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﹠. ⠀ ⠀ because of today being intersex awareness day, here’s an educational thread on why using “ can be intersex. “ is harmful and fetishizing. this needs to stop, no more excuses.
so firstly, let’s talk about what intersex is; intersex is a term used to describe a variety of conditions where a persons reproductive or sexual anatomy at birth does not match the typical definitions of male or female.
there are multiple variations of intersex, as stated above. these lead to different things genetically depending on what is in an intersex person’s genealogy.
being intersex can lead to a lot of different medical conditions from swyer syndrome ( born without gonads, leads to inability to produce estrogen and androgen ), infertility, turner syndrome ( which has its own medical conditions added on ), PAIS ( which leads to a lot of +
+ surgeries to be preformed on babies to “correct” their genitalia ), CAH ( which has a lot of physical changes to female identifying intersex people ), AIS ( in which the body is unresponsive to testosterone ), as well as other varying health conditions.
so we can already see that having “can be intersex” rather than making the character intersex is a way to fetishize intersex people, seeing as the only time they are intersex is when they have the opposite genitalia than the character’s gender. this wouldn’t be inherently bad +
+ if not for the fact that this only occurs when a character is partaking in sexual activities, meaning they are only intersex for the use of writing smut, and then discarding intersex struggles when it’s done.
Adding on, intersex people often face discrimination and prejudice because their bodies do not conform to cisnormative narratives. Many intersex people face violence and abandonment due to their genital appearance and are also subjected to unnecessary corrective surgeries as +
+ children. Some also face murder upon the identification of their intersex traits. there are also cases of doctors and parents withholding their child’s/patient’s intersex status from them. intersex people are also, in some cases, denied access to legal documents that explain +
+ their gender as well as have issues obtaining identification which can prevent them from getting a job, attending school, etc.
to only use an intersex label when you want a character to have the genitalia associated with the opposite gender for sexual purposes erases these struggles, the discrimination and prejudice that intersex people go through. it’s become a fetish on twitter lately and it’s +
+ harmful and spreads misinformation on intersex people and it should stop for that reason. i urge you guys to do more research than just reading this because i’m sure there is more that even i am uneducated on.
sources: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-are-intersex-rights , https://isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex/
