Alright, we decided to finally make a post on this issue, since it's gone unchecked for way too long. What issue? A lot of y'all in this sub are extremely fucking confident about spreading misinformation about intersex people, and we're fucking sick of it just being accepted and never corrected. "Oh but why don't you correct them then" because it's so fucking common, and I don't have the time to educate every single person on this subreddit, nor is it our duty to do so. Not to mention, the hate one often receives when making corrections. So, we decided to make a post to hopefully educate most of the people here at the same time. These are in no particular order.
1. To start, since a lot of y'all don't seem to even know what an intersex person is, an intersex person is a person who's natal sexual characteristics (chromosomes, genitals, sexual organs, hormones, ect...) fall outside the typical male/female binary, which means this is how their body naturally develops without outside factors interfering. That's it. Perisex refers to non-intersex people, it is not a slur, just like cisgender isn't one.
2. Next, most intersex people aren't "AXAB" or "AIAB" most intersex people end up either being "AFAB" or "AMAB." Using this point to also point out that there is no "AFAB/AMAB anatomy" not only does that ignore intersex people that were forced into these categories, it also ignores the fact that some people transition, or otherwise alter their body. Also, these acronyms refer to a past event, so past tense should be used when talking about these. It's also "people ASAB" not "ASAB people." The last two are pure grammatical nitpicks, but we don't care, taking the opportunity to point that out as well.
3. A lot of intersex people are put through non-consensual medical interventions by doctors to make them fit the category doctors decided to put them in. These non-consensual acts aren't us being 'lucky' they're acts of violence and it's about time some of y'all stop fetishisinzing it.
4. You do not need a diagnosis to be intersex, holy shit a lot of y'all are hypocritical on this one. You can't both be pro self-diagnosis and then turn around and say intersex people need a diagnosis to be valid. Not only do we often face a lot of medical abuse due to being intersex as mentionned above, but doctors also love to gaslight people into believing they're not actually intersex when they are. Not to mention, doctors often go out of their way to hide the intersex variations from the intersex person. And that's still not the end of it! At the end of the day, if you genuinely believe you have an intersex variation, you can say you are intersex! And it's up to you whether you want to try your luck with doctors to get it diagnosed if you want (if there's even a diagnosis for your variation!)
5. Intersex people isn't "biologically nonbinary" and everytime you call an intersex animal "biologically nonbinary" you contribute to our erasure, even if unvolontary. Also, 'hermaphrodite' is a slur so stop using it??? No it's not okay to use it for animals either. There's plenty of other words that can be used instead. Here's a diagram that was shared by bigfatalligator in the comments of words you should use instead, depending on the context of the species.
6. Kinda following the last point, but a whole species cannot be intersex, being intersex is having sexual characteristics that are outside of the binary that's established for the species, so if the whole species has those sexual characteristics, it's not intersex. Which also means characters from such species aren't intersex representation either.
7. Intersex people can be cisgender, transgender, neither or both. We can also be nonbinary. We can be any gender, or even none. Not sure why some people still think we all must be x or y. Also just because an intersex person is nonbinary, doesn't make them cisgender. Can an intersex nonbinary person identify as cisgender? Yes, so can a perisex nonbinary person. Can an intersex nonbinary person identify otherwise? Also yes, and so can perisex nonbinary folks!
8. No your headmate isn't intersex if you're bodily perisex, and cannot reclaim the intersex slurs if you're bodily perisex. There's other words to describe this, such as 'innosex' but intersex refers to the outerworld body, and isn't to be used if you're not bodily intersex.
9. You cannot transition to being intersex. Intersex is something you are born as, and is the way your body naturally develops. Not only that, but it implies intersex people who were forced into non-consensual medical interventions were 'transitioned to being perisex' and no longer intersex, which is a harmful way of thinking. Please use other labels such as 'altersex.'
10. Y'all need to stop using intersex-exclusive labels if you're you're perisex. Not even going to elaborate, this one should be obvious. Same goes for intersex symbols, it's very frequent for us to find intersex symbols used to represent nonbinary people instead. Stop that.
11. It's very obvious when you make a post about something without considering for even 5 seconds intersex people and their experiences. It's also very disheartening to see, because we get excluded from/ignored in queer conversations constantly. Just because we often don't bring it up due to fear of backlash doesn't mean we don't notice it when you exclude us.
12. Probably said it already but saying it again for good mesure, intersex ≠ nonbinary. Sex ≠ Gender, and we're honestly not sure how y'all can agree with the later but not the former.
13. We can agree that asking a trans person for their genitals or what medical procedures they've had is very inappropriate and invasive, right? Then why do some of y'all think it's appropriate to ask random intersex people about their genitals or variation(s)? It's just as inappropriate, and we see a lot of people being hypocritical on this.
There's probably more we could add on, but writing this post was exhausting, and it's so long already, so we'll stop it right there.
– Kris (They/It) , N (Any "He/Him" Variation) , El (He/They) , Nat (He/She) , Ty (He/It) & Archive (Any/All)
