OMG - what we’ve all been waiting for! A Guide to the “ever-evolving” language used to “talk about LGBTIQ people”. I need the cry/laugh emoji right here...

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[–]ColoredTwice 12 insightful - 1 fun12 insightful - 0 fun13 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

It is pretty dehumanizing to call someone abomination that is not man or woman. Othering us is pretty painful, and it is harmful for intersex youth especially.

[–]mvmlego 3 insightful - 4 fun3 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 4 fun -  (6 children)

Obviously, it's dehumanizing to refer to someone as an abomination, but that's not really relevant to a lot of the "intersex is a third sex" crowd, which is much more likely to try to portray intersex as being normal to the point of being mundane than it is portray intersex people as monsters.

For example, I encountered this* video about intersex people a while ago. Despite the writers and host clearly believing that intersex people constitute a third sex, they seem respectful and sincerely concerned about the wellbeing of intersex people--and in fact, I don't know how to interpret all of the scientific and philosophical bungles made in the video as anything other than motivated reasoning aimed at disarming anti-intersex prejudice.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT0HJkr1jj4

[–]ColoredTwice 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

They are still spreading misinformation and lies.

It is same as like they act with gay men. Speaking about them with respect, but all time calling f***ot and saying that gay men are loving sex with women. Do you find it fine? I don't.

[–]mvmlego 3 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 5 fun4 insightful - 6 fun -  (4 children)

You're talking past me and moving the goalposts on u/Destruction's behalf. His claim was that it's dehumanizing to see intersex people as anything other than male of female. I disputed that notion (while acknowledging that viewing intersex people as something other than male or female is unscientific). This has nothing to do with calling people "abominations", "f-----", or anything else. Those are red herrings with respect to the original topic of conversation.

[–]ColoredTwice 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

It does? Calling me neither man nor woman is exactly that.

You said that you found they speaking about us with respect while calling us "third sex, neither man nor woman" and spreading minsinformation.

I am finding that calling us in such manner can not be respectful in the first place in any way and I gave an example that it is very absurd and will be same as if they will start calling gay men with slur, spreading lies about gay men that they sleep with women, but doing it "in reslectful manner, to normalize this dedinition of homosexuality and increase acceptance to homosexual people and removing prejudice" - just to show how strongly absurd that claim is. You can't remove prejudice by lying about who we are, calling us with basically slur, and then trying to disarm prejudice about that something they created that we are not.

They are saying "intersex people have 5 hands and it is fine to have 5 hands, we should have no prejudice towards this". And then someone learning that I am intersex and start asking where I am hiding my additional 3 hands. And social or govermental programs we are starting to get to support our 5 hands, while it is not what we need, but there much less of us than trans activists, and they have much more money, reach and support. It is disheartening when their lies are everywhere and we are being othered and our funding goes somewhere else, but not on us.

[–]mvmlego 2 insightful - 7 fun2 insightful - 6 fun3 insightful - 7 fun -  (2 children)

Calling me neither man nor woman is exactly that.

No, it isn't. Saying that somebody is a member of a third sex is not exactly the same thing as calling somebody an abomination or a slur--and the two may even be antithetical to one-another depending on the speaker's attitudes toward the so-called "third sex", as is the case in the video that I linked to.

You can't remove prejudice by lying about who we are

I agree that using misinformation is not, in the long term, an effective strategy for removing prejudice, but that doesn't imply the people doing the misinforming are, themselves, prejudiced against the group they're claiming to defend.

Consider if BLM was to begin spreading misinformation stating the average IQ among black people is ten points higher than the average IQ among other races--and consequently, that there are disproportionately many black geniuses. Given that this is misinformation about black people, your standard would seem to imply that those BLM activists actually disrespect black people, and that referring to black people as geniuses would be a slur akin to "n-----".

EDIT: Based on this example, it seems clear to me that there's an important conceptual distinction between holding/promoting incorrect views about a group, and disrespecting or using slurs against that group.

[–]ColoredTwice 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You are seriously comparing "they have 10 points more IQ on average" with "they are neither men, nor women, with very strange bodies"? The othering is what was hurting us a lot and was causing IGM. How promoting it to an absurd level can help? How promoting information that hurt us in the first place can help us? And yes, I would call "third sex" similar to a slur in most cases.

I wonder if /u/OPPRESSED_REPTILIAN finds being called neither man nor woman or third sex as something fine.

Or maybe like that "Transgender and intersex" organisation WPATH called us "mutants, who are not binary sex" was fine too?

[–]mvmlego 1 insightful - 7 fun1 insightful - 6 fun2 insightful - 7 fun -  (0 children)

You are seriously comparing "they have 10 points more IQ on average" with "they are neither men, nor women, with very strange bodies"?

You're putting words in people's mouths. I never used or defended the use of the word "strange" to describe intersex people, and neither did the video that I linked to. As I said, the video was trying to do quite the opposite of portraying intersex people as strange; it was trying to portray them as ordinary to the point of being mundane. So to answer your question: no. That's not the comparison I was making.

How promoting information that hurt us in the first place can help us?

You're flat-out ignoring a considerable portion of my comments. I never claimed that spreading misinformation about a group would help members of the group--in fact, I specifically said in my last comment that spreading misinformation was not an effective long-term strategy for neutralizing prejudice.

And yes, I would call "third sex" similar to a slur in most cases.

That depends entirely on the speaker's opinion of the (hypothetical) third sex, just like any other label. Whether "liberal" is a slur depends on the speaker's attitudes towards liberals; whether "TERF" is a slur depends on the speaker's attitude towards TERFs, etc..

One of the things that I find odd about this conversation is that there's a good case to be made that classifying intersex people as "males or females with disorders [of sexual development]" is, rhetorically speaking, considerably more de-legitimizing than classifying intersex people as their own category on par with males or females. Behind each of these classifications are a host of subtle, conflicting connotations, so it's unreasonable to assume that somebody chose whatever description that they did specifically because they were trying to convey the worst of those connotations--which is what u/Destruction assumed, and what you continue to assume.

(EDIT: rephrased the last sentence and added content to first paragraph.)