I was born intersex and, despite being forced into multiple masculinizing surgeries between ages 8-9, I turned out non-binary.

I find it interesting to contemplate the definition of trans, and how it applies to my case. Am I trans because I was assigned male and forced to be one, but identify differently? Or am I cis because I was born intersex?

To be clear, I believe the definitions don’t really matter, and I can identify however I feel fits best. I just think it’s kind of a funny situation (not the surgeries- that was not okay)

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The only thing that I learned from this image is to respect people, which was part of my plan since the begging.

Tangent warning! Also, warning for terminology that is now considered unacceptable, but is necessary for the relevant anecdote.

I’m telling this story with the intent of giving people that may not have run across intersex people in person a perspective on the matter. Familiarity spawns acceptance and understanding, imo. So even second hand familiarity might be enough for someone to have an extra bit of understanding when they do meet an intersex person, or that’s the hope.

So, I have a friend years ago that is intersex. This being the south, and their family being on the undereducated side of things, they used a term for themselves that is now considered a directly negative term, rather than an aspect of language: morphadite.

They were born with external genitalia that was visually closer to female, and were thus assigned that sex. Their parents, however, chose not to allow surgeries, and were surprisingly unphased by the situation when you consider their level of education and upbringing. The mom had said at several points “if the Lord saw fit to give us a good baby, and he did, we hain’t got no cause to be complaining about it”.

Like many people, they didn’t quite understand the word hermaphrodite. It was not just them, most people that would discuss the idea of intersex people would also use morphadite rather than hermaphrodite, and not out of any sense of meanness, it was just a mispronounced thing that became what people thought was the right word.

Back then, the term intersex hadn’t spread into usage much at all. Even doctors would use the term hermaphrodite on paperwork, and in speech.

Now, my friend still uses morphadite when talking about themselves because old habits are hard to break, but uses the currently preferred term intersex when discussing the subject in general, or when referring to other intersex people. They have known for a long time now that morphadite was never the term to begin with, but find a degree of joy in that fact. They’ve said that it makes them remember their parents when they think of or use the word, and that’s a good thing to them.

For a long while, they used hermaphrodite when talking about others, as the term intersex didn’t reach here until maybe a decade ago, if that. The term hermaphrodite was still considered a neutral term back then, it didn’t carry any sense of hate to it in use here, it was thought to be the accurate medical term.

That friend went through some shifts over the years regarding their self perception in gender. When we first met, they thought of themselves as a boy with girl parts. As time passed, they explored presenting as female, and found it didn’t feel right. But, they ended up enjoying some aspects of female presentation and clothing.

It wasn’t until maybe six years ago that they ran across the idea of non binary as a term for what they’ve felt and thought for most of their adult life, and now consider themselves non binary, though they don’t have a preference regarding pronouns among people that have known them for a long time. They introduce themselves with neutral pronouns when giving pronouns is useful, and say that it feels the most right to them, but that gendered pronouns don’t feel wrong, so they don’t care when people use the ones that “she” or “he” was using at those points in their life.

There’s a lot of history of intersex people and how they’ve been integrated into different cultures. The idea of it being a medical condition to be treated is, personally, ready to be disposed of. There may well be medical issues associated with being intersex, but that’s no different than medical issues stemming from being born with a proclivity towards being unusually hairy. Being intersex is just being human. It doesn’t need correction, and any surgeries or treatment should be about being healthy and functional, rather than conforming to the assumption of binary sex as the default option.

That assumption of having to surgically alter intersex people to conform to the binary is a relatively recent thing to begin with. Most of the cultures that addressed it legally only did so because of inheritance being gendered in the first place. There hasn’t always been a stigma, or an assumption of intersex being a disorder. Historically, from what I’ve run across over the years, there seems to have been an acceptance of it as being a difference rather than something that is abnormal.

So, for whatever it’s worth as second hand familiarity, there it is. Intersex people are out there, and they’re part of the wonderful tapestry of human diversity.

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What I’m getting from the diagram is that there are men, there are women, and there are wealthy people from the 15th to 16th century (or so) with various sizes of the fluffy trunk hose.

with the qualification that cosmetic surgery on an infant is pretty fucked; what i don’t get about this is using the size of the phallus to judge which way to “correct” the genitalia, that feels like an absolutely insane metric even if you actually think the surgery itself is fine.

Surely the vagina/testicles form before birth? I don’t recall ever hearing about how babies have their groin open up or seal shut which ought to be a rather remarkable event for parents to witness.
So why wouldn’t you use those features to determine the sex of an infant if you truly must perform cosmetic surgery on them? How the hell does it make sense to see a pair of testes and snip off the penis? Who thinks that is the better outcome?

Great post! What’s the difference between this flag and the yellow one with the purple circle?