Eternal Suffering

To the people in the comments who say “but if you don’t forgive how can you move on” / “how can you be at peace”

Easy. Those people aren’t in your life anymore. You cut them off. You let them deep in their shit to rot and die. And you go your own way.

Am I still “angry”? No. It’s not full on anger with flames and tears, its in my past. I moved on to the rest of my life. And I’m so happy about it ! Im so much happier than when those people hurt me.

But don’t you dare say I need to “forgive” them. Don’t you dare ask me to be the one to let them off the hook if they ever cross my path again.

Because all that pain. All of the health physical/mental I lost to them. All the years of building myself back up bit by bit because of them ?

They shouldn’t have happened in the first place. If those people were cruel enough, manipulative enough, careless enough, to be ready to destroy me just for their own gain ? I’m certainly not going to give them absolution.

look at me like that

I don’t have PCOS but it’s three in the morning so I hope you have a good explanation for what you sent me this.

Unless you just came by to anonymously tell me your opinion. Which. Please don’t without context.

I’m going back to bed.

Folks with PCOS are already an undeniable, significant, important and valued part of my community. They are involved in advocacy and activism both online and within major intersex organisations. They belong, they’re my family.

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As it relates to PCOS, hyper-androgenism is what is intersex, high testosterone causes secondary sexual development to represent a mix of post pubescent traits to varying degrees. Studies regarding hyper-androgenism will constantly say “PCOS like" because hyper-androgenism is intersex whether it results in ovarian cysts or not. The target academia know the symptoms of PCOS and so it is a useful short hand.

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People also need to understand that intersex is a much less clinical term than people often assume, it isn’t itself a diagnosis. Intersex is an umbrella term unifying thousands of differences of sexual development, including PCOS. You don’t generally have studies about “intersex” as a topic without significantly narrowing focus to a single phenotype/genotype or group of such that is related closely. At this point the study usually will use clinical terms that are specific to the focus of the study and avoid use of nonspecific language such as “intersex” except in passing. “Intersex” as a term is often academically redundant when you are already describing non-polar bimodal sex developments.

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But, because I know that explanation won’t suffice for some stubborn people, here’s an example of unambiguous academic use of intersex as it relates to PCOS. This table is taken from a study on hyper-androgenism in sports by the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

-Common intersex conditions where the genotype and phenotype do not correlate.-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510954/#!po=71.8750

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The Council of Europe, in a 2013 explanatory memorandum to Resolution 1952 on children’s right to physical integrity gave this definition:

“The term “intersex” refers to atypical and internal and/or external anatomical sexual characteristics, where features usually regarded as male or female may be mixed to some degree. This is a naturally occurring variation in humans and not a medical condition.”

http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=20057&lang=en

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PCOS issues overwhelmingly align with key issues for the intersex community.

Access to hormonal therapies without needles gatekeeping

Access to doctors familiar with our needs

Access to fertility treatments without needless gatekeeping

Access to pregnancy termination on demand

Social acceptance/destigmatisation of visible differences in sexual development (for pcos may include body/facial hair, clitoromegaly, cystic acne, baldness etc)

Legal protection from discrimination

Etcetera

Dutee Chand was disqualified from women’s athletics by the IAAF on the basis of naturally occurring hyper-androgenism (within levels experienced by people with PCOS). The legal ruling of Dutee Chand vs IAAF effectively legitimises the ban policy, which prevents most women with PCOS from competing in women’s athletics at the international level, and at the national level as most countries take their lead from the IAAF. The suggested. Forced medical treatment is an unacceptable compromise, as it violates bodily autonomy and the human rights of individuals.

(There’s a racist element too. Testing is case by case when an athletes performance is “suspicious" and has been used to disproportionately target athletes of colour.)

This is an issue of discrimination against intersex people (including those with PCOS), which is being fought by intersex organisations. PCOS issues are intersex issues.

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It’s important to remember as well that Intersex as an identity is a personal preference, intersex as an identity is about pride and visibility (often with the goal of social and political change in favour of access to services and legal protection), not everybody wants that visibility and that’s ok, what is empowering and liberating for one person might not be for another. So the label might fit, but you get to choose if you pick it up and wear it.

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tl/dr: whoever sent the ask is wrong!

Hopefully this is helpful.

Feel free to direct message me with any questions, but I’m not here to fight.

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(I like to think I’m funny)

The short answer

Yes, PCOS is intersex. When we say PCOS without further clarification we are talking about the most typical Polycystic Ovary Syndrome which is defined based by hyper-androgenism. This is sometimes referred to as PCOS phenotype-A, but even in academia is usually just referred to as PCOS as this variety accounts for 99%+ of PCOS diagnosis.

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The nuance

There are other causes for ovarian cysts that exist in isolation from hyper-androgenism. For example, Atypical PCOS Phenotype-D is likely related to an immune response. Follicular arrest is complicated, and can have many causes. Atypical PCOS is poorly studied, and information is frustratingly sparse, there aren’t even precise statistics. There is also some question as to if atypical PCOS should be reclassified as it often differs radically in it’s presentation, treatment and cause from typical PCOS.

If you were diagnosed with an atypical PCOS you would most likely be advised of it.

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Hopefully this helps,

Feel free to ask follow up questions.

As an afab person, I started growing a beard (and other atypical body hair for a young girl) when I was 13 years old and started going bald around 19. Hormone therapy and finding the right doctor has helped significantly with my (very) elevated testosterone levels that were causing these symptoms, as well as others - including the telltale ovarian cysts, as well as intense abdominal pain. (I still grow a bit of a beard but, luckily, my mother is an aesthetician and has hair removal wax handy!)

Please reblog so as many people as possible can see this. People who were not abused don't understand this about traumatic memory and that is often a basis for them not believing you.

There's all sorts of complicated science behind how this works, but I'm not going to get into it right now because I really want to hammer home this very specific point and not get distracted by anything else.

Traumatic memory is different than normal memory.

Traumatic memory is different than normal memory.

Traumatic memory is recorded more similarly to a dream then waking life.

Do not let anyone hold your traumatic memory up to normal memory standards.

Do not let anyone convince you that your traumatic memories are invalid because they are recorded differently than normal memory.

Your traumatic memories are fragmented, out of sequence, and dreamlike. They contain both very vivid parts and totally missing parts. This is all valid. This is how traumatic memory is recorded in the brain.

The woman couldn't remember specific details so clearly she was faking it. Her memory was spotty so it didn't happen, she was making it up. I was so mad they didn't have some sort of psychologist there to explain that what she was saying actually PROVED she was telling the truth.

i said what i said. i wasn’t confused about saying it.

if i found out a woman had aborted a fetus because she found out that fetus had a disability that i have—disabilities that i have firsthand knowledge of being painful, difficult to live with, and often resource-intensive—i would not be angry with her. i would not feel like she doesn’t think people like me should not be alive (unless she actually said so).

fetuses are not little potential “you”s. projecting your own anxieties onto a woman’s abortion (”i wouldn’t have wanted to be aborted” is common reasoning in plenty of pro-life circles; it’s not better here) is invasive and nonsensical.

bodily autonomy isn’t conditional. you don’t know a woman’s exact reason for abortion and you don’t need to. women’s rights to abortion need to be protected, even if you feel icky about some potential reasoning behind an abortion, which you aren’t even fully privy to in the first place.

disabled people should always be in the care of people who have the resources and desire to take care of them. insisting that disabled children be born simply to ease your own moral qualms with abortion is frankly unethical in my opinion, resources are often very slim for disabled people. not to mention our quality of life is often just lower in general. you can argue all you want in the notes about “mild” disabilities but you aren’t the arbiter of what constitutes a mild enough disability to make an abortion terrible and immoral and shame-worthy. 

women aren’t vessels. regardless of how morally pure you feel your crusade is, they simply aren’t.

speaking as a disabled person, energy is literally always better spent on changing society—by increasing resources for caretakers and disabled people alike, speaking frankly about quality of life, correcting notions about what disabled people’s lives are like, punishing mistreatment of actual disabled people [not potential ones], and putting research into easing the pain/suffering of people as much as possible—than it is on getting mad about women getting abortions. and it isn’t just better spent that way, it’s just immoral to do the latter.

I sincerely wish you a good day.

I hope that what ever is hurting eases up on you real soon, and that you'll be able to breathe without that weight on your chest.

I'm sorry if things are ugly, or painful, or both. I'm sorry if you don't feel safe, or wanted, or loved. Because you deserve better than that, and anyone who says otherwise, even if it's the voice in your head, is wrong.

I'm writing this with the hope of it finding you and reminding you that you are worthy of love, and understanding. I would like to remind you that you are worthy of respect, and kindness.

Your wants and your goals are not silly, or dumb. Your hobbies and the things you take joy in are awesome. The way you dress. The way you speak. The way you live... It's valid.