--------------------------------------------------- Intersex Recognition and a Sex/Gender Schema: Homage to Hida Viloria and Cary Gabriel Costello --------------------------------------------------- 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 -------------------------------------------------------- 1. A Basic Overview: Concepts, Categories, and Scenarios -------------------------------------------------------- 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. ------------------------------------------------------ 1.1. IGM Survivors and Their Options: The rado- prefix ------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------- 1.2. Intersex Options in a Binarist Society Without IGM ------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------- 1.3. In a Nonbinarist Society: More intersex options ---------------------------------------------------- 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. ------------------------------------------------- 1.4. A Caution on "Natal Gender" and Essentialism ------------------------------------------------- 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. ------------------------------------------------ 1.5. A Summary of Prefixes So Far (and Two More) ------------------------------------------------ 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. --------------------------------------------------- 2. Confronting Priscobinary (Nonintersex) Privilege --------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------- 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. --------------------------------------------- 4. A Quick Consideration of Gender Expression --------------------------------------------- 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 meso- Feel somewhere between stably situated and "cutting edge" 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 Minor revision 31 October 2014