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Intersex Recognition and a Sex/Gender Schema:
Homage to Hida Viloria and Cary Gabriel Costello
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by Margo Schulter
Over the last weeks my consciousness of intersex issues has been
raised by two germinal articles, one by Hida Viloria and the other by
Cary Gabriel Costello. Here I will share my own curious thinking -- or
possibly overthinking! -- prompted by these two educators and
activists who can, unlike myself as a person with nonintersexual
privilege, speak to intersexual concerns on the basis of first person
information and life experience.
As an inclusive radical feminist, I have learned from these two
breathtaking and eloquent articles, and from other compelling
advocates such as Anne Fausto-Sterling, that the usual cis/trans
schemes for describing sex and gender identity were conceived within
the intersex-erasing framework of sex binarism. In this article, I
will attempt briefly to suggest a schema of categories and concepts
which is ternary: for example, with categories of female/intersex/male
(sex) and woman/intergender/man (gender).
Much of what follows is directly borrowed from Viloria and Costello,
and the rest is immensely indebted to them; but any errors and
infelicities are, of course, totally my responsibility.
1. A Basic Overview: Concepts, Categories, and Scenarios
1.1. IGM Survivors and Their Options: The rado- prefix
1.2. Intersex Options in a Binarist Society Without IGM
1.3. In a Nonbinarist Society: More intersex options
1.4. A Caution on "Natal Gender" and Essentialism
1.5. A Summary of Prefixes So Far (and Two More)
2. Confronting Priscobinary (Nonintersex) Privilege
3. Why Not a Cis- Prefix?
4. A Quick Consideration of Gender Expression
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1. A Basic Overview: Concepts, Categories, and Scenarios
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Albert Einstein is famous for saying that "Things should be made as
simple as possible, but no simpler." Attempting to categorize humans
in terms of only three sexes or genders is certainly "as simple as
possible," and at many levels indeed "simpler" than that! But it has
the attraction of being the simplest solution that avoids outright
erasure of intersex people, bodies, and identities; and its
consciousness-raising potential opens the way for richer and more
sophisticated nonbinary understandings of sex/gender.
Before getting into this ternary or three-category approach, I should
briefly address the matter of personal pronouns. For persons of
intergender identity (which may be synonymous with genderqueer
identity), whether intersex or otherwise, I use ze/zir/zirs/zirself.
The forms s/he and her/his relate to humans belonging to any relevant
binary category (male/female or man/woman) -- in contrast to people
belonging to a relevant nonbinary category (intersex/intergender).
As already mentioned, we crudely but boldly begin by recognizing three
categories for physical sex: female/intersex/male. Likewise there are
three gender identity categories: woman/intersex/man.
In looking how people may embody and live various permutations of sex
and gender, and move (or be involuntarily dislocated!) from one
category to another, we must first acknowledge at least three great
oppressions in a patriarchal and sex binarist society that intersex
people face both at or around birth, and throughout their lives:
(1) Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM) -- a form of violence much
like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) -- in the form of
medically unnecessary and nonconsensual surgeries on intersex
infants and children, serves at once to erase intersex bodies
("binarist cleansing") and to erase the rights of intersex
people to discover their own identities and sexualities and
then make their own informed sex/gender choices.
(2) Intersex children, even when IGM has been abolished or they
are fortunate enough otherwise to avoid it, are coercively
assigned to a binary gender -- a "girl" or "boy" -- with the
option of "intergender" or "to be discovered" off the map.
Generally the options are Coercively Assigned Male At Birth
(CAMAB) or Coercively Assigned Female At Birth (CAFAB), a
kind of "soft erasure" of intersex identity as a reality in
its own right, not just a passageway to femaleness or
maleness.
(3) Intersex adolescents and adults generally have the legal
options of identifying as female/woman or male/man, but not
intersex/intergender -- with nonbinary options like
intergender or genderqueer at best on the margins.
To get acquainted with some concepts and categories in context, let's
consider some scenarios for how intersex people may proceed through
life -- with or without these forms of oppression, from the brutally
and violently physical (IGM) to the more subtly psychosocial, which
erase or limit many of their options and choices.
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1.1. IGM Survivors and Their Options: The rado- prefix
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The violence of IGM and the options left to its survivors may provide
one appropriate starting point: it is the erasure not only of intersex
bodies, but of the many possibilities open to intersex children who
are allowed to experience their nonbinary bodies, and grow to an age
and a sense of their own identities where they can make their own
fully informed and consensual decisions on whether or how they wish to
modify those bodies, or change their social or legal gender.
To signify this nonconsensual violence and erasure of IGM, I propose
the prefix rado-, from the Latin "erase." This prefix marks the
brutally coercive and unchosen starting point from which an IGM
survivor must exercise agency and choice -- and often struggle for the
right to do so!
Let us first consider, for example, a case where an intersex baby is
subjected to IGM ("Sex Assignment Surgery" or "SAS") to enforce a
female assignment (CAFAB), is raised as a girl, and comes to identify
as a woman who decides not to modify her body further. She would be
rado-ipso-sexual:
rado- means she survived IGM (here intersex to female)
ipso- means her physical sex is her assigned binary sex (female)
sexual in this context refers to physical sex (rather than gender)
Note that ipso- more generally applies to an intersex person who is
assigned to a binary sex or gender, and remains in that assigned
binary sex or gender category. Costello and Viloria have proposed this
as a possible term, and from my own nonintersexual perspective I find
it very apt.
The individual we are considering who was born intersex, survived IGM,
grew up as CAFAB, and identifies as a woman might describe her gender
status as rado-ipso-gender:
rado- means she survived IGM (here again intersex to female)
ipso- means she identifies as her assigned binary gender
gender here refers to gender identity (not gender expression!)
We can write these terms more compactly as rado-ipsosexual and
rado-ipsogender. The hyphen after rado- may at once make these terms
easier to read, and emphasize the interruption or truncation of
possibilities and choices, as well as of intersex bodies, that IGM
inflicts.
For this IGM survivor who is raised as a girl (CAFAB), another
possibility is that he might develop an identity as a man, and decide
to transition medically (through hormone replacement therapy or HRT
and possibly also surgery) as well as socially from female to male.
If so, he would be rado-trans-sexual and rado-trans-gender, written
more compactly as rado-transsexual and rado-transgender. To break down
these terms:
rado- means surviving IGM (again intersex to female)
trans- she medically transitions to the other binary sex (male)
sexual again relates to remaining in or changing one's physical sex
Likewise:
rado- means surviving IGM (again intersex to female/girl/woman)
trans- means that he identifies with the other binary gender (man)
gender relating to one's gender identity (whatever one's expression)
Another possibility is that this IGM survivor might be raised CAFAB,
identify as a man, and decide to change social and legal gender without
any further body modifications. Our survivor might then live quite
happily -- although not necessarily so happy about the human rights
violation he suffered through IGM in the first place! -- in a situation
we might describe as rado-ipsosexual and rado-transgender. For this
individual's physical sex:
rado- again marks surviving IGM (here intersex to female)
ipso- he doesn't further modify his assigned binary sex (female)
And for gender identity:
rado- again marks surviving IGM (to CAFAB or "girl/woman")
trans- means that he identifies with other binary gender (man)
So far, all of our scenarios for the IGM survivor involve arriving at
binary destinations for physical sex and gender identity. This has been
true even when the two destinations differ, as they did in our last
example of a CAFAB survivor who identifies as a man and transitions
in his social and legal identity, but does not modify his forcibly
assigned female body.
However, although the irrevocable violence of IGM cannot be undone, we
can envision a less patriarchal and sex binarist society of the kind
which may be emerging now where other interesting scenarios become more
and more possible and likely.
Let us suppose that our IGM survivor, who is CAFAB and raised as a
girl, comes to identify as intergender -- leaving zir female body as it
is rather than modifying it further, but reclaiming the gender identity
that would have corresponded to zir intersex body at birth. Since zir
coercively modified body is left as it was binarily assigned, she is
rado-ipsosexual; but zir identity is recreo-gendered, restoring the
intergender identity corresponding with zir intersex body at birth
(from Latin recreo, "I restore" or "I recreate"). Thus for sex:
rado- again, marks surviving IGM (intersex to CAFAB)
ipso- retaining body of assigned binary sex (female)
And for gender:
recreo- meaning a "restoring" of intergender identity after IGM
Note that we don't need the rado- prefix when recreo- applies, because
the latter by definition means IGM followed by a return to a category
corresponding with the survivor's intersex body at birth.
Now let's consider a yet more dramatic example: our IGM survivor is
raised as a girl (CAFAB), and comes to identity as intergender and opt
for a medical transition restoring as closely as possible zir intersex
body as it might have developed in the first place! Here ze is
recreosexual and recreogender.
recreosexual Restoring an intersex body after IGM to a binary sex
recreogender Restored intergender identity for IGM survivor
At this point, it is very important to emphasize that intersex children
have a human right both to experience their natal intersex bodies, and
to develop whatever identity emerges from their free and unimpeded
journey through childhood: intergender, female, or male! They also have
the right, when they reach an appropriate age and sense of self, to
modify their bodies if they desire -- or to leave them unmodified. The
relevant feminist principle is "My body, my identity, my choice!"
Another telling analogy might compare an IGM survivor to a refugee
displaced by ethnic cleansing, who can and should be given the choices
of remaining where they are in the country of refuge (ipso-); return or
repatriation to their own country (recreo-), thus correcting to a
degree the ethnic cleansing; or relocating to some other country
(trans-).
The right of return or repatriation is just that: a right, not an
obligation or categorical imperative. However, denial of the right or
option of return to victims of ethnic cleansing constitutes a further
ratification or perpetration of that violence: it is the refugee's
exercise of free choice that corrects the injustice.
Thus the social and legal recognition of intersex and intergender
statuses on an equal footing with male/man and female/woman, and the
development and refinement of medical options for recreosexuality
(restoring a given intersex individual's body after IGM to an
approximation of how that body might have naturally developed), will
help IGM survivors to have a fuller range of choices after a brutal act
of binarist erasure that should never have occurred.
A grim saying of the Cold War around 1960 declared of nuclear weapons:
"If these buttons are never pressed, they will have served their
purpose."
If the rado- prefix helps in the abolition of IGM, making it and
eventually also the recreo- prefix obsolete, it will also have served
its purpose.
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1.2. Intersex Options in a Binarist Society Without IGM
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Let us imagine a society where IGM has been abolished, but intersex
babies are still generally assigned -- albeit provisionally -- to one
binary gender or the other, either CAFAB or CAMAB. It's understood that
all gender assignments are in a sense coercive, since they seek to
predict based on physical sex at birth what gender identity a child --
intersex or otherwise -- is likely to develop. However, intersex and
intergender statuses are still considered quite "experimental," rather
than on a par with the binary female/woman or male/man.
We return to the case of an intersex baby who's CAFAB -- a status which
involves the psychosexual coercion of a binary gender assignment, but
without the physical assault of IGM. What are some of the options?
One possibility that sometimes plays out in present patriarchal
society, for example for CAFAB people with Partial Androgen
Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS), is that this child, raised as a girl,
comes to identity as a woman, and to accept her intersex body
unmodified. For example, she might have a somewhat enlarged external
clitoris (clitoromegaly) and a short vagina without internal female
reproductive organs (ovaries and uterus). She sees no need to alter
either her assigned binary identity as a woman, nor her body.
This woman would be priscosexual, with prisco- from the Latin for
"first, primordial," meaning that she remains in her sex at birth
(intersex).
Note that in geology, the Priscoan period is the very earliest, from
the formation of the Solar System and Earth to the earliest known rocks
(about 4.6-4.0 billion years ago). While prisco- refers to anyone's
sex at birth, and the corresponding gender category, for intersex
people it especially means intersex and corresponding intergender
categories before sex/gender assignments (typically binary) take place.
Since she identifies with her assigned binary gender, she is
ipsogender. Thus her priscosexual or unaltered intersex body and her
assigned binary gender or ipsoogender identity of girl/woman coexist.
The absence of internal female organs, and of a vagina supporting
heteronormative or penetrative sex, need not weaken or preclude her
gender identity as a woman, any more than they do for some transsexual
woman (born with male bodies) who also have no ovaries or uterus, and
who may choose surgeries which seek to create only a very short vagina.
Her situation, in short, is
priscosexual She was born intersex, and so remains
ipsogender She identifies as her assigned binary gender (woman)
Another possibility is that this CAFAB intersex person might be
ipsogender or identity as a woman, but choose to modify her body in a
female direction, for example through a clitoral reduction and/or
vaginoplasty. If so, she would be ipsosexual and ipsogender:
ipsosexual She transitions to her assigned binary sex (female)
ipsogender She identifies as her assigned binary gender (woman)
Unlike these two choices, another option would be rather more
"experimental" in the binary-but-no-IGM society we are envisioning.
Our CAFAB intersex person develops an intergender identity, and asserts
zir desire to live in this nonbinary identity and have it recognized.
Ze is priscosexual, living in an unchanged intersex body; and
re-priscogender, returning to the corresponding intergender after a
binary assignment (here as a girl, CAFAB).
priscosexual Intersex at birth, unmodified
re-priscogender Restoring of intergender from assigned binary (CAFAB)
Note that the re- prefix means a choice for a "restored" intergender
option after the psychosocial coercion of a binary assignment (CAFAB),
in contrast to the recreo- prefix for such a restoring after the
additional and brutal coercion of IGM. While assigning genders to
infants is always a guess, we might note that in our postulated
still-binarist society the possibility of assigning an intersex baby as
intergender is simply not on the table, so that if intergender identity
develops anyway the individual must re-claim it.
Additionally, our CAFAB intersex baby might grow up to identify as a
man, the other binary gender. If so, he might be transsexual and
transgendered, transitioning medically to a male body as well as
socially to living as a man.
transsexual Transitioning medically from intersex to male
transgender Transitioning socially from a woman to a man
Another interesting possibility is that he might transition socially,
in accordance with his gender identity, to living as a man, but elect
to retain his intersex body. Then he would be priscosexual and
transgender:
priscosexual Retaining his natal intersex body
transgender Transitioning socially from a woman to a man
Let us suppose that the priscosexual and/or re-priscogender options for
intersex people become more and more visible and accepted, likely as
intergender (or genderqueer) identities grow more common for other
people as well, and feminist and trans movements make more and more
progress. This moves us to our next set of scenarios.
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1.3. In a Nonbinarist Society: More intersex options
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As a woman enjoying nonintersex privilege, I find it revealing to
reflect on the number of scenarios we've had to go through to move from
a patriarchal society where IGM is routine, to one where it's banned
but binary-only gender assignments at birth are still the norm, and
beyond, in order to arrive at the simplest scenario of all.
An intersex child is born, and assigned as intergender; ze grows into
zir body and identifies with zir assigned gender; and ze lives happily
in zir body as an intergender person. Ze is priscosexual and
priscogender.
priscosexual Ze is born intersex and so physically remains
priscogender Ze is assigned intergender, and so identifies
Here there are also two other obvious scenarios. First, the individual
assigned to intergender might come to identify as a man or woman
instead -- one or the other of the binary genders. Let us say that she
identifies as a woman, for example, and transitions socially to her
chosen gender, but decides to leave her intersex body unmodified. Then
she would be priscosexual and transgender:
priscosexual She is born intersex and so physically remains
transgender Her social gender changes from intergender to woman
Let us consider the slightly different scenario where a child assigned
intergender again identifies as a binary gender -- this time. we'll
say, as a man -- but decides to modify his intersex body to male, the
sex corresponding to his gender identity. He would be transsexual as
well as transgendered:
transsexual He transitions medically from intersex to male
transgender He transitions socially from intergender to a man
Note that in this society, an intersex baby assigned intergender would
have the same three obvious types of options as a child assigned
female/girl or male/boy. The person may identify with their assigned
gender, and seek neither social transition nor medical transition to
another sex -- priscosexual/priscogender.
The person may identify with another gender and transition socially to
that gender, but without body modifications or "change of sex" --
priscosexual/transgender.
The person may also identify with another gender and transition
medically to the corresponding sex, as well as socially to that gender:
transsexual/transgender.
Thus, at least from the perspective of this crude ternary sex/gender
logic, the way to "make things as simple as possible," to borrow
Einstein's words, is to overcome intersexual oppression and sex
binarism as one aspect of the patriarchy.
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1.4. A Caution on "Natal Gender" and Essentialism
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The prefixes recreo- (for a return to an intersex body after IGM) and
re- (for a "return to the choice" of intergender after a binary gender
assignment) refer to restoring an erased or originally unconsidered
choice, by no means necessarily the "natural" or "correct" choice for
every child born intersex!
In matters of physical sex, recreo- does from one point of view refer
to restoring a once actually existing state: the original intersex
condition of a body forcible altered, or rather the condition into
which that body might have developed less this unwanted intervention.
The term recreosexual is in this sense not so far from literal truth.
However, recreogender may be a bit more of a poetic license in viewing
an IGM victim who develops and affirms an intergender identity as
"restoring" the gender ze _might_ have developed without IGM, and also
without the "kinder and gentler" coercion of a binary-only gender
assignment and socialization system. It is easy to imagine many paths
by which a child permitted to grow up intersex, or indeed also assigned
intergender, might identity as a man or woman, seeking social and maybe
also medical transition to fit this identity.
Additionally, the recreo- and re- concepts as applied to gender might
seem to suggest that there is such a thing as "natal gender" or "brain
sex" already present at birth -- however elusive or impossible to
determine except through the child's lived experience -- and that this
is at least often "intergender" rather than "girl" or "boy" for an
intersex baby.
While scientific certainty on these points may not at yet be possible,
my Second Wave feminism (e.g. Naomi Weisstein) leans in the direction
of assuming that the formation of gender identity, like language
learning, may be a process of "imprinting" or whatever that takes place
in infancy and early childhood, rather than something already
accomplished at birth. The idea of "brain sex" seems to me a bit like a
hypothesis of "brain Spanish" or "brain Mandarin." Of course, with
language or gender, the learning process itself and related social and
environmental factors may have neurological consequences -- but sorting
out correlation from causation may not be so easy.
However, both the violent erasure of FGM and the social restriction of
binary-only gender assignment act to deny or at least delay access to
embodied experiences and identities that the child might otherwise
access. Thus the recreo- and re- prefixes as applied to gender, as well
as recreo- as applied to physical sex.
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1.5. A Summary of Prefixes So Far (and Two More)
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Here we'll go through the prefixes in a different order, almost a
reversed one to our journey from IGM erasure through a less brutal sex
binarism to a nonbinarist order where intersex and intergender people
finally stand on an equal footing. We will also encounter two new
prefixes, one of them (iso-) relevant for the following sections.
prisco- Retaining or identifying with sex or gender at birth
trans- Moving to, or identifying as, another sex or gender
Note that trans- always implies a self-determined recognition that one
identifies with or chooses medically to transition to, another sex or
gender. It should NEVER be confused with nonconsensual (rado-) IGM!
Generally, for intersex babies binarily assigned without IGM, we have
these likely alternatives:
priscosexual Retains intersex body
ipsosexual Consensually transitions to assigned binary sex
transsexual Consensually transitions to other binary sex
re-priscogender Develops and transitions to intergender
ipsogender Identifies as coercively assigned binary gender
transgender Identifies as other binary gender
Thus to prisco- and trans- we have added, for intersex people:
ipso- Relates to coercively assigned binary gender
re- Identifies with intergender after binary assignment
As long as IGM survivors must deal with the choices that this violent
erasure leaves them, we also have these prefixes and combinations:
rado- Marks the erasure of IGM as survivor's starting point
rado-ipso Pertains to coercively assigned binary sex or gender
rado-trans Pertains to other binary sex or gender
recreo- Pertains to restored choice: intersex or intergender
Two other prefixes:
iso- Pertains to sex or gender assigned at birth
ana- "Retransition" after consensual (trans-) transition
The iso- prefix simply relates to sex assigned at birth -- CAFAB or
CAFAB, or sometimes more mildly FAAB (Female Assigned At Birth) or MAAB
(Male Assigned At Birth) -- which may be either prisco- (for an infant
deemed with a binary-conforming female or male body) or (most often for
an intersex baby) ipso-.
The iso- prefix can be used as a mask of privacy for intersex persons
who prefer not to disclose that they are IGM survivors (rado-) or
more generally were born intersex and received binary (ipso-)
assignments. For example, "I am an iso female/iso woman" says that the
person was FAAB and that she identifies as a woman. However, it leaves
open three distinct types of scenarios:
priscosexual/priscogender Born as female, FAAB, identifies as woman
ipsosexual/ipsogender CAFAB intersex consensually transitioned
to female, identifies as a woman
rado-ipsosexual/ CAFAB IGM survivor; retains female body,
rado-ipsogender identifies as a woman
These three scenarios are radically different, so that iso- makes most
sense as a privacy option for intersex people who may or may not wish
to discuss the most personal details of their lives in a given
setting. Note that Greek iso- means "equal" or "the same," and simply
says that the person's sex or gender identity is the same as that
assigned at birth -- as opposed to prisco-, the "first" or "primordial"
condition of the body at birth, and the option of the corresponding
gender.
The ana- form may be useful for people who voluntarily transition in
physical sex and/or social gender, and then decide to "retransition" or
perhaps "detransition" back to their previous sex and/or gender. Here
there is no IGM or psychosocial coercion as applied to intersex babies
and children, but rather one voluntary decision reversed by another.
Thus "I'm an ana male/ana man" would likely mean "I was MAAB, tried
becoming a trans female/trans woman, and decided to transition back to
man/male." Here the Greek ana- means "again" or "back."
The "retransition" or ana- choice is likely controversial in good part
because some people who are ana women or ana men regard it not only as
a personal decision or solution (many human choices are subject to
regret or reversal), but as evidence that the trans- option is itself
somehow "wrong" or even "delusional." Once we put aside such "ex-trans
campaigns," retransition appears as just another human possibility, as
well as a caution that sex/gender decisions should always be carefully
considered; and the ana- prefix may be useful for this situation.
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2. Confronting Priscobinary (Nonintersex) Privilege
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Being born male or even female rather than intersex carries some
privileges which our concepts of sex/gender may help clarify. To be
born as male or female -- although under patriarchy these are generally
two very different estates! -- is to have a prisco- or birth sex and
corresponding gender which are binary: male/man or female/woman. Thus
this "nonintersexual" status may be called "priscobinary," with its
attached "priscobinary privilege."
Here the word "privilege," as Lisa Millbank has in other contexts
observed, can often mean the right to what I will decorously call a
"rotten bargain" that demands conformity and compliance, but in return
offers a certain refuge or respite, at least momentary, and thus also a
degree of choice ("Should I comply, openly resist and brave the
consequences, or more subtly and even slyly resist?" -- the last option
being a typical choice for oppressed nations and classes when bolder
resistance seems not so far from suicide).
The first great priscobinary privilege is simply the time and space to
inhabit one's body without the coercive erasure of IGM -- at least in
times and places where FGM is not the likewise atrocious fate of girls!
The presence of FGM would change the whole equation; but where FGM is
absent and IGM is practiced, male and female children alike are spared
the mutilation to which intersex children are subject.
The second priscobinary privilege is having socially recognized and
legitimized categories both for the gender corresponding to one's sex
at birth (prisco-), and for the other binary gender (a trans- option).
This offers not only the possibility of a priscosex/priscogender life,
but of a transgender and possibly also transsexual choice based on
having inhabited one's natal body and made a trial of the corresponding
gender assignment.
People with priscobinary privilege may face some of the same
difficulties as intersex people in transitioning to an intergender
identity (often known as what I take to be the more or less similar
genderqueer), and often in seeking medical transition to a body that
seems most concordant with this intergender identity. However, these
manifestations of trans- in binary people have the advantage of a
childhood undisrupted by IGM (whatever the other challenges), and of
making a deliberate choice to seek intergender status as a new option
rather a coercively and often violently suppressed prisco-
possibility at birth.
Again, if trans- means voluntary migration to another country, rado-
means ethnic (or binarist) cleansing before one can either consent or
resist; and binary-only assignment without IGM might be analogous to
being deprived (although without necessarily knowing it at the time) of
an opportunity to learn the mothertongue of one's family as a first
language.
It is strange, from my position of priscobinary privilege, to imagine
being without it: and any sound intuitions I may happen to express are
based mainly on reading the accounts of intersex people who can speak
very eloquently at first hand.
But recognition that there is a priscobinary or nonintersex privilege
may be the first step in better understanding it and becoming a more
effective ally in overcoming the sex/gender binary.
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3. Why Not a Cis- Prefix?
--------------------------
In this ternary or three-category gender system, prisco- expresses sex
at birth (female/intersex/male) and its corresponding gender category
(woman/intergender/male); while iso- relates to assignment at birth. In
a patriarchal and binarist society, this is generally female/woman or
male/man -- with intersex/intergender not on the table. So even if
intersex babies are spared IGM and have an option to be and remain
priscosexual, their only route to intergender is re-priscogender, with
the complications of a social gender reassignment -- and the option for
a legal intergender status if they are very fortunate.
A system with prisco- and iso- recognizes these asymmetries, and may
have the advantage of nipping in the bud lots of Oppression Olympics
where the only winning strategy is not to play! Neither prefix
necessarily marks being "perfectly at ease in one's skin" or "having an
easy journey through the social and legal maze that is gender status."
In contrast, I regret to say, the cis- prefix -- whether conceptualized
in terms of cisalpine/transalpine (from the perspective of Rome),
cislunar and translunar space (from the perspective of Planet Gaia), or
the intricacies of cis- and trans- in chemistry (of which I am quite
ignorant) -- has acquired some unfortunate baggage. If the people who
are deemed cis- wish to reclaim this term, I support them in this
right: some who use it are, like me, Lesbian feminists of the Second
Wave. It is their decision, not mine.
The most obvious problem with cis- is simply that it was designed as
part of a binary-oriented system for sorting out sex/gender in
"cis-/trans-" terms, with intersex/intergender not central to the
process, although genderqueer concepts hint at the possibilities of a
a ternary or more generally nonbinary schema.
However, it may be helpful to note some other problems I have seen,
ranging from connotations about gender expression which this term
regarding sex and gender identity should never been allowed to acquire;
to questionable allegations of "cis privilege" used as a reply to
equally questionable allegations of other kinds; to the "weaponization"
of cis- on Twitter and other social media, e.g. #DieCisScum.
One reason why I would prefer iso- is that it is in this context a
novel term which I hope may carry little preexisting baggage (a
consideration with some coinages in physics also), and also that it is
a limited term designed mainly to offer a cloak for intersex people who
wish to describe their sex/gender starting from assigned sex at birth.
In the overall context of the system (with prisco-, ipso-, and all),
iso- is less likely to invite odious comparisons.
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4. A Quick Consideration of Gender Expression
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Just as the fact that one remains in one's country of birth and retains
citizenship there may say little about how socially or politically
conformist, avant garde, or outright rebellious one is; so the fact
that one remains in the sex/gender of one's birth or one's first
assignment says nothing about one's gender conformity or nonconformity.
It only says that one did not choose to "emigrate" or transition to
another category -- whether trans-, re-, recreo-, or sometimes also
ipso- (modifying one's intersex body to agree with one's assigned
binary gender identity which one comes to recognize as one's own).
As a preventative measure against any temptation to confuse these
sex/gender categories with matters of expression, I would like to
propose a few terms that can address this distinct dimension of
gender.
First, for recognized gender identities where social norms or
conventions apply, the terms ortho-/medio-/peri- may help, although
they merely point to regions of a continuum:
ortho- Generally conforming to norms for identity category
medio- A bit freer, somewhere between conformity and rebellion
peri- "On the perimeter," adventurous, rebellious, "outlaw"
Thus a Butch Lesbian who was born female and chooses so to remain;
strongly identifies as a woman; and regards herself as a dedicated
"gender outlaw" would be prisco female/prisco woman/periexpressing.
A Butch Lesbian born intersexual, raised as CAFAB (without IGM), and
leaving her body unchanged while identifying as a woman (as Lesbian may
imply) would be prisco intersex/ipso woman/periexpressing.
A Butch Lesbian born intersexual, raised as CAFAB (without IGM), who
identifies as a woman and elects for surgery to make her body female
would be ipso female/ipso woman/periexpressing.
A Butch Lesbian survivor of IGM, raised as CAFAB, who identifies as a
woman and chooses to leave her coercively altered body as is would be
rado-ipso female/rado-ipso woman/periexpressing.
An "Earth Mother femme" Lesbian born male and raised as a boy who's
transitioned to female/woman and is a bit academic and androgynous in
her expression might be trans female/trans woman/medioexpressing.
A Gay man born intersex, raised CAFAB (without IGM), who develops a
male identity and leaves his body unaltered, and who as an attorney
favors a carefully conforming and "professional" style of presentation
and expression would be prisco intersex/trans man/orthoexpressing.
Note that while many of these people (who happen all to have a Lesbian
or Gay orientation) are intersex (by birth, and sometimes also at
present), they all have binary genders subject to established social
expectations. But for intergender people, in a binarist society setting
few norms for this category (which likely has its blessings), these
prefixes possibly might be helpful:
endo- Feel secure or stably situated within domain of identity
ecto- Feel adventurous, quirky, or "an outlaw's outlaw"
Those who live intergender (or genderqueer) lives are the ones to say
where, if anywhere, such concepts or better ones may lead. Of course,
in societies which recognize "third genders" or more generally
"additional genders," there may be quite clear norms, spaces for
accepted variations, and peri- territories for nonconformists.
It is also possible that a given intergender community in a binarist
society, although free from (largely nonexistent) conventions imposed
by society as a whole, might develop its own alternative institutions
setting its own norms, as many LGBTIQA communities and subcultures
might do. If so, one might hope that "honor among sex/gender outlaws"
encourages conventions which serve as friendly guides rather than rigid
or arbitrary constraints.
Margo Schulter
18 September 2014