LGBT activists have been vocal about intersex issues for several decades, because establishing the legal right to bodily autonomy for intersex persons is basically inseparable from establishing the right of trans persons to that same legal autonomy over their own bodies. many intersex persons prefer not to be grouped together with LGBT causes; however, the vast majority of LGBT activists would agree that performing “corrective” surgery on intersex infants - to force them to adhere to a largely fictional gender binary - is pretty fucking evil.
[Image IDs: a series of tweets from #EndIntersexSurgery (@/ Pidgejen) reading: Anyways, let’s start with what I thought I once knew about myself. When I was 18, I discovered I wasn’t like other girls. My medical records read “male pseudo-hermaphrodite 46 XY” & other BS terminology that pathologized my healthy/beautiful intersex body.
I discovered then that I had been diagnosed with partial androgen insensitivity syndrome (PAIS); my XY body couldn’t fully utilize androgens (like T) and so I developed mostly like a typical female person externally.
For me, this meant I had a somewhat “ambiguous” looking body (aka a non-binary body) and the doctors performed 3 unnecessary cosmetic surgeries to make me look more like a “normal girl”
Not to mention, they lied to me about All Of This and then forced me to take Premarin (a low does of estrogen made from extracting the hormone from a pregnant mare’s urine (horse face emoji, crying face emoji)
Anyways, I got in touch with a new endocrinologist recently thanks to my therapist at @/ RuchMedical who suggested I see him.
He did something no other doctor had ever done. He asked me if he could see my medical records, all of them, and then took time to read of them.
He even reached out to other experts in his field when he was confused by something.
Wow, We love humility in medicine.
Anyways, he ended up suspecting something is up and that perhaps my PAIS diagnosis is wrong.
He then orders me a genetic (dna emoji) test. Thanks to covid it took almost half a year to get the results, but a month or so ago I got them back.
Turns out, I don’t have PAIS. I actually have something else known as NR-5A1. Now this is big news mostly because 1. It supports my thesis that docs who deal with intersex kids don’t know shit…
And 2. P/AIS intersex folks are believed to not be able to utilize androgens and wo we’re often only given estrogen (never T), forcibly “feminized” with fucked up “cosmetic” surgeries, and forcibly assigned female.
Doing what they did to me was fucked up enough, but now realizing that they didn’t even have the diagnosis right—and that I *can* utilize androgens—is fucking infuriated beyond belief.
We need to #EndIntersexSurgery y'all like yesterday. /End IDs]
Most intersex people that I’ve known online and out in the world have considered their intersex status to be inherently queer. Our frustration is generally with members of the wider queer community believing in a fantasy version of us, not being interested in learning about our needs, or co-opting our stories for their own reasons.
“we live in an uncaring universe” yeah dude and I live in an uncaring house. and I shit in an uncaring toilet. but do you touch an uncaring lover? do you comfort an uncaring child? do you guide to sleep each night a cold and uncaring self?
“In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings, are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don’t, then it doesn’t.” - Brennan Lee Mulligan, Fantasy High S1E17
