#cimi

"You cannot transition to being intersex as it is a congenital sex status that describes the way the body naturally develops. Inferring that someone can become/transition to being intersex is harmful because also implies that the reverse is true, and that those of us subjected to Intersex Genital Mutilation, medical abuse, and harm are no longer intersex. It implies that we can be "corrected" to perisex and that we can be erased. People who have neutral, nonbinary, or mixed sex transition goals/acquired anatomy can use "Altersex" instead of appropriating the intersex label."

this is the most concise explanation, but here's more:

"It is a common misconception to confuse intersex and trans experiences. We share some, but being intersex doesn't make you trans. Same as being trans does not make you intersex. However it is very much possible to have an intersex condition and be trans at the same time. For some of us this is a very painful reality when the individual got altered as an infant without consent only to realize later in life to re-alter what got forced upon them."

And as far as the "say you're intersex to avoid transphobia" thing goes:

"Not only is it inappropriate to pretend to be part of a minority group you have to be born into but it also harms us as you will misrepresent our experience, struggles, etc. and this contributes to our erasure. It is offensive and ignorant of our realities.

I know that this makes me hormonally intersex, but it doesn't feel like it due to my anatomy. It feels wrong to label myself as intersex, even though I am. It feels wrong, despite the fact that I get my transition almost 100% covered by my insurance due to the fact that I am now labeled as intersex in their system, and it is covered under "correction of deformity".

- 🍵

this is internalized intersexism 🫂

I understand, anon. I feel like there is a strong issue of genitalism within and without the intersex community, this idea that we must all have a visible variation in our reproductive organs, but it is so much more than that.

This is intersexism and intersex solidarity!

I suspect myself to have pcos (have numerous symptoms. facial hair growth, irregular periods, im fat [tho my weight could be unrelated], [the ones ahead run in my fam tho] acne, and oily skin). I think I have minor acanthosis nigricans (mainly my armpits from what i’ve noticed)

Haven’t been officially diagnosed but i wouldn’t be surprised if i did end up having it. During laser facial hair appointments (my mom takes me. I hate going to the appointments tho. I don’t mind the hair.) the lady that does them has brought up the possibility of pcos being a reason for the facial hair. Or stress but considering the facial hair has been going on for years i doubt it’s stress-related.

yes, PCOS falls under the intersex umbrella! as does congenital hyperandrogenism even if there isn't a specific diagnosis, & you also don't need a medical diagnosis in general to be intersex. its not a term you need handed to you by a doctor, its smth you choose for yourself :) (also i uh. am not a medical professional but i do think naturally higher T is probably more likely than stress causing you to grow facial hair for years!)

I still remember when I was younger, I can't remember how old though I estimate somewhere between fifth and seventh grade, coming home from school after having the everloving hell beaten out of me in the locker room and just staring at myself in the mirror. It felt like I didn't even see the bruises, I just saw everything wrong. I didn't know what was wrong, why it was wrong, didn't really know anything because no one had told me what dysphoria or being intersex was. No one told me I was intersex, thought it better I just thought something was wrong with me, no one told me what I was feeling was... Well, not normal, but not abnormal either. How am I even supposed to word that? Dysphoria is awful but it's not in itself ??? I have no idea so I'm just going to leave it like that.

Anywho. I just remember wondering if they'd hit me hard enough if it could have forced my body into proper shape. Not fitness, but as in if they kicked and punched, smacked me with their shoes hard enough if it would be like those cartoons where they get hit and shake and then they're magically fine. But, I'd look like I wanted to... And then I realized what I was thinking, didn't know what it meant but it felt like an alarm bell, and then I just got more upset and started punching myself as hard as I could everywhere I hated where I looked until I cried. No one cared, not that I can remember, no one had even checked up on me when I got home despite knowing I was beaten. No one checked to see why I was in the bathroom for so long. Nothing.

I never got my sex reassigned, or hell, maybe it was and I just don't know because no one will tell me anything (given the CIMI? Highly possible. Also highly possible I just don't remember a la cdd) but they kept switching which locker rooms I was allowed to go in. Over and over, multiple times until finally they told me to just go to the nurse's office because I refused to change around anyone in either locker room unless I was able to use a stall. I often couldn't, so I'd miss class waiting until after gym to change in the ball bathrooms, or just wear my dirty clothes all day if that wasn't an option. I got points docked and didn't care.

Sometimes I still want to do that, I hate this body and I hate that I'll never be safe in it, especially not anytime soon where I'm stuck. I don't even really want a body at all. Or, I want to be able to choose when I do, or when it's touchable and not just going to be phased through like a ghost. I want to look how I do in my head. Body and face wise, I look in the mirror and obviously know that that is my face, but it looks nothing like me. Seeing myself there can be anything from mildly unsettling to fully devastating and distressing, changing day to day or throughout each day. And I wonder if being allowed to know I was intersex from the get go would have changed anything, made it better or not. It certainly couldn't make it worse.

And in hindsight, now that I know and am able to learn more about my variations and presentations, some things from back then that I can recall or at least have been told about make much more sense for better or for worse. And some intersexist peritrans bozo will read this post and still think I'm privileged for it all... Obligatory I know not all peritrans people are intersexist, but if you read that line and started fuming maybe you are even if you try to act like you aren't. Even if you've gaslit yourself to believe you aren't. Why so angry if it not about you, eh? Now moving on.

The frequent UTIs (though this one also was likely worsened by other awful things which I think you can infer from the tags... That probably plays a lot into, intertwines with a lot more as well than I realize or want to think about), MRI scans they put me under for most of the time, the time when I was little and had to take a bath at my friend's house and I was too little to be left alone to it so she had to help. The horror on her face looking at my little body, and further horror when I started to panic. My sex ed questions in school never answered when we went over it in school, I was scolded for being inappropriate or ignored entirely, or some took it as me trying to be a class clown despite never being the type.

I'm just sort of looking at my life tonight, how little of it I've actually gotten to live not just survive, things I missed out on and was denied be it to do with being intersex or not. To do with being trans or not and am just really, really sad. I said this was half a vent half not but I supposed it just is a vent after all. I see the holes, some will always be gone I think, some though it's just blank I can connect dots. And then with those realizations pop in ones that make me think of other issues, more dots connected, and then before I know it I am thought spiraling about other aspects of my situation that are just awful. The fact it's likely never going to get better for me. I'm not going to make it to another birthday and I've never been able to go to pride, never had love (or at least not love that wasn't abusive or manipulative), never made a family, never truly got away from my abusers, never got to do pretty much anything I planned to do with my life, never amounted to anything.