@00dani to say 'intersex people are inherently trans/cis' is a quick way to shrug us off and rob us of our own unique identity. Some of us identify that way, but telling us we have to is not only ignorant of intersex issues and identities, but extraordinarily disrespectful.
As for medical care, if you say you are intersex in any medical environment, you encounter what we call Intersex Broken Arm, where doctors are 'incapable' of treating an intersex person regardless of condition or procedure.

@squirrellilly @00dani this ^

@squirrellilly im familiar with broken arm syndrome yeah, it's a common problem for trans people as well

im. still confused abt being neither trans nor cis tho? to me those words mean "was assigned an incorrect gender at birth" and "was assigned the correct gender at birth" respectively, it seems like the only other possibility is not being assigned a gender at birth? ​

which is possible, but from what i understand that's not what happens for intersex ppl, you still get assigned a binary gender at birth, potentially with nonconsensual surgery involved because society fucking sucks, right?

yes btw, certainly i'm ignorant of this, that's why i'm asking about it ​

@00dani This really isn't my job to explain to you. If you don't understand why what you're suggesting is offensive, there's plenty of ways to search for that information. I've explained as much as I feel I need to.
As it is you've come at us in a weirdly aggressive way out of nowhere twice now, and I'm going to ask you not to do that again, please.

@raeaw i mean they were only assigned one gender at birth, right? most likely the same one the doctors use

perceived gender in different situations doesn't necessarily correspond to assigned gender, but that's true for basically everyone. the way people perceive others' genders is weird and complicated and unreliable

so. idk

@00dani i'll say it again because i think this is the root of the disconnect: intersex isn't a gender

these are different binaries entirely, orthogonal, and the risks we face on account of it being defined to exclude us are different as well

for one thing, bioessentialism makes even less sense when applied to us than when applied to trans folks, because our existence demonstrates that the concept of binary sex is as fundamentally bankrupt as that of binary gender. but that doesn't stop the hegemonic society from trying to enforce it on us anyway, when it notices us. they usually do that with knives.

me personally, sure, i've been lucky! 47,XXY is often pretty invisible unless you look for it, and my phenotype as an infant and young child was not such as to attract a dangerous kind of medical concern. but no matter however fortunate any one of us is in that way, we still have to carry the knowledge that we might not have been. and however well any one of us might be able to look after themself, we still have to carry the knowledge that there are babies like us born every day who *can't*, yet

and me personally, sure, i am trans! but i'm not trans on account of being intersex, and i would still be trans if i had one fewer X chromosome. which is the whole point: we're not cis or trans, we're intersex, and that's not the same as either. the hazards we face on account of it are unique, and the joys we celebrate on account of it are unique, and that's why it's a disservice to conflate the two or try to subsume one into the other.

i hope that helps explain somewhat why this went the way that it did! for more, look up the Darlington Statement, specifically point 8 on this topic but it's worth reading the whole thing while you're there

...i guess it would've been useful to notice this was a four day old thread *before* replying in it, but it's still worth saying, so

@alexis i mean, yeah, i know intersex isn't a gender? ​ i didn't think i was claiming that it was one tho

intersex folks are typically still assigned a binary gender at birth, right? in a way that's even more arbitrary than it is for dyadic folks?

i guess i'm confused because everything you said makes sense, and so i still don't understand where the disconnect is happening

@00dani on review maybe the disconnect is happening in your apparent assumption, which i previously overlooked, that "we go into the hospital and say we're cis or trans" might mean that we aren't, or can't be, cis or trans.

the point of that statement isn't about how we experience or perform gender; it is purely about trying to navigate a medical system that has no way to cope with our existence save to cut off whatever parts don't fit its institutional sense of comfort, and if that isn't an option just vapor-locks entirely.

it isn't meant to be an axiomatic claim about the nature of gender for intersex people, it's just talking about a tactic that's necessary and should not be. sometimes it requires minimizing our intersex selves, sometimes it means disclaiming them entirely, sometimes in rare and fortunate cases we can actually admit to being what we are, *without* having the people we rely on to help us in desperate need immediately shit themselves blind assuming every problem we have is something to do with our chromosomes or our androgen binding sites or whatever - but that last one, only sometimes. barely ever, if we're honest! the rest of the time, we're forced to dissemble and hope it all works out okay, because we know it almost certainly won't if we don't.

for example: i grew tits when i hit puberty. that happens a lot with 47,XXY and so does breast cancer, and boy howdy ain't it gonna be a whole day of fun if i ever find a lump in my breast and have to go in for a mammogram! i've already had to self-treat a kidney infection secondary to UTI with fish mox because good fucking luck getting a doctor to take that presentation seriously because men don't *get* UTIs, which isn't true even before we get to the fact that I'm not male. can't fix cancer with fish mox, though, so if that day ever does come, on top of being terrified of the possibility that I have cancer, I'll 99.99% likely be having to deal with a medical system that doesn't have a cozy little box to fit me in and might find it less confusing to let me grow metastases and die, than to get its fucking thumb out and try to save my life. and mentioning that i'm 47,XXY, or that i *like* my tits and they're a part of me and i want to keep them if i can, will make all that *more* complicated and not simpler. do you think that wish for bodily autonomy will likely be respected in that situation? i sure as hell wish i did!

so you see? that's what this is about, and that's *all* this is about, and even at that being 47,XXY means i've got it pretty easy because for most purposes i can get away with pretending to be male. the point is that we often face these situations in which we are required to be tactical and crafty in order to ensure that people will do medicine for us instead of trying to do science to us, or just ignore us entirely because by them that's just easier, and it shouldn't be that way.

as far as how we do experience and perform our gender, it's pretty much the same as how anyone else does, except in the parts where it isn't. which again is pretty much like how it is for anyone else - there are things about us that really are unique to people who are made like we are, but none of them is this one, and the reason you got an angry response is that you seemed to be hijacking a discussion of a way in which we are unique to talk about a way in which we aren't.

note that word "seemed!" i recognize that you were acting in good faith. unfortunately, acting in good faith is no guarantee of not goofing it, and goof it i'm afraid you did. as you already know, it doesn't feel great to be crammed into a binary that doesn't fit, no matter which one that happens to be, and while again i understand that is not what you were trying to do, it *feels* pretty indistinguishable from what you did do. there's a time and a place, you know? and while curiosity is in itself meritable, it is worth considering whether a declaration that someone exists is the time or the place for a detailed analysis and dissection of just *why* and *how* we exist.

there's a lesson worth drawing from that, but whether or not you do so is your concern, not mine, and i shan't belabor it further. in any case, i really do hope this has served somewhat to clarify!

if not, i'll point you again to the Darlington Statement: https://ihra.org.au/darlington-statement/ - that document has had much more thought put into it than I have to spare just now, and I have in any case had a long day which has left me somewhat tired. If that leaves you with more questions, please feel free to ask them! - no earlier than tomorrow.

@00dani i think neither cis nor trans is less about what one was assigned at birth and more about medical state? i'm by no means the right person to make statements on the topic but you did go a bit too far

@00dani @squirrellilly there's also non-cis non-trans non-binary people