Hiena manca

You see, people aren’t only assigned a gender at birth, but are also assigned a sex at birth. For dyadic people, your gender assignment and sex assignment always match without anything special being done (unless you were raised neutrally). While this can occur for intersex people too (especially those of us whose intersexuality goes unnoticed or presents later in life), it isn’t always the case.

For intersex people whose intersexuality is evident at birth, assignment at birth can get tricky.

Some people are also assigned into a one sex category but “”raised as”” the gender opposite to that. For example, someone can be assigned male at birth sex-wise but still “”rasied as”” female gender wise, oftentimes because they’re deemed “not male enough.” The reverse applies.

Some are also assigned no sex (unknown/ambiguous) and they may be “”raised as”” neutral, male, or female. Even those who are assigned a sex may be raised neutrally.

This is why cisness and transness can be complicated for intersex people. Some of us aren’t cis but aren’t trans, some of us can be considered cis but can also be considered trans. Some of us can technically be trans but due to how we feel about our assignments identify as cis, and vice versa. Some of us have no idea where we fit, because with the definitions that exist, we don’t. And it gets even more complicated when it comes to more specific terms like transmasc and transfem.

This is simply reality for us. This is our lived experience, and it isnt our fault that the way perisex people talk about these things doesn’t take into mind our experiences. We aren’t trying to blur lines. You’re the ones who drew the lines too sharp.

This cat suffers from depigmentation, but that doesn’t stop him from being breathtaking