This will be a personal #intersex thread on the harm of what believing sex was a bimodal spectrum did to me personally as someone who's had a complicated journey and still is stuck in medical limbo as a result. The harm.. of well, this.

My opinions on this as an intersex woman.

Like many intersex people I didn't know I was intersex at first, I wasn't told anything. I was always shrugged off when I asked if I was different, or strange. Never told I was normal either, the question was always avoided and as puberty happened everything became more clear.

My parents took the advice of a trans person over medical providers, the fact intersex orgs didn't have resources or awareness back then didn't help. My parents believed me "not going through puberty" would allow me to figure myself out. No one understood what that'd do to me.

Longer I went with a stunted endocrine system, the worse my health became. The easier I broke bones, the easier I got injured.. and the sicker I became to the point my complexion became seemingly permanently pale and discolored. This led to even more unwanted negative attention.

Isolated from my peers, being treated like I had some disease that would spread. Being mocked for the fact I seemed to be stuck a child as my peers became young women and men. I started to internalize I was some freak that I was different and "wrong." I wanted to be "normal."

It only worsened when I was in a facility where my infertility(at the believed time) and undeveloped sexual organs got used against me to convince me I wasn't female. Breaking my mind and reinforcing the fact I was an "other." Back then I thought I was being helped.

When I finally found out that I was intersex, learning of my karyotypes or rather the karyotype I was told not to dismiss as I blindly trusted doctors.. or rather anyone who wasn't my parents at the time. I felt betrayed, insurmountable amounts of anger and hatred.

I am well convinced that if I were exposed to certain communities and programs, I would have identified as non-binary, even intersex to get back at my parents and embrace my "other" self. Instead what happened was I fell into denialism and shame. I didn't know who.. or what I was

Back then I had a diagnosis of AIS, even my second revised diagnosis didn't help it. Any community I told I was intersex always ended the same. "You're genetically male." "Technically you're male." "You're a trans woman, except you were born with a vagina!" "You're not female."

All it did was build up into more self-hatred and confusion. Especially adding the fact I medically transitioned and was in the process of desperately trying to "go back" even though I felt conflicted on what I even was, I didn't know whether I was male, female or.. some "it."

On that spectrum I posted : I'd have fallen in "more male", being lower at first with my original diagnosis of AIS and then higher up with my later diagnosis of Swyer. Now where do I sit? ... "other." As I have both XX and XY chromosomes.

I've been called "it" my whole life.

The communities I was in did not help matters, the hatred I got thrown at me from all ends didn't help. Seeing people use intersex people as a tool in these arguments, trans people insisting they're more intersex or can become intersex.. a belief I once even internalized.

That spectrum that everyone is so quick to defend, erases me as a female.. a member of the sex who has a body that supports large gametes. What even is it based off of? My birth genitalia? My modern appearance? My chromosomes..? I'm an outlier no matter how you look at it!!!

I was born with a large clitoris and vagina agenesis. I am currently a very androgynous individual who can be read as a typical short man or short woman. As I stated I have both 46 XY and 46 XX cells in my body, meaning both common karyotypes exist in my body at the same time.

I still have a female reproductive system, albeit under-developed. I still grew up a girl, even if I nearly was subject through a series of reassignment surgeries because my genitals didn't meet "standards." I still tried to identify out of being a woman because I felt "wrong."

What does it mean when you look at me and tell me I'm not female? What are you basing this on and do you realize how dehumanizing that is? You're telling me I'm not proper, that I'm broken.. that something is wrong with me. You're justifying what those doctors wanted to do to me.

You are telling girls with AIS, Swyer, any other female intersex condition that they aren't normal and should either fix themselves, or embrace being an "other." You are telling these girls and women that they are not "normal" and you are treating them like a sideshow attraction.

You are telling boys with Klinefelter's, AIS, PMDS and any other male intersex condition that they aren't normal. You are telling them they're "girlish" and not "real boys/men." You are stressing a harmful image that damages the image of these individuals and put pressure on them

You are telling girls with Turner's that they are defective and wrong, and only partial females or maybe not even female at all. Boys with XYY syndrome that they are defective as well and not "right."

Can you not see how harmful spectrums like this really are in the long run?

Sex is binary in nature and although we've stopped using that slur "hermaphrodite" it doesn't mean anything if the new word has the same exact connotation AS "hermaphrodite" What is even trying to be hidden at this point? Seeing us as an "OTHER" under a thin veil of "solidarity?"

Then you have extremely harmful graphics like this, imagine just finding out you're intersex[and you're not trans] and you see something like this.

You'll feel othered, like growing up was a lie.. Betrayed possibly, and your actions going forward will be heavily influenced.

It shouldn't be like that. The idea of acceptance is to explain that intersex happens, that these conditions don't make anyone less of a male or female. That intersex people are just well.. people! This isn't even factoring the severe medical aspects of having these conditions.

In the majority of cases XX and XY are indeed simple, XX = Usually female, XY = male but there are exceptions. They exist, they happen. Chromosome purity has its flaws in this and education of XY females and XX males should be in biology as well to show exceptions to the rule.

Even our own organizations have stressed this with the Darlington Statement although of course opinions are varied. Some feel sex classification is harmful, some do not, intersex people have differing thoughts on it but we agree classifying intersex as a third sex is harmful.

Anyways, this was a long thread and gets a lot of my personal thoughts out there.

I've sadly had some despicable individuals tell me "sex is not binary and no one cares what you think, so too bad and get over it!" So called.. "allies" who say "solidarity" in the same breath.