#queermisia

(More of a rant than anything, sorri)

It’s so funny to hear it from people who start off by saying, "We support intersex people!", only to then turn around and claim that being intersex is a "mutation," that intersex people can be neatly divided into "men" and "women," that self-discovery is "invalid," or that if your variation doesn't cause you health issues, you're "not actually intersex"—and other such nonsense.

Last month, in a queer community, I shared my trans and cis experiences, which are tied to my intersex and neurodivergent lived experience. Someone reposted my message to an exclusionist queer channel that supposedly "supports" intersex people. They wrote that no intersex person would ever call themselves "cis+trans," calling it a "disgrace" to the community. They also claimed that unless a doctor has confirmed it, I can’t call myself intersex. On top of that, they called me a 12-year-old girl who's just "attention-seeking"—even though I’m almost 19, and my age was literally listed in my profile.

I just want to say that your "support" for intersex people vanishes the exact moment our actual lived experience becomes inconvenient for you or doesn't fit into your binary worldview.

in science class we had to write things down that made people human (& i want to also say! it was all either stuff other species have, or something some humans, like disabled people, may not have/be able to do. so the whole thing was just wrong. fuck that teacher)

& when others wrote down pregnancy & reproduction i did not, because i knew some people who would be expected to be able to get pregnant cant, becauss of how they were born or maybe because of something that happened to them, & my teacher just told me to not think about that!

it really disgusts me the way the people are taught, even in professiona settings, to ignore intersex people! i hope the medical system changes. its just cruel.

(sorry about any typos, & the weird formatting)

This is intersexism, ableism and queermisia.

Not only is it just straight up wrong to categorize humanity by things we can and can't do since there is so much overlap with other animals and disabled and intersex people exists, it also just is fucked for people who choose not to do those things. Gay men and lesbians who can't have kids with their partners or choose not to, aro/ace folks who don't want to start a family or have partners, trans folks who are dysphoric because of the way they reproduce and decide not to, it's all just an awful framework on how to categorize humanity since it will never be that simple or easy to do. (I'm aware I'm missing examples of why people choose not to have kids, because it's so much more nuanced than this!)

But, specifically on the note of intersex folks who can't have kids, this is. Appalling. "Just don't think about that!!" Why would you make an assignment where we have to categorize things then just decide to keep important additions out of the discussion because it doesn't sit neatly with your lesson plan? "Let's talk about fruits, but let's not include tomatoes because that's too confusing!" Dude 🫩