Fuck It Let's Try This Again

fuck it let's try this again

Proposing some intersex gender modality & transition terms

So there are a whole bunch of different ways that intersex people can be/identify as trans. I've been thinking about what names would be useful for articulating these differences and in this post I'll list what I've got so far. 🧑‍🔬

I'm hoping to get feedback on these, so if you have feedback let me know! 💛 I expect to edit this post, to incorporate feedback and further ideas.

CW: mention of IGM and forced HRT

Types of transitions

Distransition: a medical transition forced upon an intersex person, such as through IGM or forced HRT. Dis- to indicate the negative aspect of the transition being coercive, as well as to connote disability since this process is so frequently traumatic and/or disability-causing. In disability studies language it's a form of debility (disability caused through systemic violence).

Mistransition: a distransition (forced transition) that is not in alignment with a person's gender identity. Mis- to indicate the incorrectness of the alignment as well as to maintain a negative connotation because this is a coercive transition.

Entransition: a consensual transition done by an intersex person. Contrast to distransition. En- acts as an opposite to dis- and also to me indicates a level of intent (e.g. envision, enact, enliven). It also serves to indicate that transition is different for intersex bodies than for perisex bodies.

Retransition: an entransition done by an intersex person who previously had been distransitioned. I.e. when an intersex person does a second transition to undo, alter, or improve a forced transition. Re- to indicate a second transition, but also that it's a revision of the first one.

Retrotransition: a retransition that is done to undo the effects of forced transition. So an intersex person who, after being forced into a binary gender, then transitions their body towards a best approximation of what their body's natural state would have been without forced transition. Retro- for backwards to indicate undoing that is worth differentiating from detransitioning.

Laterotransition: a retransition done by an intersex person to a gender that is neither the gender externally imposed by a distransition nor what their body's "natural state" would be. For example, an AFAB AIS person who was coercively transitioned female, who then later transitioned male. Latero- as contrast to retro- (latero- is to the side, antero- is forward) as well as to indicate the turn away from the path set forth externally by parents/doctors.

Anterotransition: a retransition done by an intersex person that continues the direction set forth by previous forced transition. So additional transitioning done by somebody whose gender is in alignment with what was externally imposed. While this will probably be somebody's AGAB, it doesn't have to be - some times intersex people are forcibly transitioned to a different gender than their AGAB.

All of these transitions would have an analogous gender modality. So an entransgender person is somebody who has/is undergoing/intends to entransition. And a retrotransgender person likewise has/is undergoing/intends to retrotransition.

I see distransition and mistransition as potentially useful for intersex people talking about trauma and structural intersexism. I think entransition might be useful for talking about how being intersex and transitioning is frequently different than for perisex people, especially if it is a retransition. And perhaps distransition and anterotransition may be of use to exparium folks.

Personally: I was distransitioned as an adolescent and have recently started a process of medically retrotransitioning.

Feedback welcome! A list of revisions will go at the bottom of this post. Will make flags for terms once I feel satisfied with them.

“i’ll punch any terf who comes after transfems in the face!!1!1!” “i’d defend transfems with my life!!” “terfs are not welcome here!!!” okay but are you a meaningful accomplice or just an agitator. are you engaging in activism with the intent to help transfems or are you engaging in activism with the intent to hurt terfs. you HAVE to remember humanity. remember that showing kindness to transfems is more important than punching terfs. and yes if a terf shows up make yourself very clear that they’re not welcome. but absent any immediate threats, prioritize aid and support. if you have the funds, donate to transfems who need funding for housing, food, medical care. if you don’t, reblog mutual aid posts or share them into places where people have the ability to donate. find local nonprofits and donate your time volunteering. put up posters around your area. create a safer space with your efforts, not a more hostile space. help transfems live.

Despite knowing better, I had given myself a deadline. Today. A big project that I've been working on for months and needs to be Finished already, thank you very much. It's all going well, I think I'll get it done and then ... I get lost in some very very specific sauce.

My therapist is in my ear as I slowly dig myself a deeper pit. Perfectionism, the bane of my existence. Well, one of them. It's at the origin of this particular time-lapse. I want to be Accurate and Complete. Before I know it, I'm covered in mathematics, percentages, statistics, graphs. I become very intimate with a graphics editor, discover functions and shortcuts that were a still a mystery to me three hours ago.

It's almost done when I realise it's wrong. Not inherently but vaguely, marginally, circumstantially. So I delete the work. Start again. It's all or nothing. It's a chore, a mountain, a this-and-then-that-and-then-thus-and-then-so, a finish line somewhere but not visible, not yet.

Then it is Done. I copy, I paste. Then I have something to eat. I've already decided, this deadline today, yeah, will be for tomorrow or the day after that. Time to relax and then go to bed. And then. My brain. Just realises. Out of nowhere. There's something not right. I check and my brain is - of course, flawlessly, inevitably - correct, for fuck's sake. It's fine, I fix. Re-copy, re-paste.

And I kid you not, this exact same thing happens as I am writing this post. So I've just, a minute ago, gone back into the graphics editor. A-g-a-i-n. I do the thing. I copy. I paste. Now, now, now it must be right. Please let it be so. But for all I know, my perfectionism-soaked brain will see it tomorrow and go, "Wait a minute ..."

The concerns most people have about people faking disability aren’t based in fact. Obviously people aren’t faking disability en mass for benefits or to get out of work or any of that stuff

But there is one form of faking that I think is a real problem for disabled people that I don’t think gets talked about enough. And that’s able bodied people pretending to be disabled (in my experience physically) to get emotionally closer to disabled people in order to exploit, abuse and/ or receive sexual gratification.

I’ve had it myself where people message me claiming to be disabled and struggling, asking for friendship or advice who have dodgy motives.

One time after making a post about incontinence, a person messaged me claiming to be newly paralysed and struggling with incontinence. They wanted to hear my experiences of using adult nappies due to a lack of changing places toilets. I was a bit suspicious of this person, clicked the account and it was all disability and humiliation based incontinence fetish posts. The person on the other end was exploiting my desire to support other disabled people so he could have a wank over how gross and embarrassing he found me.

Another time a person messaged me claiming to be quadriplegic and looking for someone with a body like his. I clicked the account and it was nothing more than a fetish blog full of stolen photos of wheelchair users. I’m sure the long game was to persuade me to send photos of me in my wheelchair to add to the collection.

I know that Facebook groups for amputees have this problem constantly of people sending messages like “I’m recovering from amputation and insecure about how my stump looks, can you show me yours?” and then using those photos for sexual gratification and sharing them with others to do the same. Similarly for wheelchair users and SCI groups.

Most of the people targeted are women, but as a man I’ve had several run ins with this as well.

There’s also people who pretend to be disabled to get close to an emotionally and physically vulnerable disabled person so they can isolate and abuse them later. I won’t go into details here but this is what happened with my abusive ex. I know for sure they made up a lot of their physical “disability”, other parts I have my suspicions about but will never have proof of either way. My ex is not the only person who uses this technique.

And unlike the very rare occurrence of benefits cheats this is a deeply embedded societal problem which systematically harms certain groups of disabled people.

As disabled people we need to be able to talk about this so that we can recognise it when it happens and share our concerns when we’re victims of it to prevent further victimisation of others.

OUT NOW: my most in depth investigation yet

maia :3

#FuckStalkerware pt. 4 - the truth come out: does TheTruthSpy is secure

they had like two years to fix this shit, jesus christ

in this article we see just HOW little a company handling highly sensitive data can care about security and yes it's even worse than you think

content warning: mentions of abuse/controlling behaviour

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