So, as many of you know (I mean just look at my URL lol) I am Intersex.
But what does that mean?
In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, the 13th annual Intersex Awareness Day (a fortuitous number, since age 13 is a very common age for people to discover hey are intersex!) I thought I would try my hand at making a little informational post.
This will be a bit different from my usual stuff, and perhaps hopefully a little more accessible to people who aren’t familiar with the subject!
What is “intersex”?
Intersex is a personal and political identification that people adopt to empower ourselves in light of having certain medical conditions!
The simplest definition I can give is that intersex people are people whose primary sex characteristics do not fall into the ranges associated with the typical model of male or female!
So it’s people who have “both kinds” of genitals right?
Not really!
Some intersex people do have what are called “ambiguous genitalia,” which can look and even function sexually like “having both,” this is not the only type of intersexuality.
Do not just go around asking people about their genitals. If you have any need to know, the person involved will tell you. Otherwise, let it be.
Okay, so what makes someone intersex then?
Having one of the several dozen conditions referred to collectively as “disorders of sexual development” (also referred to as differences in sexual development, and as intersex variations).
Basically, there are two medical models to be aware of.
The model of the perisex male: male assignment, XY chromosomes, testes, penis, and as an adult, testosterone dominant hormones.
The model of the perisex female: female assignment, XX chromosomes, vagina and vulva, ovaries, and as an adult, estrogen dominant hormones.
If you fall outside these two models in any way, then you can call yourself intersex!
What about transitioning, then? Doesn’t that make you intersex?
Nope! Intersex conditions are in-born. If you are using medical intervention to achieve traits that fall outside the persex male and perisex female ranges, that doesn’t make you intersex.
Intersex variations are congenital and inborn.
That said, there are some rare cases of people whose bodies are “otherwise perisex” but who were forcibly assigned the “opposite” binary gender at birth, usually as a result of medical malpractice or severe genital injury.
These people absolutely have the right to claim the intersex identity as well.
Well, can you be trans and intersex, then?
Absolutely!
Anyone can be trans: it just requires identifying outside of the gender assignment you were given at birth, or, in some cases, adopting the term to make your gender identity understandable to white and/or western people who do not have an analogous gender role in their cultures.
Being intersex doesn’t prevent you from determining that the gender you were assigned doesn’t fit right.
Cool! So you can also be cis and intersex, yeah?
Kind of, but not quite.
Intersex people do not experience protection and prioritization under cisnormativity. As a result, calling intersex people who identify with their assigned gender “cis” is very misleading.
Because of this, a lot of intersex activists suggest the inclusion of the word ipsogender into our vocabularies! Ipso comes from the same chemical and latin roots as cis and trans, but rather than meaning “on the other side” (trans) or “on the same side” (cis), ipso means “in the same place as,” and refers to the fact that an intersex person’s intersex identity has been replaced with the pericis concept of gender assignment.
Pericis???
Pericis simply means people and social forces based on perisex (that is, nonintersex) and cisgender (that is, neither trans or nonbinary) people.
Here’s a brief run down of terms you might see around:
Perisex: someone who is not intersex
Perisexism and/or perinormativity: The normalization, protection and prioritization of perisex people in society.
Dyadic: An alternative term for perisex. It often has severely ableist and racist connotations, so unless you are intersex yourself, be wary of using it.
Dyadism: The normalization, protection and prioritization of dyadic people in society.
Forcibly Assigned Sex At Birth: (FAFAB, FAMAB, FASAB, FAGAB) A gender assignment experience unique to uintersex people, wherein one’s gender was surgically or medically forced on you in infancy or childhood.
Incorrect/Intersex Assigned Gender At Birth: (IAFAB, IAMAB, IASAB, IAGAB). For intersex people whose genders were not forcibly assigned through medical violence.
Assigned Intersex/X at Birth: AIAB, AXAB. In some places, “intersex” and “X” are possible birth assignment. So, there are people out there who were night assigned male or female at birth. They may or may not have subsequently been raised as male/female.
Intergender: The state of being intersex and having a gender identity that is influenced by that fact.
Intersex as gender identity: Many intersex people, such as Kelly Keenan, the second Legally Nonbinary person in America, use “intersex” as their gender identity. In this way, intersex can sometimes be considered a gender identity, even though it is usually separated from other gender identity terminology.
Hermaphrodite: This one is often a sexualizing, dehumanizing slur. However, it is within the reclamation process and has been for a couple of decades now, albeit patchily. Some people identify as being hermaphrodites, in which case, by all means, call them this. But don’t use this word to describe intersex people or organizations unless or until you know that it is a word they use for themselves.
Okay, so this all sounds really medical, why do you keep contextualizing it in terms of queerness, gender, etc?
Well, because it’s both.
Intersex people experience huge amounts of often extremely violent ableism, ranging from the most well known examples (genital mutilation and forced feminization/masculinization) to pervasive but fairly quiet things like “intersex” not being an option on medical forms, and doctors not knowing how to deal with our unique medical needs. In fact, many intersex people go undiagnosed for decades of our lives, to serious personal detriment.
But we also experience vicious social backlash stemming from the same place as other forms of queer antagonism: an absolute inability to perform all facets of gender correctly.
Even if we identify within our assigned gender, even if we are only attracted to cis people of the opposite assignment, even if that attraction is complete and typical and has no divergent aspects such as relationship models or asexuality, we are nevertheless persecuted for not living up to those standards.
Intersex antagonism is a form of ableism, undoubtedly. It is also a form of queer antagonism.
Much like many intersex people, our oppressions are simultaneously neither and both. Our identities are complicated, and so are the ways that we are attacked for having them.
So… intersex people are LGBT+? I heard that intersex people don’t want to be called part of that community?
A handful of intersex people on tumblr do not get to speak for us all, and we have been active voices in these communities for generations. These spaces are our homes, and you will not evict us from them.
There is a reason that the official acronym in so many districts is LGBTI. There is a reason that the expanded acronym is LGBTQIAP+. The I is for Intersex, and it belongs to us.
We have the same right to be here as anyone else.
What about queer? Are intersex people queer?
If they choose to identify as queer, then yes. Your queer spaces should always be intersex friendly.
What kind of issues do intersex people face?
Primarily, we are hit by medical violence, erasure, and social stigma.
We are often subject to conversion therapies and forced medical procedures. Even in the event that our parents aren’t willing to have our bodies mutilated, that refusal can be used as evidence that they are unfit parents, and we can be removed from our homes and subjected to this violence by state care facilities.
We receive poor medical care, and have high incidents of comorbid conditions that dramatically shorten our lifespans and reduce our quality of life. Even for those of us without severe life threatening complications from our variation s(which is the majority of us), the poor application of medical models we don’t fit leads to being given medications and procedures that can kill or permanently maim us. We often experience side effects to even seemingly innocuous treatments that can create serious complications.
Doctors often focus on making our bodies as normative as possible, instead of focusing on our health and comfort. And as a result, our families and communities often do the same, robbing us of any sense of support or autonomy.
We are often conflated with trans people, and face similar types of interpersonal violence. All the horrific social violence that the gender binary inflicts on other people, it inflicts on us as well.
We are told that we don’t exist, or that we exist only as sexual fantasies. That we are freaks of nature, that we are oddities to be examined and discarded. We are erased, trampled over, and even when someone claims to be looking out for us, they are often using us as a weapon against other queer people. We are isolated from each other. We are subject to all the traumatic psychological effects of that.
This is some heavy stuff. Can wrap this up on a lighter note? How about intersex pride stuff?
Sure thing!
This is the intersex pride flag:
#eye strain
It is a bright yellow field, with a thick purple ring centered on it. Pretty cool, huh? A bit of a divergence from the typical queer flag, but then, ours is a bit of a divergence from the typical queer experience!
The flag is meant to symbolize that we are neither male nor female (through the yellow) and yet that we may also be both male and female (through the purple), but that no matter what, we are whole and complete beings unto ourselves (through the unbroken ring).
It can be a bit hard to look at on computer screens. I promise, the colors are less dramatic in real life!
For digital purposes, you can use just about any shades of yellow and purple that you want, and there are certainly less straining versions out there.
Here’s some fun pride graphics too!
[Image description: Friendly looking bubble text reading Intersex Pride. The e’s in intersex and i in pride are purple, while all over letters are yellow. From The Telegram sticker set “pride”.]
[Image description: a grey scale drawing of an individual with a soft smile and closed eyes. They are wearing a head scarf in yellow, with a purple ring framing their face. Drawing by Danshing-yehet]
[Image description: A drawing of a dragon curled around a heart reading “pride.” The dragon and heart are yellow, with a purple ring on top of them. Design by catalystic rising.]
[Image description: Revolutionary Queer flag, intersex version. A yellow field with two violet chevrons, the upper pastel and the lower a stronger and darker violet. The chevrons are separated by a cream band. Design by Bizexuals.]
If you yourself are, or suspect yourself to be, intersex, then there is also the tag #ActuallyIntersex here on tumblr. As with any queer and/or disability tag, please be careful as it can be rife with discourse and with people on both sides of major issues.
I strongly do not recommend the blog actuallyintersex, however, as they have a strong habit of blocking, silencing, and being party to hate tactics against the voices of any intersex person who disagrees with their exclusionary politics.
Anyway, I hope this has been an enlightening experience for you, and I look forward to seeing you all on the 26th of October!
The climactic scene of The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam reach the Cracks of Doom, is one of my favorite scenes in all of literature. So I was very interested a little while back when noted Tolkien scholar Stephen Colbert laid out a neat little analysis of the scene. Frodo seems to fail at his appointed task – rather than throwing the ring into the fire, he claims it for himself, and the ring is only destroyed by the coincidental intervention of Gollum. Colbert then notes that Gandalf should have known that Frodo would fail. Back in the second chapter, Frodo demonstrated to Gandalf his inability to throw the ring into the much cooler fires of his own hearth, after having only possessed the ring for a few hours. Therefore, one may assume, Gandalf must have intended for one of the other members of the Fellowship to intervene and ensure the ring’s destruction.
Colbert’s analysis is clever, in the same way that the theory that Gandalf had intended all along to use the eagles to reach Mordor is clever. In its cleverness, though, I think such analyses risk treating LotR as a D&D campaign and thus losing sight of the real literary themes of the story.
One of Tolkien’s key themes is the Augustinian view of evil. Most genre fiction takes a decidedly Manichean view of evil – a view that holds that evil and good are two great opposing forces in the world, like the light and dark sides of The Force. In a Manichean view, good must triumph by opposing evil, either to eradicate it or to restore a balance to the universe.
Manichean views of evil lead to a very common type of climax to stories: the contest of wills. Our hero confronts the villain, and through superior courage, grit, love, or what-have-you, they overcome the villain and their evil power. It’s Harry going wand-to-wand with Voldemort, Thomas Covenant laughing at Lord Foul, Meg breaking IT’s hold over Charles Wallace, Luke facing down Vader and Vader facing down the Emperor.
Any other writer could have given us a very typical Manichean Cracks of Doom scene. Frodo approaches the fire, and the ring’s temptation overtakes him. He puts the ring on and begins to claim it. But a tiny voice somewhere deep inside him insists that this is wrong. Sam cries out, and thinking about Sam’s love and devotion rekindles a spark in Frodo. His Hobbitish desire for food and good cheer wells up, and he tears the ring off and throws it into the fire. A dramatic ending and a nice echo of the moral of The Hobbit.
But that’s not what happens. Frodo’s goodness – even the innocent goodness of a little old Hobbit – can’t go toe-to-toe with Sauron’s evil. Indeed, Isildur proved it. He defeated Sauron by opposing him with the force of good, and defeated him. But Isildur couldn’t destroy the ring, and within the year it had destroyed him.
Tolkien holds instead to an Augustinian view of evil. Evil, according to St. Augustine, is not a force of its own, but rather is the absence or corruption of good. We see this most explicitly in the idea that Morgoth and Sauron can’t create anything of their own, but only corrupt and warp what has been created by others. We also see it when Gandalf and Galadriel describe what would happen if they took the ring – it would warp their own desire to do good until they became evil.
An Augustinian climax can’t involve a contest of wills between good and evil. In an Augustinian world, evil can only exist by leeching off of good. So evil must be given an opportunity to destroy itself, much like the self-defeating band of thieves described by Plato (on whose philosophy Augustine drew heavily). Good wins by renouncing evil, not by overcoming it.
And that’s exactly what happens at the Cracks of Doom. The ring isn’t destroyed because Frodo’s force of good overcame the ring’s evil. Nor is Gollum’s intervention a coincidence or deus ex machina (like the series of disarmings that happened to make Harry the master of the Elder Wand). Rather, the ring’s evil collapsed in on itself by drawing Gollum. The very corruption of Gollum that enabled the ring to escape the river drove him to wrestle desperately with Frodo for it and ultimately fall to his doom, ring in hand.
An Augustinian view of evil has definite moral implications, which are also shown throughout The Lord of the Rings. A Manichean world is a consequentialist world. To defeat the forces of evil, we need to think strategically. Sometimes we may even need to indulge in a little short-term evil in order to be able to achieve the greater good. But an Augustinian world can’t allow that kind of pragmatic approach. In an Augustinian world, any compromise with evil can only strengthen it, giving it an infusion of good that delays its self-destruction. An Augustinian world demands a deontological ethic, doing the right thing regardless of the outcome.
Again and again in The Lord of the Rings, we see that strategically pursuing the greater good fails, while remaining true to moral principles succeeds even when it looked foolish. On the cautionary side, we have Saruman and Denethor. Though they may point to the palantir as an excuse, they each ultimately made a thoroughly reasonable choice in the face of Sauron’s overwhelming advantage – to ally with him while playing the long game, or to give in to despair. Our heroes, on the other hand, repeatedly make foolish decisions based on hope. Aragorn is a good example – he decides to pursue Merry and Pippin because he owes them protection even though Frodo is the one who holds the fate of the world in his hands. Later, he decides to make a suicide attack on the Morannon rather than hunkering down in Minas Tirith, in the hopes of Frodo’s quest succeeding.
But the most important instance of doing the right thing despite the consequences comes from Frodo himself: he refuses to kill Gollum. Killing Gollum would have been an eminently reasonable idea – he’s a slinker and a stinker, and we know that he never redeemed himself or turned over a new leaf. Indeed, his main accomplishments were to lead Frodo and Sam into a death trap, then to try to kill them with his own hands at the Cracks of Doom. Both Sam and Faramir were right when they said that killing Gollum would have been a good idea!
But Frodo showed Gollum pity and spared his life because it was the right thing to do. And just like Gandalf could see Frodo’s unwillingness to destroy the ring back in Bag End, he also addressed this very issue. He instructed Frodo:
Frodo: It’s a pity Bilbo didn’t kill him when he had the chance.
Gandalf: Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo’s hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.
And in the end, that pity was what saved the world. Frodo’s pity made it possible for Gollum to be there at the Cracks of Doom to take the ring. Frodo refused to give in to the small, reasonable evil of killing Gollum, and so he left the great evil of the ring exposed to destroy itself. That was Gandalf’s backup plan, not Aragorn’s strength to take the ring and destroy it. And so Frodo didn’t really fail. He succeeded at his quest back when he saved Gollum’s life, when he did the right thing even though it seemed foolish.
why do all the older apple emojis seem to have that ugly pillow-shading? that shape is great but go easy on the airbrush next time. 2/5 you didn’t try hard enough
oh my god google, what the fresh hell is this??? wrong shape, wrong colors, im so upset by this image, 0/5 what have you done to them
now THIS is an alien! loving the green skin tone and bright, alert eyes. if only they didn’t have those weird cheek-bones. 4/5 don’t reference bendybrundle curdledmilk next time
wow!!! look at those colors!!! good job on keeping a consistent light source, but it still looks a little pillow-shade-y. the navy eyes are a nice touch. 4/5 i just love a good color gradient
OH GOD!!! i didn’t think we could get any worse than google!!! everything about this emoji is a nightmare!!! -3/5 OH GOD NO
ah, here we go! here’s a nice, good-looking alien. i like the rhythmos of the circle that the bottom of the eyes form with the top of the head, but it ends up making it have a less-desirable head shape. 4/5 good job referencing ancient greek artistic principles
oh jeez… this one isn’t as bad as LG, but it’s not very nice to look at… the head shape is nice but something just feels really off about this one… 2/5 makes me uncomfortable
okay, i can appreciate what you were trying to do with the cell shading, and i admit it’s a big step up from smooth shading, but you really didn’t have to make it so uncomfortably detailed. the head is a little lopsided in shape. 3/5 nice concept, poor execution
oh WOW!!! now, this really is a great alien! it does everything apple and the other grey alien emojis tried to do, but better in every conceivable way. good job!!! 5/5 most instantly recognizable iconic alien
oh no… oh you poor dear, just look at how sad those eyes are… the mouth is smiling but the poor thing just looks so depressed inside… the sad, blue-grey hue isn’t helping its cause either. 1/5 relatable but too uncomfortably depressing
this one is pretty good! i like the light shade of green. not sure how i feel about those eyelids, though. the head shape could be improved. 4/5 pretty alright alien
1. fuck, marry, kill: Karl Marx, Charles V, Bismarck
HGFJKGFGHFG marry Charles V bc then i’m a monarch, fuck Karl Marx, kill Bismarck (what even iS THIS)
2. marry, cuddle, sleep with: Dave, John, Bro
oh u h THIS ISNT EASY probably cuddle Dave, marry John… then sleep with Bro, by default :T
3. fuck, take a bullet for, murder: Ash, Brock, Misty
THEY ARE ALL LITERAL CHILDREN I WOULD TAKEA BULLET FOR ALL OF THEM THEM ANY DAY NO MURDER NO FUCKING
4. adopt, be adopted by, marry: Jack Crawford, Will, Hannibal
marry Will, then i’m Hesitating bc like… being adopted by Hannibal is no guarantee of survival (especially when your name is a variant of Abigail WHICH MINE IS) but then i also don’t want him as my son lmao… yeah i guess be adopted by Hannibal and adopt Jack
5. kill, betray, have on your zombie apocalypse team: Dero Goi, Wesselsky, Noel Pix
Dero on my zombie apocalypse team he rocks. betray Wesselsky (i’m sorry :c) and kill Noel Pix (sorry again :c)
see a movie with, have a sleepover with, make dinner for: Equius,
Horuss, Executioner Darkleer
sleepover with Horuss. we can build things!! probably make dinner for Equius (with lots of dairy stuff for the STRONG bones) and see a movie with Darkleer lmao i don’t even know what kind of movie he’d like but that would be an Experience for sure
kiss, blog with, marry: TZ, Latula,
Redglare
marry Latula… the most r4d1c4l w3dd1ng ever… then blog with Terezi (honestly that’d be a blast) and kiss Redglare
cry with, tell a story to, do karaoke with: Dammek, Xefros,
Cridea
cry with Xefros he looks like someone who’d be cathartic to Have A Cry with. do karaoke with Dammek and tell a story to Cridea bc then we can make that story into a meme
go shopping with, send a post card to, have a book club with:
Grandpa Harley, Joey, Jude
send a postcard to Grandpa Harley just because, then i’d probably have a book club with Jude and go shopping with Joey (i don’t really like shopping but we can shop for like… food or something right)
fuck, marry, kill: Doc Scratch, Lord
English, Caliborn
NO O O OHOL Y FUCKL E NO fgjhkfg this is terrible. this is terrible and i refuse to play by the rules i am killing ALL THREE
queerhomestuck 