do you think of intersex as a spectrum? like including those who are intersex-adjacent (aka mesosex). I was thinking in making a flag but I can't elaborate much how defining it

Gonna add a big disclaimer that I'm not the coiner of the term mesosex, so I'm only answering this post as I understand the term.

I do see intersex (and sex as a whole) as a spectrum, but it seems like the point of mesosex is that it blurs the line between perisex and intersex. Perisex means near the binary, because no one really 100% fits it. Intersex is about being outside or between it.

So with how sex development and the binary work, there's no clear threshold for intersexuality. Even if someone has an intersex variation, they may fall outside the binary so "minorly" that they don't feel like they fit intersex or perisex experiences... and to that extent, Im not sure if mesosex was meant to cover trans perisex experiences or not, as i unsurely implied in another ask.

So my answer to this ask is... maybe?

i check your blog everyday to see if youre still alive

i really hope for the best for you. you helped me understand that its okay to embrace my bodily differences and have educated me more on intersex issues than any other place. thank you for the change youve made in the world.

awh gosh... <3 this ask means a lot to me... i greatly undervalue my importance in others' lives and i just. thank you. im really glad to have helped you, and everyone else i've helped.

Spock from star trek, preferably the original series? :-)

Sorry i only just got to this! Been a busy week! Qued for tmrw :o)

Is it just me or is being intersex in trans spaces deeply alienating?? Even trans people who supposedly have similar experiences to me seem to be nothing like me at all.

It is alienating... I do find things in common with other trans people but, there's still an air of separation... I don't talk about being intersex much because I'm nervous it's too personal to share - as if there's something inherently NSFW about my existence. And when I do talk about it, I feel alone, because I'm usually the only (openly/knowingly) intersex person in the room. I also really hate the amount of intersexism in online trans discourse.

Like I have a lot in common with dyadic trans people who've been on T for a while, but that commonality usually just ends up meaning my intersexuality is erased, because people think I'm a dyadic transmasc. It sucks, and transmasculinity is already invisible. I feel double invisible as a transmasc intersex person... especially one who's also transfem. So yeah. I relate, anon.

Is it common for intersex people to feel in between cis and trans? I know technically speaking I'd be considered a trans man, but between my actual experiences and how I feel, I'd place myself more in between trans man and cis man — maybe even both at the same time. Do many intersex people feel this way?

yup, its a thing! i personally feel the same way, or similar. technically trans man, but i also feel like a transfem guy and relate a lot to cis men. i actually feel more comfortable with cis men than cis women, not just because i'm a guy, but because i'm intersex.

i know intersex people who were AFAB but are cis guys, not even trans. you can be whoever and whatever feels best for you.

When I read feminist philosophy, I encountered a suggestion to look at human sex as a spectrum, with certain characteristics generally appearing together placing you closer to one end or another. Some of them encourage each other biologically, some socially/culturally. So for instance, higher levels of estrogen might encourage bigger breasts, thus they generally cluster, also with having a uterus and less facial hair, and identifying as a woman. Having many of the male cluster characteristics would put you further to the male end of the spectrum. This stayed with me. What I found appealing about this is that it doesn't put intersex people in a third, outsider category, nor separates male and female into fundamentally different opposites, it's just a bit more of this or a bit more of that. The other thing is that it recognizes sex changes, because you can acquire many of the cluster characteristics, for instance through hrt.

I'm not sure if I'm doing it justice here, but I am curious about what other people think??

yes that is very correct (at least as far as i'm aware)! and the idea of sex as a spectrum that all of us fall somewhere on is the crux of a lot of intersex activism. it shows that we're unfairly singled out and socially marked as wrong, mutated freaks of nature. when, in reality, we're just as natural as everyone else. we just have a different configuration that causes our sex traits to display themselves differently than others, or for our bodies to function differently.

it's the same core idea as in gender as a spectrum - even two non-queer women of similar status in society will have different experiences of their gender, similarly to how their bodies wouldn't work exactly the same in regards to hormones, reproductive ability, etc.

I read that some intersex variations have autism as part of them. is it more common for intersex people to be autistic than with dyadic people?

dont quote me on this but i think some variations do cause developmental disability and such, so i wouldnt be surprised if intersex people are more likely to be autistic. i could be wrong tho.

Are transmascfem and transfemmasc interchangeable? Or is there a difference between the two?

For example: somebody was transmasc first and then they were transfem? Or: somebody feels more strongly transmasc than transfem (while feeling both)?

Thanks!

They're interchangeable! But some may prefer one over the other based on their own interpretation, for the reasons you said.

Also sometimes I prefer transfemasc, to help prevent one from standing out over the other.

I was wondering if you could talk more about your transfem identity. I recently realized I'm "allowed" to be an afab trans woman and it was the biggest reprieve I felt from my anger and despair surrounding my body and gender for a long time.

It's hard to explain but, my transfemininity is about defying cis dyadic norms and allowing myself to be feminine in the body I'm in (or, trying to, at least). It's a fuck-you to the cispatriarchy and the people who hormonally reassigned me female. I don't need to change myself to be feminine (and sometimes a girl - but it's also about not needing to be a girl to be feminine). I can exist as I am and do gender however I want. It's gender and sex nonconformity.

It's also inner child healing, tbh. I was a very feminine and flamboyant child. I loved dressing up and playing model. But when puberty happened, between realizing I was a guy and the dysphoria on both sides (since it was a femininizing and masculinizing puberty), femininity felt increasingly off limits to me. I'd try to be feminine but, whenever I tried, I just felt. Wrong - not because I didn't like femininity but because, physically, I felt like a mistake.

So, masculinity has been my comfort for a long time. It's my safety blanket. I'm a butch, in practice. I do enjoy it, it does give me gender euphoria and pride (and its very cozy). But underneath it all, there's a femme, just waiting to be free again. I'm genderfluid and... sometimes I just want to look like a dainty pretty cis girl (while still being nonbinary and/or a man).

But I can't. Like, physically, I can't. Even when I leaned back into presenting femininely when they reassigned me, I couldn't shake my own androgyny... So ultimately, my transfemininity is a sense of peace where... I don't have to shake anything about me off. Femmes shouldn't have to change their bodies to exist.

The puberty you described is usually called a “mixed puberty”

!!! thank you!! i like that term.

hi i am also intersex and both transmasc and transfemme. and that experience has felt very isolating. so seeing you Also being that ??????? and just having another person exist to the same degree i do feels. really good. thank you for existing lmaoo ♥️

omg yay!! thank you for existing too, i really don't see many other people who are both. we are so epic though. i love our transness and intersexness <3

pmdd anon here and thanks for the input! i would like to embrace the community by labelling myself as intersex, but at the same time i would hate to not be welcomed or considered valid as "actually" intersex, as well as the fact that i don't know if it would be considered overstepping just because you're okay with all these variations being linked together based on overlap/experience alone. i may just say questioning instead, but like i mentioned before, any sort of other clarification seems impossible to find, or i just haven't found it yet despite searching.

so i guess my next question would be, what should i call myself? an ally? a broader term for intersex than y'all already have? something in between? reproductively disabled? something else? i'm very lost so help is appreciated 💛

reproductively disabled seems like the most accurate to me. but sex nonconforming may work, too, as i imagine part of why you're drawn to the intersex label is having a different experience of something related to sex. i suppose from there you could also say you're reproductively nonconforming. and there's also the term extersex, for people who don't know if they're dyadic or intersex. i think the term sex queer also exists but im not sure. could make it exist anyway XD

Not sure if anyone has mentioned but there is a (very recently coined) term for those who consider themselves intersex-adjacent or have experiences usually attributed to intersex people (especially due to transition/hrt/etc.) called Mesosex! It was made by @/ipsogender and it’s the top post on that blog.

I honestly wish it would become more widespread b/c I know a lot of people don’t find Altersex to be a comfortable term, and I do think it’s important for Intersex to retain it’s current definition under organizations like InterACT b/c of how few countries even recognize us or even define things like IGM/forced hormones (let alone ban them)

oh cool! i hadnt heard of it. here's a link to the post for those interested.

This is somewhat of a vent about lateral intersexism, but I’m really just hoping you could offer some validation specifically for cis intersex people

I’m intersex, and I identify as cis in the sense that my identity matches my body, not necessarily my assigned gender at birth. But when I tell other intersex people that I’m cis they usually say I’m being transphobic and equating sex and gender. I’m not equating them, mine just happen to align. After all the medical and psychological abuse I’ve experienced on the basis of being intersex it feels empowering to me to reclaim my body by defining my gender as physically cis. I just feel like whether I look inside or outside the intersex community I’m expected to disidentify from my body and change it and my identity to conform to the binary.

And then I see people making posts even going so far as to threaten any unspecific person who would claim cisphobia is real, I know this isn’t the situation they have in mind when they make those posts, but the erasure still hurts. Intersex people aren’t really socially allowed to identify with their bodies.

Yeah, some people gloss over and invalidate the experiences of cis people whose experiences don't conform to the binary; and it's worse for intersex cis people, because of how unconventional our experiences with sex and gender can be. It's not at all okay, and you deserve to be supported as you are.

If it helps any, in the online intersex community i was in (I'm just not active anymore), there was a cis man who was AFAB. He went through androgenic puberty and since his body more or less matches his gender, he's cis. That's how he understands himself, and I don't think a single one of us objected.

There are intersex people - and dyadic people - out there who understand who you are and support that. I know we can be hard to find in a sea of lateral queerphobia, but we're right here and we're not going anywhere <3

hey i have a really dumb question. would pmdd (pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder) be considered intersex? i don't think so tbh as a perisex (now questioning?) person due to the lack of mention for androgens or other hormones, though i also know that's not the only way for intersex variations to exist, but i genuinely cannot find any sort of answer anywhere leaning one way or the other. i don't care but i just want to know and this is frustrating!

it's not a bad question! i have mixed feelings; i don't really consider it intersex. since i define intersexness as someone who (by natural circumstance) has differences in sex chromosomes, sex hormones, or physical sex traits, leading them not to fit into the sex binary.

so i'd consider PMDD as a reproductive condition, not a sex variation. however, all people with reproductive differences are united in our fight against oppression - intersexism, sexism, and ableism often occur alongside each other. also, many intersex people have reproductive disabilities.

although, some intersex people do consider conditions like PMDD as intersex. but even if we don't, we often still welcome people with shared struggles into our spaces. so yeah, there's no real clear answer. i guess it would come down to what makes you feel empowered, and the community you're in.

are perisex people allowed to use the label transfemmasc? i'm perisex but really identify with the label due to being bigender and gnc so. yeah wanted to see what you thought

I've seen mixed opinions on it and I used to think they couldn't but. Now I personally define transmasc and transfem as a masculine/feminine experience of transness; and I define transness as any gender/sex nonconformity or variance. So I'd say yeah you can.

But I would honestly not focus on what labels you're "allowed" to use and instead just use the labels that make you happy (excluding cultural appropriation). We all define and relate to terms differently, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you focus on who you're allowed to be it's only going to make you miserable. Queer labels are made to help is express ourselves, not dictate who we can be.