NationStates' Transgender Thread

[Edgy Opinions]

Now I'm wondering how different will be their description. :v

Having read your take on genderfluidity, I am somewhat expecting such a state to be somewhat subjective and dependent on who is experiencing it. It seems simple but also somewhat complex.

For some odd reason when I was reading your take on genderfluidity I thought of quantum computing and quantum bits. It seems to be an acceptance kind of thing, accepting oneself as neither, but also all. Eh. I must be sleepy too

No, you described it correctly.

In the last paragraph that is my specific case, though. Most people are fluid between 2-5 genders IIRC. Nature-Spirits' are male, female, androgyne and agender.

There are likely specific verbose identities for people like me who go from neutral/none to all, who have fluidity easily triggered by my surroundings and often can even consciously genderfluid through focusing on an identity, who identify with the gender of others around oneself, whose gender is affected by others around oneself, who are neutrois most of the time but also are fluid (neutroisfluid, neutroisflux), etc. etc. etc.

If I tried to specify it all in a single phrasing, I'd get 3-8 terms nobody would get and that would sound sci-fi-like.

[Xomic]

Except it's pretty clear that intersex isn't a 'sex' so much as it's a birth defect, and occurs in comparable (actually, for the most part, many intersex conditions occur far less frequently than most congenital disorders) rates to birth defects.

There are three physical sexes, male, female, and hermaphrodite, but the final doesn't occur in humans (or, indeed, any mammals, reptiles or birds, as far as I know), and intersexed disorders are not manifestations of hermaphroditism.

Being intersex is not a "defect".

According to who? You? What would you prefer I call it? Congenital disorder?

Sexual ambiguity is a form of bodily diversity we all have in some degree, and it fully connects our bodily type to the people with the other set of characteristics because humans present isolated sexual ambiguity in just about every kind of characteristic we can also be argued to have sexual dimorphism.

No, it's not. It's a result of the body failing to develop properly--this isn't a particularly difficult concept to grasp or understand. Cleft Lip occurs at roughly the same rate that Klinefelter syndrome occurs--are you suggesting that babies born with cleft lip are somehow 'body diversity' in humans? What about Spina Bifidia, where the neural tube fails to close as it's supposed to? is that 'body diversity' too?

Down syndrome is one of the most common congenital disorders in humans, especially involving chromosomes, and the list of symptoms is long and numerous. Are you suggesting it's a 'form of bodily diversity' as well?

Did you know that babies born with Edwards syndrome--that is, having 3 copies of the 18th chromosome-- are often born with their intestines outside of the body? Sounds like 'body diversity' to me!

And yes, there are humans with both gonadal types in their bodies.

Ovotestes occur, as an intersex disorder, about 1 in 83,000 births. True hermaphroditism in humans, which is a result of things like chimeraism, is even rarer, and while there's been cases of such people being fertile, it's never with both sets of gonads being functional (and in 2010 we're talking about 10 or 11 so true hermaphrodites documented as being fertile.)

So you fail at anatomy once again, and no one was impressed.

I'm not the one who doesn't seem to grasp that having three copies of a chromosome isn't considered to be a normal variation of human development.

[Grenartia]

Being intersex is not a "defect".

According to who? You? What would you prefer I call it? Congenital disorder?

Sexual ambiguity is a form of bodily diversity we all have in some degree, and it fully connects our bodily type to the people with the other set of characteristics because humans present isolated sexual ambiguity in just about every kind of characteristic we can also be argued to have sexual dimorphism.

No, it's not. It's a result of the body failing to develop properly--this isn't a particularly difficult concept to grasp or understand. Cleft Lip occurs at roughly the same rate that Klinefelter syndrome occurs--are you suggesting that babies born with cleft lip are somehow 'body diversity' in humans? What about Spina Bifidia, where the neural tube fails to close as it's supposed to? is that 'body diversity' too?

Down syndrome is one of the most common congenital disorders in humans, especially involving chromosomes, and the list of symptoms is long and numerous. Are you suggesting it's a 'form of bodily diversity' as well?

Did you know that babies born with Edwards syndrome--that is, having 3 copies of the 18th chromosome-- are often born with their intestines outside of the body? Sounds like 'body diversity' to me!

And yes, there are humans with both gonadal types in their bodies.

Ovotestes occur, as an intersex disorder, about 1 in 83,000 births. True hermaphroditism in humans, which is a result of things like chimeraism, is even rarer, and while there's been cases of such people being fertile, it's never with both sets of gonads being functional (and in 2010 we're talking about 10 or 11 so true hermaphrodites documented as being fertile.)

So you fail at anatomy once again, and no one was impressed.

I'm not the one who doesn't seem to grasp that having three copies of a chromosome isn't considered to be a normal variation of human development.

I'm not really seeing/getting why being intersex is somehow a disorder. I mean, its not like it inherently means you can't do things in a reasonable capacity. Its not like a cleft palate, or spina bifada (sp?).

[Nature-Spirits]

Also, gender fluidity is intriguing... In a good way of course. Anyone care to explain a bit about it?

I like to think of gender as a spectrum (here's a representation I quickly made simplifying how I usually visualise it, though the edges should be blurred; I'm sure other people picture it differently, but when I refer to my shifting gender that's kind of what I picture), in that there are countless possible experiences of gender (though many of them are close enough to be grouped under one label). It seems to me that most people remain in more-or-less the same place on that spectrum throughout their life, though it's conceivable that someone's gender may shift a bit throughout their life. My gender, on the other hand, is very complicated, in that it shifts along that spectrum with varying frequency. In my personal reflections, I've figured out that there are basically four genders that I experience: male, female, androgyne (in which I'm somewhere between male and female), and agender (in which I have no gender). These, however, are not necessarily fixed points that I jump between; on the contrary, it usually takes at least a day for me to shift from one gender completely to another, and sometimes it may take several days. Often, my gender will settle on one point on the spectrum and stay there for a while, but it rarely does that for longer than a week. This is one reason why the term "genderfluid" is such an apt description: my gender really is fluid, because it has no rigid boundaries.

Today, for instance, I am a girl. My internal sense of self is that of a girl, and my gender expression reflects that to a degree (albeit, I presented as male aside from some makeup and a couple articles of clothing, but that's because I'm only out to a few of my RL friends). Yesterday, I was also a girl, but less so; for the past few days, I've been shifting from agender to female, and before that I was agender for maybe a week. When female, I often experience some degree of dysphoria (as I'm AMAB); it ranges from feeling intense discomfort whenever someone refers to me as a boy (as happened several times today) to having nervous breakdowns, often depending on how strongly I feel about my gender at the time, as well as external factors.

When I'm male, on the other hand, I feel very happy with my body -- proud, even -- and often try to accentuate my masculine features. I adopt some more masculine mannerisms than usual, and just feel overall male. This has been pretty rare for me in the past little while, but I've gone fairly long periods as male before.

Then, when I'm androgyne, it sometimes feels like a bit of a layover when I'm shifting between male and female over an extended period of time, but this is not necessarily the case; for instance, I might shift from male to androgyne, then veer off into agender or go back to being male. I also might shift fairly quickly between male and female, forgoing an androgyne or agender phase altogeter; this is usually something that happens while I'm sleeping. If I had to say that I experience one gender more than any other, I would probably say that it was androgyny.

It's very hard to predict trends with my gender, and I can't identify any external factors that have an effect on it. Sometimes I can figure out the general direction my gender is taking me, but I've learned it's best not to make too many assumptions. Unlike Edgy, I don't have any default state that I consistently come back to; I simply find myself moving along the spectrum a lot, resulting in four mostly distinct genders that I experience.

This is not to say that mine is the experience of most genderfluid people, of course. I know that many genderfluid people experience only the two binary genders, and flip between them much more abruptly than I flow (these often refer to themselves as bigender). Others may experience one binary and one non-binary gender, and switch with some regularity; while others still may experience multiple non-binary genders but never a binary gender. There are quite a few possible combinations, really; the unifying feature, though, is that genderfluid people experience more than one distinct gender.

[Xomic]

I'm not really seeing/getting why being intersex is somehow a disorder. I mean, its not like it inherently means you can't do things in a reasonable capacity. Its not like a cleft palate, or spina bifada (sp?).

I think you may be making an unnecessary connection between 'disorder' and the ability to 'do things in a reasonable capacity'. Cleft plate isn't always so severe that it necessarily impedes the child. There are ways of working around it, and indeed many have grown up without undergoing surgery to repair it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't a congenital disorder.

Individuals that fit into the category of intersex are relatively rare; rarer, as I mentioned, then some of the congenital disorders I mentioned. Trisomy 21 (down syndrome) for example, occurs at about in 14.2 out of 10,000 live births to 1 every 1000 births (depending on who you ask). Something like vaginal atresia (no vagina or no vaginal opening) is about 1 in 5000 births. Ovotestis occur in about 1 in 83,000 births (at least according to Wikipedia). Indeed, 'Complete gonadal dysgenesis' occurs in about 1 in 150,000 births.

The rarity of intersex means it's not really a normal variation of human physiology, and there are a number of health problems like infertility that then to crop up in it. Further more, how is it that chromosomal disorders like Down syndrome are disorders, but intersex conditions that involve the very same error (too many copies of a chromosome) aren't?

To me, the problem with intersex and how it's treated is largely to do with cases where the genitals are 'ambiguous' only in the sense that the child is born with an unusually large clitoris or an unusually small penis. In such cases, I think one can argue rightly that there is no need for surgical intervention--but I'm not really sure I'd consider such individuals to be intersex to begin with, but rather females or males with genitals that maybe close or exceed three standard deviation for size or whatever.

[Edgy Opinions]

Reading Nature-Spirits' account made me shift to about 33% neutrois, 33% agender and 33% androgyne (more to the girl side).

I was doubting whether to rant this early... but anyway, sent.

While I pretty much agree and can easily imagine what their gender might feel like, asserting that I have a fixed "default" state is in itself very questionable - and I did get in trouble for it not being as fixed as it seems to be -, as largely due to being butch, DMAB, primarily mascsexual, and my bodily dysphoria having largely faded away with time, together with neutrois-based genders, the masculine spectrum is one of the easiest genders for me to flux to - it might happen because of any sort of media content (music, TV shows, anything), due to talking to strangers, due to strangers interacting with people I was just interacting with (largely people that don't affect my gender - family members, for example -, or people who as far as I know identify as male as well), due to NSG, due to my preferred pronouns or reading my own name.

It's never a full male gender, just breaths of cold cyan light in my face *cue toothpaste commercials*, but they might add up. It doesn't "degenerate" as demiboy, as some other genders (through their respective demi-neutrois mixes) or meaningful shifting to male gender (due to chameleoning), but as aliagender.* (I don't lose this masculinity through feeling more neutral, I believed both to be a complimentary and balanced part of me that don't deny each other, and instead I lose it feeling more strongly >something else<) Even though neutrois still dominates by about 90%, I've never had a full month going fully neutrois, and full weeks were rather rare (often associated with those seasonal shifts to agender) in comparison to the colorful ones.

* If male is at my west, neutrois at my bottom and aliagender at my north, this identity fades away through both sinking and turning north. Usually, I have described my "gender compass" as neutrois being my bottom, male my west, female my east, androgyne my south, aliagender/"queer genders" my north, ultra-sensitive pangender genderflux as my immediate surface, and multiple genders (polygenderness) left floating on air as "excessive energy". I suppose agender is either too deep or in the stratosphere/outer space, because I feel very fucking uncomfortable in it unless someone is guiding me.

Alas, to the point, my former demiboy identity was a major cause for my stronger bodily dysphoria once I figured out I'm trans, though. I felt conflicted between transitioning and having a body that I wouldn't find attractive myself, without many of the features I'm used to and that I felt at home in as I felt male, and strong gender dysphoria as femme/feminine genders felt neglected and repressed whenever I happened to shift to them. Usual neutrois me and other neutral, ambiguous or multiple genders were moments of just wanting a "feminine" chanel haircut, a lean and muscular but not stereotypical bodybuilder physique (I'm adequately muscular + fat lel), and an ambiguous face alike child me (without taking hormones and hormone blockers, though, it'd need plastic surgery, and that seems like an unnecessary and potentially imperfect procedure).

As I abandoned identifying as demiboy because people just understood that as "oh like a cis man but ~feeling exotic~, no, this place is not for you, you dick" and similar insulting things, because I understood it's just part of my genderfluidity, because I started to learn with input from agender experiences (my best friend - that HATED my attempts of drawing gender compasses - was a big part in that, xoxo to them) that ended up directing me in the direction of creating deeper roots in neutroisness, because I started to make more sense out of the whole bodily diversity + trans people don't need to prove anything to anyone, I felt adapting my body [to gender, but not only that] in order for anything to make sense or be in its right place (when I can't be sure at this point if anything will work out as I desire, given how I never had being read as a woman my objective) starting to sound like one-size-fits-all bullshit. And being anxious about that wouldn't help me, since I can't do anything right now.

Now that I don't put an important part of myself and a portion of my central identity as masculine, just calling it another element in the great alphabet soup of genders that aren't properly about me, that don't define me and that I don't have responsibilities with, the imbalance greatly reduced. Particularly because I don't feel cis-style masculine even when I'm not fully neutrois, not at all, I'd still feel misgendered being called "man" in my native language, being butch/tomboyish/???? and happy with the way I was raised and people saw as positive aspects about me, particularly when the expectations were most age-adequate, is part of the way I'm non-binary and the way I'm uniquely myself, rather than confirmation of something that is structured to majorly limit and underestimate my existence and individuality through denying them, but people didn't get what my identity means at all and I honestly don't know whether I regret interacting with them or be sagely joyful because their prejudice helped rather than weakened me.

Speaking of which, did anyone else here face similar situations? What was your reaction? To everyone, what are your sentiments about gender policing? Did you ever get it from trans people or from people who affirmed themselves with big mouths to be our allies?

[Edgy Opinions]

I think you may be making an unnecessary connection between 'disorder' and the ability to 'do things in a reasonable capacity'. Cleft plate isn't always so severe that it necessarily impedes the child. There are ways of working around it, and indeed many have grown up without undergoing surgery to repair it. It doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't a congenital disorder.

Individuals that fit into the category of intersex are relatively rare; rarer, as I mentioned, then some of the congenital disorders I mentioned. Trisomy 21 (down syndrome) for example, occurs at about in 14.2 out of 10,000 live births to 1 every 1000 births (depending on who you ask). Something like vaginal atresia (no vagina or no vaginal opening) is about 1 in 5000 births. Ovotestis occur in about 1 in 83,000 births (at least according to Wikipedia). Indeed, 'Complete gonadal dysgenesis' occurs in about 1 in 150,000 births.

The rarity of intersex means it's not really a normal variation of human physiology, and there are a number of health problems like infertility that then to crop up in it. Further more, how is it that chromosomal disorders like Down syndrome are disorders, but intersex conditions that involve the very same error (too many copies of a chromosome) aren't?

To me, the problem with intersex and how it's treated is largely to do with cases where the genitals are 'ambiguous' only in the sense that the child is born with an unusually large clitoris or an unusually small penis. In such cases, I think one can argue rightly that there is no need for surgical intervention--but I'm not really sure I'd consider such individuals to be intersex to begin with, but rather females or males with genitals that maybe close or exceed three standard deviation for size or whatever.

Let's see, human sexual dimorphism: chromosomes - gonads - genital shape and size - endocrine gearing - endocrine function - neurological wiring

Very minute sexual ambiguity in
a) impossible to be very minute b) I'd assume not all testes or ovaries are alike c) no people have genitals alike each other d) developmental differences in each person are unique in this regard e) we could have intersex conditions approach idk 5-10% of the population if we pathologized people taking this in consideration (and artificially all transitioning trans people would further pump - npi - the number) f) is there even an exact male or an exact female model for a brain? I don't think so. Everybody has it.

Minute sexual ambiguity in
a) impossible b) ovotestes aren't a meaningful spectrum, but many of them aren't functional enough to be fertile, trigger certain forms of fetal genital development, or, in the case of testes, to descend... I guess it's relatively common and not related at all to chromosomal abnormalities as you put it c) I most likely have it and I'm fairly sure I can't be classified as intersex due to that alone lolol d) see above, we don't react to hormones the same way because of a very delicate balance of how our genetics interact with womb hormone bath e) see above f) see above

Insignificant but functional sexual ambiguity in
a) XX testicular people [and XY ovarian people?] caused by SRY gene craziness aren't unhealthy or much likely to be infertile IIRC b) see above; here, I will take your word that they're more likely to be sterile, but albeit infertility is a condition, it is not necessarily an illness/disease, at most it's a disability in context c) stuff you said yourself that most likely shouldn't be pathologized d) see above e) see above f) well if you're transmedicalist... I'm fairly sure people like me might have a "mildly trans womanly" neurology but we don't end up like you people because gender development is relevant out of the womb as well and this is where this distinction happens, what are the neurological boundaries between the people we are sure to be cis and the people we are sure to be trans? I guess many people in here are still very likely to just be gender nonconforming in childhood, like plenty of cis gays, lesbians and bisexuals

Mild but functionally significant sexual ambiguity in
a) same of the answer for b above b) see above c) see above (yay for people with both penis and vagina/womb) d) see above e) okay they might take medications to not be dysphoric or not have puberty triggered soon or... but those are societal/psychology-related issues rather than physiological ones f) still a lot of ~gender nonconforming~ coming from here, some of them might become alike you or me or others in this thread, others still got their chance of cis heterosexuality, fetuses don't work like that, pushing hormones and then picking your little minority orientation and/or gender alignment as result

Functionally significant sexual ambiguity

Strong sexual ambiguity

Severe sexual ambiguity

...

Do you understand? Human phenotypes are a clusterfuck. If you want to argue many of these people are healthy, then maybe we should stop addressing people as clinically intersex as if it was some one-size-catches-all umbrella rather than a blurry non-classification, and instead refer to the actual conditions. The fact is that many of those are indeed sexually ambiguous but not at all "defective". No issue here because of my pronounced Raphe line, high voice and facial features that remind one of my grandma, captain.

Maybe people should address each of these levels in which we can identify sexual dimorphism as different phenomena, with different medical language relating to them (so that one, fertile or infertile - to be specified if you so please -, can have an ambiguous watchamacallit, a dyadic-like testicular or ovarian Cthulhu and gloobgloob, and an ambiguous but less intermediate thingyamagiggle, and each are treated as independent elements of their physique, even though they might be derived from the same developmental process; imagine it like the tucute absurd gender lists of human anatomy). But this is not going to happen. Because classifying people as male or female or abnormal is very easy and interesting and no one cares about avoiding this language, even though it breeds ignorance. Until then, I'm not going to agree that we can just say that intersexuality is abnormal.

[Libronyscien]

Intersex.

Except it's pretty clear that intersex isn't a 'sex' so much as it's a birth defect, and occurs in comparable (actually, for the most part, many intersex conditions occur far less frequently than most congenital disorders) rates to birth defects.

There are three physical sexes, male, female, and hermaphrodite, but the final doesn't occur in humans (or, indeed, any mammals, reptiles or birds, as far as I know), and intersexed disorders are not manifestations of hermaphroditism.

True hermaphroditism in humans does exist, however, it is very rare, me thinks.

[Libronyscien]

Why is there a thread for something that does not exist, I am confused. You are born genetically XY or XX, as far as I am aware, no one can change this. Certainly someone can feel like they're different, but that doesn't physically change who you are, so really there's no such things as transgender.

No, you can be born genetically XY, XX, XXX, XXY, XYY, XYYY, XXXY, and other such combinations, and that will determine your physical sex. It has zero bearing on your gender. If your sex and gender match, you're cisgender. If your sex and gender don't match, your transgender. Yes, we exist.

Wait, there are four letter sexes? I didn't know that. I thought it only went to three letters.

[Nature-Spirits]

-snip-

Speaking of which, did anyone else here face similar situations? What was your reaction? To everyone, what are your sentiments about gender policing? Did you ever get it from trans people or from people who affirmed themselves with big mouths to be our allies?

Interesting. I think I have a better understanding of your gender now.

I've never really been "gender policed" except to a small degree online, thankfully. Though my mother's reaction... well, here, I'll outline it briefly:

It was maybe early December and she'd come back from a trip. She knew that I had gone to an event for the Transgender Day of Remembrance while she was away, and I thought that since she would have to find out about my being trans eventually, I would tell her a bit about it -- you know, to sort of ease her into the world of trans people. I ended up having to explain the most prominent genders to her (though it was clear that she didn't really understand), and eventually she asked the question, "Well, which one are you?"

I froze. After some prodding (I was so not prepared to have that conversation with her, but she can be very overbearing), I admitted to being genderfluid. I explained it for a few minutes, she said she had to go to bed, and that was that.

Last week, she pointed out to me an interview in the newspaper for a local two-person band made up of trans people, and I said that one of them was an acquaintance of mine, and that their preferred pronouns were they/them. She said, "Oh, so they're agender."

I said, "Well, no, not necessarily."

She said, "But there's male, female, and agender, right?"

"No, Mom. There are dozens of genders." Well, she was shocked, and I proceeded to explain them -- again.

"What are you again?" she asked, "swing-gender?"

Well, I was kind of offended by that, and I said, "No, Mom, that's not a thing."

She proceeded to list off the genders she thought she understood: "Male, female, hermaphrodite --"

I cut her off there, saying, "No, Mom, 'hermaphrodite' isn't a gender, it's a sex. And they prefer the term 'intersex'." She complained that "this terminology is all new to me! We didn't have agender and intersex people when I was growing up!" I told her that yes, yes she did, they were just a lot less visible, and she grudgingly accepted. She still, however, didn't understand the distinction between gender and sex, and I (once again) tried to explain it as best I could.

She gave up not much later, but last night it came up in conversation. Again, she seemed to be confused and thought that "hermaphrodite" was a gender, and once again, I had to explain the concept of intersex to her.

Well, what had she taken away from those three long conversations? Apparently, that I think I'm intersex.

And I had to explain the difference between sex and gender. Again.

It's actually quite annoying. I suppose I should be grateful that she's at least trying to understand -- lots of queer people are rejected by their families, while she's pretty open-minded (though she's bad with accidental misgendering; when I was explaining "transsexual" to her, she said, "Oh, I know a woman who did that. Her name was ***. Her new name is ***." Well, it turned out that this, too, was an acquaintance of mine, and he was a transman. I corrected the pronouns, but she still didn't quite grasp it for some reason). She really does bring my dysphoria to the surface though, especially when I'm a girl (for instance, the other day when she was saying that during the summer I could look after my little brother and her friend's four sons, I said with some apprehension, "Boys are rowdy." She said, "Oh, but you can deal with them. You're a boy." Instant dysphoria. She paused, then continued, "Albeit, a different kind of boy." Now what the hell does that mean? I thought. She then went off on some tangent about how I was always so quiet as a child; I can't figure out if that was actually what she meant and she never realised how wrong that statement was, or if she remembered and tried to backpedal).

So, yeah. Other than my mother thinking that "shifting genders" = "ambiguous genitalia" (somehow), my gender's been denied by very few people, and only online.

[Grenartia]

-snip-

Speaking of which, did anyone else here face similar situations? What was your reaction? To everyone, what are your sentiments about gender policing? Did you ever get it from trans people or from people who affirmed themselves with big mouths to be our allies?

Interesting. I think I have a better understanding of your gender now.

I've never really been "gender policed" except to a small degree online, thankfully. Though my mother's reaction... well, here, I'll outline it briefly:

It was maybe early December and she'd come back from a trip. She knew that I had gone to an event for the Transgender Day of Remembrance while she was away, and I thought that since she would have to find out about my being trans eventually, I would tell her a bit about it -- you know, to sort of ease her into the world of trans people. I ended up having to explain the most prominent genders to her (though it was clear that she didn't really understand), and eventually she asked the question, "Well, which one are you?"

I froze. After some prodding (I was so not prepared to have that conversation with her, but she can be very overbearing), I admitted to being genderfluid. I explained it for a few minutes, she said she had to go to bed, and that was that.

Last week, she pointed out to me an interview in the newspaper for a local two-person band made up of trans people, and I said that one of them was an acquaintance of mine, and that their preferred pronouns were they/them. She said, "Oh, so they're agender."

I said, "Well, no, not necessarily."

She said, "But there's male, female, and agender, right?"

"No, Mom. There are dozens of genders." Well, she was shocked, and I proceeded to explain them -- again.

"What are you again?" she asked, "swing-gender?"

Well, I was kind of offended by that, and I said, "No, Mom, that's not a thing."

She proceeded to list off the genders she thought she understood: "Male, female, hermaphrodite --"

I cut her off there, saying, "No, Mom, 'hermaphrodite' isn't a gender, it's a sex. And they prefer the term 'intersex'." She complained that "this terminology is all new to me! We didn't have agender and intersex people when I was growing up!" I told her that yes, yes she did, they were just a lot less visible, and she grudgingly accepted. She still, however, didn't understand the distinction between gender and sex, and I (once again) tried to explain it as best I could.

She gave up not much later, but last night it came up in conversation. Again, she seemed to be confused and thought that "hermaphrodite" was a gender, and once again, I had to explain the concept of intersex to her.

Well, what had she taken away from those three long conversations? Apparently, that I think I'm intersex.

And I had to explain the difference between sex and gender. Again.

It's actually quite annoying. I suppose I should be grateful that she's at least trying to understand -- lots of queer people are rejected by their families, while she's pretty open-minded (though she's bad with accidental misgendering; when I was explaining "transsexual" to her, she said, "Oh, I know a woman who did that. Her name was ***. Her new name is ***." Well, it turned out that this, too, was an acquaintance of mine, and he was a transman. I corrected the pronouns, but she still didn't quite grasp it for some reason). She really does bring my dysphoria to the surface though, especially when I'm a girl (for instance, the other day when she was saying that during the summer I could look after my little brother and her friend's four sons, I said with some apprehension, "Boys are rowdy." She said, "Oh, but you can deal with them. You're a boy." Instant dysphoria. She paused, then continued, "Albeit, a different kind of boy." Now what the hell does that mean? I thought. She then went off on some tangent about how I was always so quiet as a child; I can't figure out if that was actually what she meant and she never realised how wrong that statement was, or if she remembered and tried to backpedal).

So, yeah. Other than my mother thinking that "shifting genders" = "ambiguous genitalia" (somehow), my gender's been denied by very few people, and only online.

Sounds like me trying to explain pansexuality to my mom. I haven't even /tried/ to explain non-binary gender to her (I figured explaining pansexuality would be a good jumping off point to explaining non-binary gender, which would be a good jumping off point for coming out). She knows me as a bisexual man, even though I've told her pansexual is more correct. And she was like, "What's the difference?" So I tried to explain, and got into the same BS about sex that you did (couldn't even /get/ into explaining gender to her), and then she said "The show's back on, quiet down so I can listen.". And that was that. This happened about a month ago.

[The States of Balloon]

Because this warranted a thread.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Because this warranted a thread.

Because your paradoxically effortful indifference warranted a post.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I have a question for the NS trans community:

Have you ever experienced discrimination or hate from other trans people like yourself?

[Nightkill the Emperor]

That is a fascinatingly helpful OP.

[Furry Alairia and Algeria]

I have a question for the NS trans community:

Have you ever experienced discrimination or hate from other trans people like yourself?

Lack of recognition of my agender identity.
I usually get called he, him, himself. While I really don't mind, I like them, their, themself, but that's as far as I can say for myself.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I have a question for the NS trans community:

Have you ever experienced discrimination or hate from other trans people like yourself?

Lack of recognition of my agender identity.
I usually get called he, him, himself. While I really don't mind, I like them, their, themself, but that's as far as I can say for myself.

Ok, so you're pretty much agender. I didn't know. I always thought you were male and identified as such, but now I know better.

[Dumb Ideologies]

I have a question for the NS trans community:

Have you ever experienced discrimination or hate from other trans people like yourself?

Some unfriendliness from "more trans than thou" idiots who demand that everyone be as binary as possible to not freak out the cisfolks, certainly, but nothing more than that.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I have a question for the NS trans community:

Have you ever experienced discrimination or hate from other trans people like yourself?

Some unfriendliness from "more trans than thou" idiots who demand that everyone be as binary as possible to not freak out the cisfolks, certainly, but nothing more than that.

That's a thing in the trans community? Damn. I've seen it in the gay community, ''I'm gayer than you''. Not sure what that accomplishes though.

I'm cisgender and whether someone ascribes to the binary or not doesn't bother me, a bit.

[Libronyscien]

I'm cisgender and I don't care if you are binary or not. As long as I can understand it, or you tell me what is the right and wrong things to say, I don't care.

[Nature-Spirits]

Some unfriendliness from "more trans than thou" idiots who demand that everyone be as binary as possible to not freak out the cisfolks, certainly, but nothing more than that.

That's a thing in the trans community? Damn. I've seen it in the gay community, ''I'm gayer than you''. Not sure what that accomplishes though.

I'm cisgender and whether someone ascribes to the binary or not doesn't bother me, a bit.

Unfortunately, it's quite common. I can't say whether the same is true for other types of minorities, but for queer folk there's this constant competition (not everywhere, luckily, buts it's prevalent enough) to be "more queer" and, therefore, "less privileged", because "more privileged" people apparently don't deserve the same support.

That's my take on the psychology of it, anyway. I can't say for certain, because personally, I don't see why it should matter who's "more" or "less" queer, but I've observed enough of it in both the gay and trans communities.

Of course, there's also the whole thing where the less "aberrant" group disassociates itself from the more "aberrant" group to be more acceptable to larger society. Much of the gay community did it to the trans community, and now much of the binary trans community is doing it to the non-binary community. Hopefully things get better soon; the communities, as far as I can tell, are starting to work more closely than they have in a long time, and a lot of drag performers have taken up the queer cause too, so there are signs that the future is bright, I think.

[Xomic]

Except it's pretty clear that intersex isn't a 'sex' so much as it's a birth defect, and occurs in comparable (actually, for the most part, many intersex conditions occur far less frequently than most congenital disorders) rates to birth defects.

There are three physical sexes, male, female, and hermaphrodite, but the final doesn't occur in humans (or, indeed, any mammals, reptiles or birds, as far as I know), and intersexed disorders are not manifestations of hermaphroditism.

True hermaphroditism in humans does exist, however, it is very rare, me thinks.

'True hermaphroditism' is a medical term, but doesn't necessarily indicate that the individual is what might be called a hermaphrodite. It describes a medicial condition in which both gonads exist, or they've fused together into an ovotestis. There have been no documented cases of humans with both sets of gonads that function, however--and there's only been about 11 reported cases where one of the two sets gonads/gonad tissues function. Typically the condition has to do with two zygotes fusing together in some fashion; for example two ovum, fertilized by two sperm would normally result in twins, (non identical); if they were to fuse together into a single zygote, and one zygote was male, and the other was female, you might get 'true hermaphroditism'.

Further, the majority of intersex cases are not true hermaphroditism to begin with, so even if we were to accept the premise that true hermaphroditism is a sex in humans, it wouldn't mean that intersex individuals are a 'sex' themselves.

[Fanosolia]

okay, can I ask one question? I hope I don't get too much flak for this but... how can one be non binary? I ask out of curiosity

[-The Unified Earth Governments-]

okay, can I ask one question? I hope I don't get too much flak for this but... how can one be non binary? I ask out of curiosity

Follow a quantum structure instead.

[Nature-Spirits]

True hermaphroditism in humans does exist, however, it is very rare, me thinks.

'True hermaphroditism' is a medical term, but doesn't necessarily indicate that the individual is what might be called a hermaphrodite. It describes a medicial condition in which both gonads exist, or they've fused together into an ovotestis. There have been no documented cases of humans with both sets of gonads that function, however--and there's only been about 11 reported cases where one of the two sets gonads/gonad tissues function. Typically the condition has to do with two zygotes fusing together in some fashion; for example two ovum, fertilized by two sperm would normally result in twins, (non identical); if they were to fuse together into a single zygote, and one zygote was male, and the other was female, you might get 'true hermaphroditism'.

Further, the majority of intersex cases are not true hermaphroditism to begin with, so even if we were to accept the premise that true hermaphroditism is a sex in humans, it wouldn't mean that intersex individuals are a 'sex' themselves.

What sex do they belong to, then?

okay, can I ask one question? I hope I don't get too much flak for this but... how can one be non binary? I ask out of curiosity

Alright, because I'm in a hurry I'll just do a short little exercise, but I'm sure someone else will write out an explanation in a bit.

Imagine not feeling male or female. You are now imagining how a non-binary person experiences gender.