i know it doesnt have to be "as bad" as it used to be for it to still be impacting me severely. i know others suffering doesnt make my pain any less real. and yet i am sitting here feeling severe guilt over smthn thats supposed to be "natural" bc it causes such excessive pain (even when i am medicated & take pain meds to help it) that i may have to completely rearrange my Saturday bc i am in no condition to do what i had planned and if the pain doesn't stop I'll have to cancel and ik its important to prioritize my health but also i wish i could just grit through the pain bc i feel so guilty cancelling 🙃

i have a question that i hope is not too vague to be answered.... if you have a trait that could be considered both within normal variation but also an intersex trait, and that is typically because in the intersex case it is because of an underlying medical reason and inner mechanism, would it not be possible for the case of it that does not have an underlying medical reason to be an intersex trait, mainly when you've had the weird reactions for it that's common from perisex people towards atypical sex traits and have been treated like you're bizarre for it (from medical professionals.....)? even if it technically is "within normal variation" with no medical component to it

(adding that i actually do not know which case it is for me yet and i already know i'm intersex for other reasons but this is just coming off like i have another intersex trait no matter which it is but its confusing since i have no clue if i have the actual medical reason behind it or if maybe just some of the medical professionals i've seen are just inexperienced)

**disclaimer: i am one intersex person. this is my view and other intersex people/communities may view this differently.**

this ask is a little confusing, and i can't really directly say yes or no without knowing what trait(s) you're talking about but... there are intersex people whose physical sex traits fit within the bounds of what's considered "normal," but still have an intersex variation. that intersex variation still impacts how their body functions - it's just to that, as far as appearance goes, it's to a much more subtle degree compared to someone who is visibly intersex (like me). but in someone without an intersex variation, traits within-bounds aren't intersex.. except for when they are. it's not a cut and dry line in the slightest.

i guess an example is me vs. my sister. i don't know if my sister also inherited the intersex variation, but odds are she did. and even though she passes as dyadic, she'd still be intersex. she's still struggled to fit within women's beauty norms, still experiences abnormal periods, will likely have fertility problems, still got (relatively) early puberty and maxed out at 4'11.. she's also hypermobile too (we may have CAH X Syndrome). although, of course, those are all things dyadic women can experience - it's just that if it's caused by an intersex variation, it adds an extra layer to the experience.

what marks intersex people is the fact our bodies (in appearance or function) don't conform to the sex binary and we have some kind of congenital factor that results in said sex variation (and often also reproductive disability). i know this is a medicalized view to some, but for me, it's more about embracing that intersexness is divergent on the axis of sex and ability - we're often not only oppressed for breaking the binary, but because our bodies do not function like dyadic, abled people's do. we face both queerphobia and ableism, due to a root cause (intersex variation/condition). we (as a group) don't have to disconnect ourselves from the "medical" side of our experiences to deserve rights (like, bodily autonomy and not being eugenics'd out of existence).

so yeah. maybe it's intersex, maybe it's not, but no matter what, your experiences are still important. intersex people aren't the only ones who struggle in regards to the binary (or the resulting discrimination and oppression that follows). i hope that, if you want it, you can figure out if you have an intersex variation. although, i will say that not every intersex variation has a diagnostic condition to back it... and sometimes intersex variation is as simple as the trait itself (like, clitoromegaly w/o a clear cause) which can make things even more confusing.