan Holmes.

Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine by Amanda Lock Swarr.

"Intersex Human Rights" by Bauer et al.

Morgan Carpenter's writing

"I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me: Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US." by Human Rights Watch.

Cripping Intersex by Celeste E. Orr.

"From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’: A Case of Epistemic Injustice" by Ten Merrick.

"Did Bioethics Matter? A History of Autonomy, Consent, and Intersex Genital Surgery." by Elizabeth Reis.

Intersex Community

"Normalizing Intersex: Personal Stories from the Pages of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics." edited by James DuBois and Ana Iltis.

Hans Lindhal's blog.

InterACT Youth Blog.

Intersex Justice Project Blog.

"What it's like to be a Black Intersex Woman" by Tatenda Ngwaru.

Intersex Inclusive Pride Flag by Valentino Vecchietti.

The Interface Project founded by Jim Ambrose.

Intersex Zines from Emi Koyama

Teen Vogue's Intersex Coverage

YOUth& I: An intersex youth Anthology by Intersex Human Rights Australia

Intersex OwnVoices books collected by Bogi Takacs.

Memoirs:

Nobody Needs to Know by Pidgeon Pagonis.

Inverse Cowgirl by Alicia Roth Weigel

XOXY by Kimberly Zieselman

Fiction:

Icarus by K Ancrum.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Video/Audio

Every Body dir. Julie Cohen.

Hermaphrodites Speak! 1997.

Liberating All Bodies: Disability Justice and Intersex Justice in Conversation.

"36 Revolutions of Change: Sean Saifa Wall."

Inter_View: An Intersex Podcast by Dani Coyle

Hans Lindhal's Youtube channel.

What it's Like to be Intersex from Buzzfeed.

Emilord Youtube channel

I'm intersex-ask me anything from Jubilee

What it's like to be Intersex-Minutes With Roshaante Andersen.

Pass the Mic: Intercepting Injustice with Sean Saifa Wall

Art

"Hey AAP! Get your Scalpels Off Our Bodies!" 1996.

Ana Roxanne's album Because of a Flower.

Intersex 1 in 90 potraits by Lara Aerts and Ernst Coppejans

Anyone can be Born Intersex: A Photo-Portrait Story by Intersex Nigeria.

Pidgeon Pagonis "Too cute to be binary" Collection

Juliana Huxtable Visual Art

Koomah's art

Please feel free to add on your favorite sources for intersex art, history, politics, and community !

[intersexbookclub]

September pick: Cripping Intersex

Our book pick for September 2024 is Cripping Intersex by Celeste Orr. This is a book about the intersections of disability studies and intersex studies, and we're hyped to learn!

This is an academic book, so rather than read the whole thing our plan is to read Chapters 0 and 7-9.

We're excited for this book pick - it's been requested many times in the club, but only recently were we able to acquire an electronic copy of the relevant chapters to share with the club. (It's been important to us that university library access should not be a barrier for participation. 💜)

As usual, we meet on the last Friday of the month: September 27. We’re meeting at 16:00 Eastern (20:00 UTC) on Microsoft Teams (see discord for the link).

The MS Teams meeting is configured to provide live captions in English. Participants are welcome to contribute non-verbally through the text chat in the meeting. If you have other access needs please let us know 💜.

Discord link: https://discord.gg/V3mrcjakGQ Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, our pick for October is Rosalind's Siblings, a sci-fi short story anthology edited by Bogi Takács, and for November we're reading Just Ash by Sol Santana.

[prideprejudce]

the hatred that i have for jk rowling and the absolute monster gender conspiracy internet rat that she has become is bottomless at this point

[beckyts]

This dress show too much or the right amount ?

[ipsogender]

Book review: Love, No Matter What by Komal Ahuja

While looking for book options for @intersexbookclub, I found this book on a list of intersex books and couldn't find any reviews of it from actually intersex people, nor any content warnings for the book. So, for anybody looking for such information, here's my review of the book:

Content warnings for the book

Rape by a spouse

Rape by a teacher

Domestic violence

Transphobia

How I felt about it overall

The book is neither awful nor great. I'd say 2.5 stars. It has some nice queer found family in it, and some lovely trans-intersex solidarity that was heartwarming. It centres on a perisex parent of an intersex child and the centring of perisex experience was disappointing for me (I am intersex).

Book Summary

Neira gives birth to Devi, who is born with ambiguous genitals. Her husband wants nothing to do with the baby. Luckily some hijras stop by to bless the newborn, and seeing an intersex baby, offer to take the baby in. Chandani, the Guru of the local hijra community comes to an agreement with Neira. Devi will live with the Guru and be raised with the hijras where she'll be accepted, and Devi will come over in the afternoons. And so Devi grows up.

When it comes time for Devi to enrol in school, Neira's best friend Naveen steps up to be the father on the paperwork since the birth father continues to want nothing to do with Devi. He winds up gettting fully involved as a co-parent.

Spoilers follow.

Devi grows up, has a mixed estrogen/androgen puberty, and experiences a bunch of hardships due to being intersex and the stigma of being associated with the hijras. This includes a sexual assault, struggling to get access to education, issues of filling in forms, and the psychological toll of being her birth family's dirty little secret. But through the support of her queer found family she pulls through, gets her education, starts a company, marries a transmasc, and becomes financially independent.

The good

Queer family! 🌈 Devi's birth dad was awful, but it was heartening to see Chandani and Naveen step up so Devi grew up with two mothers and one dad. The queer co-parenting that emerged was lovely.

Trans people showing up for intersex people! The trans hijras like Chandani do a vital job in ensuring Devi gets bodily autonomy and a chance to grow up in an environment that is accepting 🏳️‍⚧️

Devi is explicitly described as healthy - (i.e. being intersex doesn't mean she is unhealthy)

Surgery isn't forced onto Devi! At the beginning of the book the doctors are recommending surgery and thanks to Chandani adopting Devi this doesn't happen. As an adult Devi chooses to have surgery for her own sake, and Neira is like "but why?"

The scene where Devi is upset at the science textbook not including intersex people! She first gets upset because the science textbook has nobody like her in it, then when Chandani explains her anatomy, Devi decides that the world of straight people sucks because "There is not even a mention of us in the text book." 🙃

Non-Western queerness! The hijras escorting Devi to school during times when there has been increases in anti-trans violence felt all too familiar, sadly. That and the pain of filling in forms when your sex/gender isn't one of the usual two.

This book knows the police are the problem and cannot be trusted

The bad

The editing. There are a bunch of typos, plot elements pop up randomly or out of order, there are minor details that are inconsistent, and the voice/style of narration is also inconsistent. The pacing is also all over the place.

Plot inconsistencies. The reasons given for why Devi can't attend school like the other kids are inconsistent throughout the book - at first it's because they're worried she'll have an unusual puberty, but later it's because of gender markers on her government ID. Devi faces issues because of the sex on her birth certificate. But they forged Devi's birth certificate to put Naveen down as the father but didn't alter it to change the gender/sex on the form. Why didn't they just try to pass Devi off as female?

Just so much sexual violence. When Devi is sexually assaulted by a tutor, she is consoled that "it happens to normal girls and boys too" which just WHAT A RESPONSE. At least the tutor gets beaten up by Chandani and another hijra. But when Neira's husband rapes her it is passed off as "oh you know how men are, they have no control". 🤮 The scene is incredibly upsetting and to have it passed off as acceptable was infuriating.

Neira's husband. I get that his role in the book is to be a cowardly bigot. But he neither gets commeupance nor comes around to accepting Devi. Over the course of the book Neira learns to take him less seriously but never goes as far as to leave him. He totally gets away with raping his wife. 😶

Plausibility in the end. Devi starts a company with the other hijras and it just goes too well. It launches without any snags, no bad reviews, no supply chain issues, no lost shipments, no cash flow issues, and so on. I've never started a business but this read like total fantasy. The company goes so well they get a government award and everything about the award ceremony and again it all goes too well to be believable. It veers into inspiration porn territory.

At one point Devi asks Chandani why the hijra are oppressed and gets a response that blames other's bigotry but also that "We [the Hijra] don't raise our voice against injustice." Victim blaming much?

The disappointing

There's still a bunch of conflation of sex and gender.

The book is pretty vague on what Devi's intersex variation is. It's clear Neira has access to doctors, and they order blood work and imaging, so you'd expect there to be a diagnosis. Devi is described as having "both organs", a penis and "a female reproductive organ". Why the vague euphemisms about female anatomy specifically? I don't acutally know if this means vulva/labia, vagina, ovaries, and/or uterus. The reason this bothers me is a lot of perisex authors don't differentiate between intersex variations and wind up creating physiologically implausible intersex variations. Devi is described as having a puberty that involves developing breasts, a muscular build, and some facial hair that she removes. PAIS maybe? Could also be 5-ARD or 17 beta? But it's never really clear and I worry that muddies the messaging.

Neira's parents-in-law are bigoted and excused with "they are far too set in their prejudices to … change". They won't be changing with that kind of attitude!

The choice of protagonist. This is not a book about an intersex person, this is a book about a parent of an intersex child. I recognize there is need for media for parents, especially to get them to stop forcing harmful treatments on their children. I find it upsetting that parents can't listen to actually intersex people directly, that even in a story about intersex it centres perisex experience.

Neira is lionized for having anything to do with Devi. There are a bunch of bits on how amazing she is for doing this bare minimum and how amazing parents are. And biological parents are still favoured - Chandani doesn't get anywhere near as much credit for raising Devi as Neira does, despite being the one who gave her a home and taught her about trans and intersex issues in a way that was accepting.

The Indian

The book is written in Indian English. Some language will feel inappropriate to North Americans like using transgender as a noun. Some language made me do double-takes. Did you know "tuition" can refer to classes/studies? I didn't - I'd only ever seen the term used to refer to school fees. Turns out that's very North American of me. TIL. I appreciate that author didn't try to internationalize the English.

There are a bunch of Hindi phrases that show up in dialogue. It's mostly comprehensible from context, but there were some bits where I couldn't follow what was going on.

I am a white Canadian. I am in no way able to judge the realism of this book in the Indian context. I don't know if it is a realistic or accurate depiction of hijras (the author is not hijra). I'm not sure if "hijra" is even the right term to use. In the book, they present themselves as a third gender, and I don't know if this is what they want. The book also middle-class-ifies the hijras by the ond of the book and again, not sure if this is what they want. There's a lot I don't know and am just going to have to trust/hope the author got this right.

I was stunned that the doctor didn't tell Naina that the baby was intersex, instead only telling the birth father and leaving it to him to tell Naina. Not sure if this is normal but just uuuuugh callbacks to how mere decades ago doctors wouldn't tell women basic things and instead leave it to husbands/fathers to decide 🧐

The gender roles in this book are real something. Wives exist to serve their husbands meals. Daughters exist to be given away to another family via marriage. Devi chose well in deciding to stay in the Hijra community. 👀

Overall rating: 2.5 / 5

[kodiescove]

WE'VE GOT POSSIBLE QUEER/T4T LOVE

LESS GOOOOOOO

[celepom]

It’s Pride 2023! Time to put up some more comic recs!

This time I’ve put together some stories about discovering one’s own queer identity, outlining a family history of queerness, and several stories where being queer isn’t the focus - queer characters are simply allowed to be.

Belle of the Ball By Mari Costa

High-school senior and notorious wallflower Hawkins finally works up the courage to remove her mascot mask and ask out her longtime crush: Regina Moreno, head cheerleader, academic overachiever, and all-around popular girl. There’s only one teensy little problem: Regina is already dating Chloe Kitagawa, athletic all-star…and middling English student. Regina sees a perfectly self-serving opportunity here, and asks the smitten Hawkins to tutor Chloe free of charge, knowing Hawkins will do anything to get closer to her. And while Regina’s plan works at first, she doesn’t realize that Hawkins and Chloe knew each other as kids, when Hawkins went by Belle and wore princess dresses to school every single day. Before long, romance does start to blossom…but not between who you might expect. With Belle of the Ball, cartoonist Mariana Costa has reinvigorated satisfying, reliable tropes into your new favorite teen romantic comedy.

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The Moth Keeper By Kay O’Neill

Anya is finally a Moth Keeper, the protector of the lunar moths that allow the Night-Lily flower to bloom once a year. Her village needs the flower to continue thriving and Anya is excited to prove her worth and show her thanks to her friends with her actions, but what happens when being a Moth Keeper isn't exactly what Anya thought it would be? The nights are cold in the desert and the lunar moths live far from the village. Anya finds herself isolated and lonely. Despite Anya's dedication, she wonders what it would be like to live in the sun. Her thoughts turn into an obsession, and when Anya takes a chance to stay up during the day to feel the sun's warmth, her village and the lunar moths are left to deal with the consequences.

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Hollow By Shannon Watters, Branden Boyer-White & Berenice Nelle

Isabel "Izzy" Crane and her family have just relocated to Sleepy Hollow, the town made famous by—and obsessed with—Washington Irving's legend of the Headless Horseman. But city slicker-skeptic Izzy has no time for superstition as she navigates life at a new address, a new school, and, with any luck, with new friends. Ghost stories aren't real, after all.... Then Izzy is pulled into the orbit of the town's teen royalty, Vicky Van Tassel (yes, that Van Tassel) and loveable varsity-level prankster Croc Byun. Vicky's weariness with her family connection to the legend turns to terror when the trio begins to be haunted by the Horseman himself, uncovering a curse set on destroying the Van Tassel line. Now, they have only until Halloween night to break it—meaning it's a totally inconvenient time for Izzy to develop a massive crush on the enigmatic Vicky. Can Izzy's practical nature help her face the unknown—or only trip her up? As the calendar runs down to the 31st, Izzy will have to use all of her wits and work with her new friends to save Vicky and uncover the mystery of the legendary Horseman of Sleepy Hollow—before it's too late. 

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Until I Meet my Husband By Ryousuke Nanasaki & Yoshi Tsukizuki

The memoir of gay activist Ryousuke Nanasaki and the first religiously recognized same-sex marriage in Japan. From school crushes to awkward dating sites to finding a community, this collection of stories recounts the author’s “firsts” as a young gay man searching for love. Dating is never ever easy, but that goes doubly so for Ryousuke, whose journey is full of unrequited loves and many speed bumps. But perseverance and time heals all wounds, even those of the heart.

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Is Love the Answer? By Uta Isaki

When it comes to love, high schooler Chika wonders if she might be an alien. She’s never fallen for or even had a crush on anyone, and she has no desire for physical intimacy. Her friends tell her that she just "hasn't met the one yet," but Chika has doubts... It's only when Chika enters college and meets peers like herself that she realizes there’s a word for what she feels inside--asexual--and she’s not the only one. After years of wondering if love was the answer, Chika realizes that the answer she long sought may not exist at all--and that that's perfectly normal.

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M Is for Monster By Talia Dutton

When Doctor Frances Ai's younger sister Maura died in a tragic accident six months ago, Frances swore she would bring her back to life. However, the creature that rises from the slab is clearly not Maura. This girl, who chooses the name "M," doesn't remember anything about Maura's life and just wants to be her own person. However, Frances expects M to pursue the same path that Maura had been on—applying to college to become a scientist—and continue the plans she and Maura shared. Hoping to trigger Maura's memories, Frances surrounds M with the trappings of Maura's past, but M wants nothing to do with Frances' attempts to change her into something she's not. In order to face the future, both Frances and M need to learn to listen and let go of Maura once and for all. Talia Dutton's debut graphic novel, M Is for Monster, takes a hard look at what it means to live up to other people's expectations—as well as our own.

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Golden Sparkle By Minta Suzumaru

Himaru Uehara’s first year of high school is off to a good start, minus one problem—he keeps having wet dreams. With only his mom and sister at home—and having skipped health class in middle school—he thinks it means there’s something wrong with him. Thankfully, a new friend has just the remedy and teaches Himaru exactly how to deal with those pesky dreams! But his solution only leads to more confusion, and the two find themselves navigating feelings they’ve never felt before.

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Thieves By Lucie Bryon

Ella can’t seem to remember a single thing from the party the night before at a mysterious stranger’s mansion, and she sure as heck doesn’t know why she’s woken up in her bed surrounded by a magpie’s nest of objects that aren’t her own. And she can’t stop thinking about her huge crush on Madeleine, who she definitely can’t tell about her sudden penchant for kleptomania… But does Maddy have secrets of her own? Can they piece together that night between them and fix the mess of their chaotic personal lives in time to form a normal, teenage relationship? That would be nice.

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Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic By Alison Bechdel

Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescense, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive.

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She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat By Sakaomi Yuzaki

Cooking is how Nomoto de-stresses, but one day, she finds herself making way more than she can eat by herself. And so, she invites her neighbor Kasuga, who also lives alone. What will come out of this impromptu dinner invitation...?

Kasuga and Nomoto promised to spend their Christmas and New Year’s together. Now, they find themselves learning more about each other’s families through the food sent by Nomoto’s mother. Cute character bento, salmon and rice, stollen, fruit sandwiches, roast beef…Nomoto and Kasuga warm up to each other over a cheerful holiday season.  

[satyrradio]

"you're [minority]? can you tell me how to write a [minority] character?" do you even actually write books