Like a Phoenix

I'm not very proud of being disabled since it is never fun and the most positivity I get out of it is fascination because I'm science-brained .

This oral tradition is frequently dismissed as "old wives' tales" and "superstition" because tales of the theft of Black bodies sound fantastic to many whites- and to African Americans who pride themselves on their scientific sophistication. Many people assume that belief in the theft of Black bodies is paranoia born of a violently racist history.

But Janie Gaines and Sarah Cox know from experience that Black cadavers tend to disappear. In January 1998, the sisters frowned as they surveyed the crumbling headstones, trash, and tangled weeds strangling Greenwood, the Birmingham, Alabama cemetery in which their family had long ago laid their sister, Addie Mae Collins.

Although most Americans do not know her name, Addie Mae is a national icon of sorts. The thirteen-year-old was a martyr of the civil rights movement, one of four girls who were murdered in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church a few days after the city schools were integrated...

It was thirty years before her sisters could bear to visit her grave, and when they saw its neglected state, they immediately arranged to have Addie Mae moved to another, better-maintained cemetery. However, workers who opened the grave recoiled in shock: It was empty, devoid of casket and corpse.

Addie Mae's body, like so many buried and Black cemeteries throughout the south, is missing."

"but you are implying-" no I was very straightforward.

Slurs used against intersex people are often taken and reclaimed for perisex trans people who then shut the door on us, telling intersex people these slurs were never "really" for us and that we need to keep our mouth shut on their usage.

Terminology we coin is similarly taken by perisex trans people, and then their usage is twisted and turned around to bludgeon us with in the endless attempt to fit intersex people into the box of agab based 'girl intersex' or 'boy intersex' for the sake of making trans discourse cleaner.

While it may seem harmless on the surface, even things like intersex animals being consistently held up as "trans icons" while their intersex status is ignored, is representative of the larger problem.

We're fetishized, propped up as "transition goals", people gush about what they imagine intersex bodies to be, joke about- or in rare cases, seriously claim- to be "transitioning into being intersex", because to them intersex people are a fetishized aesthetic.

And then, anybody who doesn't fit into their fetishized view of the 'true hermaphrodite' are treated as if they're not intersex at all. How often do perisex people mockingly deride who they view as "just cis women with pcos" for daring to try to have a voice in gendered conversations? As if hormonally intersex people are 'fakers' in some way.

We're used as a talking point, constantly, against transphobes.

"How can transphobia be 'basic biology' when even sex isn't binary?" perisex trans people challenge transphobes, but then, as soon as they're done using us as a gotcha, those same perisex trans people try to push us into a sex binary that doesn't fit us.

There's an envy, almost, to how perisex trans people talk about "cis children" having access to "gender affirming care" like surgeries and hormones, speaking about our medical abuse, the medical mutilation of our children, as if it's a privilege to us as "cis people", rather than a horrible oppression our community faces.

And then there's the argument, on how transmisogynistic laws impact "cis women" (intersex people) as well, as if this is something transphobes are unaware of. Whether they'll say it or not, very few pericis people care to differentiate between a "hermaphrodite" and a "transsexual" in their minds, intersex people are not collateral damage, we are intended targets.

Not to mention how intersex people are also used as weapons in intra-community discourse within the trans community as well, people will tack on the concept of intersexism to an argument to legitimize it while refusing to listen to or engage with our community, at least, beyond the few intersex people with internalized intersexism they can find to boost their points and then drop. We are a talking point, but we ourselves are never given the space to talk, because fundamentally our oppression is seen as lesser, 'collateral' in transphobia, this is why perisex trans people seem to think we're a good debate point to use against transphobes who surely care about us.

This concept of intersex people as "collateral" is also what fuels the concept that trans people can, and should, "just pretend to be intersex" to get out of instances of oppression, as if intersex people don't experience horrible violence regardless, for looking the way we do, for being what we are. Actually talk to almost any intersex person and I'm sure they'll be able to give you countless examples of times "I just have a condition" didn't save them, because intersex people too are active targets of gendered violence and oppression.

Even intersex people who are also trans are frequently given a lesser seat at the table. Because we're "lucky", because surely we have an easier time transitioning, a head start, and surely by virtue of being intersex we- especially intersex people people with an ISIG- can more easily be 'accepted' as another gender anyways, so rather than intersex trans people being treated as more vulnerable, because of how intersexism and transphobia intersect to doubly marginalize us, we're viewed as somehow 'less trans', or at least impacted less significantly by transphobia, and, well, functionally, it seems a lot of trans people do not believe intersexism exists, or if they do believe in it, they view it as a misdirected and lesser form of transphobia.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of intersex terminology and oppression and symbols being co-opted by perisex people who then try to claim those things were never ours at all, I'm tired of being a talking point for people to use for their benefit without having a voice of our own, I'm tired of us being rhetorical props to be put back in our boxes when perisex people are done using us, I'm tired of our community being derisively talked over from all sides, I'm tired of the fetishization, the envy, the belittling, and of still having to meekly and respectfully beg for a seat at the table in discussions of gendered oppression!

Because calling it bigotry shuts down all conversation that makes them uncomfies.

The ways I see other trans women rationalise a material disconnect between us and cis men in our brains, mentalities, formative experiences, largely fall into two categories: literal magical thinking, that such a thing exists as a male and a female soul and that trans women are female souls born in AMAB bodies, or a discussion of upbringing and socialisation.

Now, 'Socialised male' is an ugly talking point I associate with TERFs trying to downplay the existence of transmisogyny. Of course most trans women do not experience male privilege simply because of certain aspects of their childhood and upbringing. However, I cannot help but acknowledge certain qualities I had as a teen and young adult I have had to contend with. I was absolutely a misogynist as a teen, and engaged in behaviour that today would be called incel-ish.

In spite of this I would say that most of my childhood was otherisation in a way I look back on in retrospect as degendering. My life was a contradiction, since my biology had me forcibly grouped in with boys, but my external characteristics had me continually bullied as effeminate. I was outcast by either group. I did not know what I was, as no one could tell me.

Now this is certainly a classic story that I'm sure most trans women relate to, but I don't believe it is one unique to us. One that we have a monopoly on. I knew disabled or autistic boys who went through everything I did but worse. Other boys who would grow up to find they were some form of queer. Non-white boys. Poor boys (Not that any of us were rich, but some were certainly poorer than others.) Simply any boy who broke the norm in some way. I will never hate men because men are not a monolith. There is no trait universally shared by men besides the arbitrarily applied social label of "Man", which I myself share in many aspects. I would certainly say there is a particular type of man I dislike, but it is one difficult to define beyond saying "Misogynistic and otherwise privileged."

Except that you could say that about many many many things.

I love this place, I love you people, but wow do I feel like I need several disclaimers, a caveat, and a footnote with almost every post I make.

Except that you could say that about many many many things.

Except that you could say that about many many many things.

Istg if I have early onset cancer....

_

1 "First of all, I’m a “wheelie” too. I’m supposed to be in an electric chair but I hated a chair & the joystick so the evaluating physical therapist suggested a zero turn scooter with shocks. I felt safer. I understand why some people use “wheelchair bound”. They want to clarify there isn’t an option for them or their loved one because so many people abuse wheelchairs to get pre boarding privileges and such. It’s just terminology to indicate it’s medically necessary upfront. No disrespect nor ill intentions meant.

There are many of us that are ambulatory. We can walk a little bit but not really walk any distance nor stand any amount of time. It varies from person to person or even from day to day. We understand that but the general public does not.

I prefer to use the terminology that I am “Wheel enabled” because without my scooter I literally can’t go anywhere. My scooter is my legs. I can barely walk in my small house, but I can’t go to the store or anywhere else without my scooter. It enables me to go & live and have freedom. It’s so important to me I own several. So if one has an issue I can still go. I have different sizes. One specific for cruises and one for the yard with bigger wheels that I get very dirty."

2 "As a full time wheelchair user, my chair is literally bound to my existence, as I can’t do anything without it. That’s neither good nor bad, but a simple fact of my diagnosis."

Anyway yeah, wheelchair is legs for me too, I can't walk much even in my own house either. I am indifferent to wheelchair bound as a term, because yeah, whether I like it or not, I need that thing.

I also like the context shift idea. Though many of those positive uses of bound indicate "going to" and I'm not going to the wheelchair, I'm already in it 😂

Not to be rude, but ableism is so normalized that you're significantly more likely to believe it's just a harmless meme/joke/poking fun.

Yeah it can be amusing and lighthearted, from the perspective of a person that just happens to have a late job, or set times, or just likes staying up late or hates being up in the morning.