Thread by @delaneykingrox

This is worth talking about. Firstly, if you aren't familiar with the term "DSD" it was introduced after the term intersex had been well established and was neither consulted on and is hugely problematic.

https://twitter.com/Moss38771249/status/1497180856846360577

Where "intersex" means a person falls between the arbitrarily agreed limits of male and female attributes in the country they are in by whatever systems the medical practitioner uses to rate you.

It is literally arbitrary- like a clitoris has to X cm to be considered a penis.

Unlike 'intersex' which paints sex as the healthy view of a continuum, or spectrum that we all fall somehere along- DSD takes those arbitrary margins and says "this is healthy/normal and anyone who doesn't fit this model has a medical condition"

This is called "pathologising"

So basically you fit the mold, or they cut bits off you until you do.

See how this is a very bad thing?

DSD stands for "Disorder of Sexual Development".

Wow. Unpack that. A disorder.

So if you happen to fall outside a set of values agreed on by... well, a bunch of dudes who just drew some lines in the sand using averages... well then you are sick, a freak, unwell, bad.

Sex, as much as we want it to be a binary with clear limits, isn't. Nature doesn't work like that. The mechanism of evolution itself is mutation- minute changes in DNA which can result in traits that may or may not suit the environment one is in. That is how we evolve...

Sex itself developed through evolution, as a way to speed up throwing random attempts at the wall and seeing what sticks. Every full sibling you have is the same two genomes mixing it up in different ways. That's nature. There isn't a PERFECT EXACT PURE NORMAL in nature

Excuse the crude sketch, I am on my phone. Fingerpainted diagrams are not classy, but they may help get the rough idea across.

Okay so you fall somewhere on the chart. Most people are in the male or female range BUT... those purple lines are ARBITRARY.

This is the DSD model. Either you fall into the agreed up arbitrary (ie made up) values or you are sick.

DSD is therefore imposing an arbitrary binary, and tossing everyone in between into a problem that needs to be fixed.

That's not healthy. Maybe for doctor's bank accounts, but not for the people living the lives.

The thing you need to understand is that it isn't a straight line.

Chromosomes vary
Expression of your genes vary
Hormone production varies
Enzyme production vary which affect hormones.

Some of us are even made up of two people- fused in the womb (chimera).

So doctors are looking at things like hormone levels, bone formation, internal sex organs, external sex organs and making up a boundary.

For most people, they clearly fall into male or female at a glance. But a lot of those people don't know that they may internally be as seen.

Intersex people come in many types, not just by a classification of one "medical condition" but may have numerous degrees of variation that pushes them outside the "norm".

So back to the original question. What DSD do I have?

I don't have a DSD- because I am not a pathology or a mistake or a sickness.

I am intersex, however

And calle a romantic, but I personally feel if one wants to know explicit things about my body then at least you should buy me dinner and a movie first.

And it better be a slap up lobster dinner because damn, I am worth it.

But there is a real level of disrespect in asking me what my DSD is. It's like saying "you are broken. Then demanding to know intimate details about my junk and internal organs."

Yeah, pass thanks.

I have shared a lot of details in previous threads, so if you really are interested you can do the work and dig away.

But if you are after erasing my identity, then I am pretty sure you are the type of person who doesn't do research.

:)

Or to put it another way.

"You ain't my doctor or my girlfriend, get your nosey face out of my junk."

I do however discuss my personal details with other intersex people I meet in respectful conversations. There are quite a few in the games industry.

*call me.

It's 5 am, I am typo queen.

Ultimately it shouldn't make you unhappy where in the table you are. The beefiest virile blokey bloke or a hyper feminine lil cutie who can't have babies, or an intersex person who feels happy in the woman category or a man who has a low sperm count with snake hips like GNR

Humans are complicated and extremely diverse organisms... and that is how nature 'intends' us.

Nature isn't simple and you can't make it so by hurting people.

God, I am barely awake as I type this. I am gonna try to sleep. Excuse the ham fingered typos and bad sentences. Very sleepy.

Anyway, just remember folks... the difference between a large clitoris and a small penis with hypospadias is just a bunch of dudes with rules pulling a number out of their ass.

Babies shouldn't be "corrected" for an ideal by surgeons who ate guessing based on other dudes guesses