“Female-assigned intersex kids’ vaginal canal size is also assessed by doctors, to ensure that it’s long enough to fit a penis inside of it. Doctors might surgically construct or re-construct vaginas, which can result in a host of health problems and necessitate multiple, multiple surgeries. This is especially the case since most intersex kids have these surgeries very young, and when their bodies grow into their adult forms, more surgeries are necessary to keep their vagina size in proportion. Non-surgical methods are also used to increase or maintain vaginal length by regularly using medical dildos to stretch the vagina over months and years. (It’s kind of like braces for your vagina, but much, much worse.) Just like there are no standards for how long a clitoris “can” be before it’s classified as a penis, there aren’t absolute standards as to how long a vagina is for it to be of “normal” length. I had a dilation procedure performed for almost every exam I had with intersex doctors from the time I was 8 until I was 16, so that they could check how long my vagina was as I grew. I absolutely hated these procedures. I mean, imagine a man as old as your father or your grandfather, who you don’t know, inserting a medical dildo into you each time you saw him, knowing that you can’t question the doctor’s orders and just accept that you have to undergo these uncomfortable procedures for your health. Imagine a decade or so later, realizing that these procedures did nothing to track your health, and had everything to do with grown men feeling good about the fact that you could fuck some dude someday like a “normal girl”. That all those traumatizing procedures weren’t actually medically relevant at all, and it actually was within my right to refuse those examinations. I didn’t know any of that at the time. I also had no idea that I wouldn’t want to ultimately have the kind of sex they assumed I’d be having, adding yet another layer of this-was-totally-unnecessary/messed-up to my history. Other kids shouldn’t have to go through this. Other adults shouldn’t have revelations some day far into the future that what was happening to them WASN’T okay, and their traumatic feelings ARE valid, and the whole system of how intersex people are conceptualized and “treated” IS entirely fucked. And it’s gotta change. We’ve gotta change it.”
—
—-Claudia at Autostraddle
I just read this article and was reminded once again how invisible the intersex community often is… we need to signal boost this shit to let people know that this kind of “medical treatment” is NOT okay.
(via bossybussy)
Felt straight-up ill reading this. This is the institutionalized rape of children. It’s beyond unconscionable that procedures like this are normalized and considered “treatment”.
(via thaxted)
jfc
(via stammsternenstaub)
Revolting and repugnant.
See why intersex folk don’t like their medical issues being used as a rhetorical gotcha?
(via appropriately-inappropriate)
… This book is so dumb in such obvious ways that it makes me think the people who keep recommending it to me didn’t actually read it.
If you sincerely want me to fuck off, say it again in the next reply or don’t reply at all. It seems like you replied because you wanted to have a conversation but if you don’t I won’t make you have one.
That being said I’m not pro-religion and I’d like any kind of citation of ‘faux feminism’ being equally responsible for abuse as an industry where the vast majority of people express that they do not want to be involved in it but lack the means to escape. I’d like to know how faux feminism compares to Pornhub’s founder admitting to profiting from videos made without the consent of its users.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/pornhub-parent-company-admits-receiving-proceeds-sex-trafficking-and-agrees-three-year
Your argument isn’t even pro-sex-industry though, it’s just saying, ‘other groups are also bad so don’t look at this one’. Should I not critique Amazon because it pays its workers and Nestle and Apple use actual literal child and slave labor or are all four groups worth fucking despising for how they take advantage of vulnerable people?
the fact that criticizing the sex industry is seen as more oppressive than the sex industry itself should really make people think
being homosexual and not wanting to sleep with the opposite sex isn’t having a genital fetish you absolute FREAKS, genitals are LITERAL erogenous zones??? that’s called having a healthy sexuality and is uhhh kind of the point of having sex, which is very unlike having an actual fetish that’s directed at an OBJECT (not normal) instead of another human’s literal sexed body (very normal!)
so stop projecting and go cut your internet cables or something
to keep it simple, i don't think any abuser deserves the privilege of being able to go "but im sorry!!" and be forgiven by the internet for what they did. i dont think any victim should have to see their abuser be put on a pedestal. only victims can forgive our abusers. and we do not have to
No I will not "look at the bright side" or "think positively" because I was born in a country where women don't have it as horrible as in other places. I didn't fucking choose to be born here, and they didn't choose to be born anywhere else.
If I were born in one of the 30 african and middle eastern countries where fgm is most concentrated according to the UN, my best scenario would be having my clitoris cut off without any kind of pain killer, with a razor blade that was never sterilized. They could also just decide to cut the whole thing off and then sew me shut, leaving a minuscule hole for my future "husband" to break through when he deems me worthy of his wrinkly, twice as old dick.
If I were born in Pakistan I could be one of the over 150 estimated women who get acid thrown at them annually, because their husbands (who I can assure you these women didn't marry by any real choice) threw a fucking tantrum over what they were wearing.
If I were born in America, where every 98 seconds someone is sexually assaulted, 91% of the victims being female, I could be one of the 1/3 of women who have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime according to the New York City National Organization for Women.
So with that said, I DON'T CARE THAT I HAVE IT LESS BAD, IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER
I didn't choose to be born in a country where I'm kind of viewed as an equal human being by most people despite the anatomy I didn't choose to have. Those 150 estimated pakistani women didn't fucking choose to have acid thrown at their faces. The women of america didn't choose the reality they live in right now.
I was lucky to be born in Sweden. I shouldn't have to consider being treated as a living, breathing human being as something lucky just because I have a fucking vagina.
Fuck the bright side and fuck your "optimism"
it's funny because my job involves a lot of using a box cutter, so you'd think that's the thing I'd accidentally hurt myself with the most
but nooo no no no. the box cutter is my colleague, my ally, my friend. you know what is truly bloodthirsty in a print & signage shop? literally Anything Else that's able to cut but not supposed to. cardboard, sheets of plastic, the humble paper of course, corrugated polypropylene, aluminum composite sheets - i nicked myself on a sheet of magnetic material today?? it bled. kinda profusely.
basically:
box cutter: a trusty companion, might hurt you if you handle it wrong, but that's understandable
stuff you use the box cutter on: they know you as their enemy. they know the rules of this life: kill, or be killed. they know what they have to do.
📢📢📢
(op turned off rbs but there’s a lot of things wrong with this)
a woman IS more than reproductive organs, women can be anything, do anything, dress any way, act any way, so on and so forth. HOWEVER the only requirement is that she be of the female sex, ie have female reproductive organs.
this does not mean ALL a woman is is her female sex, only that to be a woman she MUST be the female sex
I have preestablished biases and beliefs about the world, I acknowledge that and am willing to adjust with new information shared.
188 posts