Nice to actually see some reporting on intersex people impacted by this illegal order. It’s so common to overlook us but I would say this absolutely erases us more than it does transgender people. Legally, I fit into neither category. So what am I? Trans people have an answer, even if it is transphobic and against their rights to identify how they want, but this is just another way to eliminate a whole group of people
In the U.S., the X passport gender marker was only created in the first place by a lawsuit by an intersex non-binary trans individual who did not identify as either male or female. Obviously not all intersex individuals identify as non-binary, many identify as a man or woman for example, and so the intersex struggle overlaps with the trans struggle significantly this way.
The use of “Indeterminate” instead of “Intersex,” and the inclusion of representation for gender identity, was intentional, for reasons outlined below.
“The creation of any new category to be designated intersex poses several problems. First of all, there is no firm definition of intersex. Definitions are constructed in relation to medical norms that stigmatise particular kinds of bodies. … Secondly, intersex people are already assigned female or male, and most are raised and identify as women or men. To construct a new category called intersex unavoidably calls into question their sex assignments and gender identities, and suggests that they are not valid or correct. This is not acceptable. … We base our legal arguments on the right of every person to determine their own identity, in the hope that eventually there will be no attempt to impose legal sex categories on anyone.”
The X is thus an opt-out of gender rather than an assertion of a gender, if that makes sense.
Nice to actually see some reporting on intersex people impacted by this illegal order. It’s so common to overlook us but I would say this absolutely erases us more than it does transgender people. Legally, I fit into neither category. So what am I? Trans people have an answer, even if it is transphobic and against their rights to identify how they want, but this is just another way to eliminate a whole group of people
In the U.S., the X passport gender marker was only created in the first place by a lawsuit by an intersex non-binary trans individual who did not identify as either male or female. Obviously not all intersex individuals identify as non-binary, many identify as a man or woman for example, and so the intersex struggle overlaps with the trans struggle significantly this way.
https://www.intersexequality.com/intersex-history-of-the-x-passport-marker/
The X isn’t meant to mean intersex or in-between:
The X is thus an opt-out of gender rather than an assertion of a gender, if that makes sense.