I haven’t seen it too much, but when I do it makes me uncomfortable. One time I’ve seen this was describing trans people as some “sacred third gender”. Now, I am not talking about indigenous cultures’ beliefs, because that’s very different. Most of the pagan religions I’m talking about are reconstructions based on our understandings of pre-Christian worship. Something that, you know, Christians generally went to great lengths to destroy & distort all evidence of. A lot of the writings are outsider’s versions of events.

Most of the US, Canada & West Europe aren’t incredibly trans friendly. Some are better than others, definitely, but they aren’t all super great harbors of trans awareness. So within a culture that already demonizes, objectifies, fetishizes, and otherwise dehumanizes trans people- seeing people treat us as some super special mystical ultra-intune-with-the-divine people is pretty disconcerting. Putting people who aren’t even seen as people onto a pedestal is not a step in the right direction. It’s just a fluffier version of saying “you aren’t a person”.

And a lot of people do abuse that, you get men who claim to be feminists because they think it’ll get them what they want from women or so they can use feminist key-words to attack women who speak against misogyny, you get various privileged people claim to support people they have privilege over so they can take over and get a power trip while getting back-pats from other privileged people.

Whether or not men ‘can’ be feminists, seeing a man who you don’t know claiming to be a feminist is going to be a red flag for a lot of people because of people who do that.

But, really, any man who’s calling himself a feminist really should be aware of his privilege enough to be aware of that and accept it.

Trigger warning for ableism, specifically against people on the autism spectrum.

The article this is critquing can be found here.

On the other hand, some adults decide they are highly sensitive when they actually do have an ASD. They want to find a normal explanation for something that is not normal.

High sensitivity is as normal as the autism spectrum. I, personally, think this means both are normal. But you can think that they’re both abnormal, if you have to, but you probably shouldn’t.

This is why this article is so messed up- it’s entirely designed to say We’re normal- You aren’t.

The rest after this is suggestions that are actually sensible- you know yourself best, get multiple opinions from multiple therapists if you can (she didn’t say this, but especially if the first diagnosis/lack thereof feels wrong) because you want the definite truth.

However, this bit is still incredibly problematic.

High sensitivity can be a disorder.

The autistic spectrum are not always disorders. Even when they are, saying they aren’t “normal” is also not true.

Insisting highly sensitive people are “normal’ and can’t possibly be disordered does a disservice both to people with other disorders and to highly sensitive people who are disordered. Insisting people on the autism spectrum aren’t “normal”? Disgusting.

Trigger warning for ableism, specifically against people on the autism spectrum.

The article this is critquing can be found here.

Our next part starts with an exciting situation in which a person without Asperger’s applies motives and thought processes to a near stranger based on his having Asperger’s. Let’s watch. Actually, you want to skip this. Put on some music you like, drink something you enjoy, and scroll down to where you see /Serious Trigger Warning letting you know that it’s slightly less dangerous to proceed. Serious Trigger Warning.

When I happened to be on a week-long group backpacking trip with a man with Asperger’s (he only told us about this at the end), it took some time to realize there was something different about him. I recall best that his normal ten-year-old son (they’d been sent out for a male bonding experience) was in agony from trying to carry a pack too heavy for him. His father told him it was because he had packed too much. This was surely the case, but Dad showed no sympathy or even annoyance.

This strikes me as being common. Also, it strikes me as being in need of context. Did the dad spend the time packing reminding his son to pack lighter? Were there arguments about what does and doesn’t need to be brought? Does the dad know his kid’s pack is too heavy because he spent time trying to get his kid to stop packing non-necessities? Did the dad offer to pack some things but his kid refused and insisted that he could do it?

Even just one of these being true and that’s not an unlikely response to the whining. If you warn someone about something and they ignore your warnings, hearing htem complain about it results in annoyance. That’s not a lack of empathy, that’s not a lack of proper social understanding/reaction. That’s the reason “I told you so” exists in the English language.

And it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that all of those happened, which makes it even more understandable.

Severe Trigger Warning (it’s that bad, seriously, consider just skipping this bit, if you are at all low on spoons- do not read this) It was not about teaching his son a lesson—that would have involved some complex social-emotional negotiations.

….Stop talking. Just, ugh, this is disgusting, the smugness. Did he say that? Did he say “No- Iw asn’t teaching him a lesson” or are you saying “this man clearly can’t handle the complex social-emotional negotiations involved in child rearing he’s just a cold-hearted jerk while normal parents who do the same thing are doig it for their kids own good!”

He was clueless about how to resolve this beyond next time seeing his son had a lighter pack.

Maybe this was teaching him a lesson, it was punishment, and making his kid carry the pack was so that he could spend a week having it drilled into him “I need to pack lighter”.

Not the kindest thing- but it happens. Neurotypical parents do this.

Something clearly had to be done, so my husband carried the boy’s pack on steep climbs. The father expressed no surprise or gratitude.

Your husband just interrupted his parenting without first running it by the boy’s father. Let me make it clear that I know full well that parents can be abusive- but how many parents do you know are grateful when someone undermines their authority?

Now, it apparently/allegedly didn’t upset the boy’s father- not enough for his response to be worthy of noting- so it’s hopefully not that bad. But that still doesn’t mean “Look at this man tormenting his poor child by making him carry a heavy backpack”

He was a very nice man, a nurse by profession, and a good one when I was injured on the trip.

So… Possibly someone who’s more aware of his child’s physical limits so would be more aware of wehther or not hte pack is “too heavy” as in “this will do damage to my child if I don’t help” vs. “too heavy” as in “I don’t want to carry this pack so I’m gonna whine but I can do it”, so it’s even more likely than it usually is that the dad would know he wasn’t hurting his kid by making him carry his own pack?

He could talk readily about his problem, and the fact his marriage had ended because his wife could not stand his lack of emotional empathy.

It happens.

But there was no way that he could be confused with an HSP, except perhaps by his acute awareness that he was different, which made him very sad. He could experience his own emotions, but he could not read the signs of the emotional experiences of others.

But if a lack of empathy is the problem- I’m definitely liable to confuse this person with what they seem to think a person with Asperger’s “disorder” is like (note: this has nothing to do with what people with Asperger’s are necessarily actually like). That’s a serious display of empathy fail there.

/End Severe Trigger Warning

(trigger warning: Anti-Intersex/Dyadism, Binarism, Cissexism) We do know these disorders are genetically based—[…] For example, most but not all of the genes put boys more at risk than girls.

anti-intersex/dyadism and binarism and cissexism. I just love the smell of it in the morning. I will bet you money that she means “That put people with one X chromosome more at risk than people with more than one X chromosome.”

Just say that.

This whole part is just a lot of stuff that may very well be pseudo-science (Autism Spectrum conditions might be caused by “the zillion chemicals we are all ingesting these days”). It might have some basis, but I don’t know. so I’m skipping the rest.

An early diagnosis followed by the right treatment makes a huge difference in the outcome, so you do not want to make any mistakes here.

What the hell is the right treatment? Because often times treatment is incredibly abusive and damaging to people on the autism spectrum. It might make them more “socially acceptable”, but at what cost? When we stop living in a world where PTSD is preferable to being on the autism spectrum (being trans, having an intersex, not being straight, being anything not “normal”)- then I won’t have as much of a problem with it.

But really- depending on the situation, sometimes the right “treatment” is teaching the kid how to handle a world that doesn’t like them. Which isn’t a “treatment” like she’s suggesting.

Severe Trigger Warning (just go read something else, have a nice day) no one who loves a child or their parents would want to think about autism

…

If you don’t understand why it’s problematic to say no one would want to think someone they love might be autistic, please stop reading this and start reading blogs by people on the autism spectrum who do a much better job of explaining why acknowledging that they’re on it, and loving them for who they are, is far kinder than pretending they’re neurotypical.

or is happy for twenty minutes merely watching a bicycle wheel spinning [part of showing how incredibly "bad" it is to have an ASD]

I am so jealous of that kid. Why is it a disorder to be made happy by little things?

Sometimes sensitivity and ASDs are confused because the child with an ASD may have little or no ability to regulate emotions, and sensitive children, too, are more emotional than other children. But with ASDs, these behaviors are due to incorrectly processing perceptual stimulation all the time, not just when overstimulated.

Whereas HSP are just overstimulated by the world so are always overstimulated so…

Yeah.

Also, people on the autism spectrum very likely could match all the traits of HSP and therefore would be an HSP on the autism spectrum.

[Suggesting an “insiders” book that’s written from the autistic perspective by a man who does not have autism. Also, represents him as an "expert" despite the author saying that he is not]

There’s too many things wrong with this.

Everyone may be relieved to find a biological explanation, an ASD [as opposed to high sensitivity], especially since it absolves the parents of any blame.

Why is high sensitivity not a biological condition? What is it?

Alas, such a diagnosis also reduces the hope of changing, of developing stronger social connections with practice.

…

I… yeah. Right. Of course.

Is this true? At all? Can people with Asperger’s, if they want to, not look at how they naturally interact with the world vs how most people do and find a way to help the two jive a bit better to improve reactions?

Emphasis on “if they want to”. If the rest of the world wants to jive with them- maybe we should be asking them how they interact with the world and work to change ourselves to fit that better.

(part 3 coming)

Okay, let’s start this out with an explanation- this article is from a site about ‘HSP’ or “Highly Sensitive People”. So if you’re confused by hte use of a very wide-ranging word like “sensitivity” which includes everything from feeling something placed in your hand to being aware when others have different needs, this writer presumably means “Sensitivity” to mean “overly sensitive”.

Here are some traits of a Highly Sensitive Person, for reference.

• Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
• Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
• Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
• Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
• Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
• Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
• Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
• When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

The author is not writing about the distinction between autism and high sensitivity to explain the distinction, the author is writing to explain why HSP are “normal” while people with ASDs are not. This is outright stated later on, “some adults decide they are highly sensitive when they actually do have an ASD. They want to find a normal explanation for something that is not normal.”

The site is made and run by a person who sells books about “HSP”. One is called “How to thrive when the World Overwhelms You”. Anyways- a few problems before I go into even more.

1. Autism is not always a disorder. It can be. There are autistic people whose autism is very disordered for them. There are other autistic people whose autism is not a disorder, again, for them. And for some people it can sometimes be disordering and other times not.
2. High sensitivity can be a disorder, although again it is not always and for some people it sometimes is and other times it isn’t.
3. The author puts scare quotes around “autism spectrum” as if it’s not really real. Not cool.

To give some perspective, I’m definitely highly sensitive. Over sensitive, I’d say. Freaking out and having to find a literal nook (between the end of a bookshelf and the wall at the least crowded end of the store) to tuck yourself into to calm down because the Barnes & Noble cafe got a bit too loud… Good times.

Sunlight can literally blind me (no, really, my entire vision has gone white and I cannot see at times, other times it just hurts too much so I squint and try to cover my eyes), being gently poked or nudged feels like it’ll leave a bruise, walking past someone with perfume makes me dizzy, if the tiniest bit of food has been slightly burned I feel like I bit into solid charcoal, being in a loud room (as I pointed out) is just horrible. I wish I was exaggerating.

So, now, being a HSP is not the same as being autistic. That does not make me autistic. I am 95% certain that I am not autistic. I believe autism sometimes comes with over-sensitivity like that, although not always to those  degrees. Let’s take a look back at those traits of HSPs, most notably the first few:

“Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby? Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time? Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows? Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation? Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?”

Now notice that upsetting and overwhelming situations for these people are all rather every day humdrum situations- having a lot to do isn’t uncommon, bright lights and strong smells and sirens (okay, the last one it depends on where you live) also aren’t uncommon. Being annoyed by all that is relatively common, depending on just how “bright” a bright light is and just how “Strong” a smell has to be. Going out of your way to avoid them, however, is pretty uncommon. Depending on the degree you have to go to to avoid those things, it can severely negatively impact your life- and very well can be a disorder.

Now, it’s not necessarily autism (for one thing- also autism is not always a disorder), and it isn’t always a disorder. It is for me… But that’s me.

Part 2 coming up

*And people on the autism spectrum who don’t have disorders.

-originally posted on tumblr

For binary gender trans people- there are loads of concerns depending on how far/if you’re transitioning medically. A trans woman who is consistently read as a woman, has taken estrogen to grow breasts, but still has a penis- well, you can imagine how much fun crotch-tight swimsuits are for her. For a trans man who has breasts, he has to wear a binder and then likely wear a shirt that won’t show the binder over it. Also, finding a packer that works with water is fun-times.

And for non-binary people, it’s often just complicated.

I’m bringing this up as a person who’s gotten top surgery… but still has scars. They’re a lot better than they were, but one of my nipples looks really weird thanks to the #@$#@$@ surgeon. I’m right now staying with people who have a pool (being poor and staying with rich people is… really weird). My partner won’t be using it because of their own dysphoria. I want to… but. But I don’t know if it’d be okay for me to just wear my swim trunks. I don’t really want to have to wear a shirt in the pool, I’ve never liked that. It’s an awkward question to have to ask.

I reiterate about it not being a safe space. I’ve also got some issues that meant hat I’m not tbe best at communicating when I’m pissed off and, quite frankly, hurt that she’d say such a thing. I leave the table to try to cool down.

My friend takes this as me not respecting her, because I left to cool down rather than bringing it up right then.

If someone knows they’ve upset me and doesn’t do anything about it, I feel that they’re disrespecting me because they dont’ care that they’ve hurt me enough to try to fix it.  My friend has not done anything about it.

The reason? My friend is now taking her own time to cool off so that she can talk about it calmly (believe me, this pisses me the hell off).

I’m not really sure how this is going to turn out, particularly because my partner hates being in the middle even though our drastically different styles suggest a serious need for a mediator, but you can imagine how incredibly badly this would’ve turned out.

My friend would have finally cooled down, and in the time that it took her to do this, I would have gotten more and more upset with her thinking that she didn’t care. The resulting conversation would, most likely, not have gone well.

I won’t be in the same car as him going there.

I may have to eat breakfast with him, I’ll sit at another table with my partner and maybe a friend.

I hope that he won’t be at any of hte workshops, but I’m terrified that he’ll think it’s okay for him to go to a PEER workshop for trans leaders of trans groups.

I pray he won’t go to the intersex one, led by an intersex person. I want to go to that so much. It’s the only reason I’m really going.

I can’t be around him. I hate this I hate this I hate this. I want to go, but I can’t be around him. I hate this so much. I hate that no one cares that I can’t be around him. The fucking genderqueer wants us to all stick together even though SHE FUCKING KNOWS I CAN’T BE AROUND HIM. I hate that I have to choose between my mental health and something Ir eally want to do because no one cares about hte fucking freak. Let’s all make sure the cis people are comfortable.

I really want to have a trans figure drawing class.

Trans people predominantly (both students and models), cis people have to prove that they’ll be okay and will be kicked out the first time they say something bigoted. Trans models of all genders and any stage of medical treatment and non-treatment, I suppose the occasional cis model if I can’t get a trans one but, again, they have to prove they’ll be okay. For each model, give all the artists a paper with what kind of body the model has (self determined), what pronouns to use, what gender the model is, and (if the model’s okay with it) any medical transition information. Try my best to pay the models more than is usual for this, try to make sure that any who really need the money are definitely comfortable with doing it, even if that means having parts covered up. Major sliding scale, hopefully also getting donations so that for people who can’t afford anything and want to be there anyways I can give them all the materials. Do my best to make sure it’s in a place that’s completely accessible and to make sure that anyone who has issues with standing up for long periods of time (model or student) or whatever else is accommodated.

I don’t know if it’ll ever happen. But I would really like to have a place for trans art students to be able to learn to draw the body without having to deal with cissexism. And I would also really, really, really like to have a place where ideas about the body are thrown out the door to help with detangling every lie we’ve been fed about the body.

In my own experiences, some doctor would feel compelled to check the length of my vaginal canal every time I vistited (every half-year for many years starting when I was maybe 10, and then every year until I was 14 or so). This meant that they would take a freezing-cold metal dilator, coat it with (medical?) lube or something that burned like hell (it was probably alcohol-based), and insert it into my vagina and held for several seconds until I, of course, started to whimper, shout, tell him to stop, burst into tears, or all of the above. I did not know that I had the ability to deny consent to these vaginal-length-checks using the dilators. They were presented as a standard procedure, like listening to one’s hearbeat, or opening one’s mouth and saying, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” really awkwardly. I had no idea that these procedures did not benefit or track my health…they just tracked how likely a candidate I might be for one of several kinds of particular genital mutilation surgeries collectively called vaginoplasties, which would also not benefit or improve my health. It would only give me a reconstructed vagina, which may or may not have serious, deleterious health consequences, as I briefly detailed in a former post.

I was (and still am) outraged that these trauma happened to me and I wasn’t told I had a choice as to whether I want it to happen or not. And I am still dealing with the aftermath. Sometimes, I have vivid daymares consisting of flashbacks of some of these dilation procedures, and the other stigmatizing parts of the appointments that followed before and after. It felt so dehumanizing to me, even as a young child, to have to change into the scratchy-ass nightgown, lay on the cold metal table, and these things done to me I so, so didn’t want done. (Often, multiple times if they couldn’t get a measurement the first time, after which I was berated for moving around and whining too much. Doc, you would do it, too, if you knew what that felt like.) But, as intersex individuals, we’re taught not to talk about our intersex or any issues surrounding intersex with others, oftentimes preventing effective dialogue even among our closest family members and ourselves. So I didn’t discuss it out loud, but I felt that these procedures were abusive. I felt really guilty about feeling this way, because I was clearly taking up space I didn’t need to. I wasn’t “really” abused…abuse was for individuals that were touched, prodded, and traumatized under entirely different circumstances, right? If there was an old white dude in a medical coat present, it wasn’t really abuse, was it?

Emi Koyama, intersex activist and founder of Pacific Northwest’s Intersex Initiative, created a booklet entitled, Introduction to Intersex: A Guide for Allies (2nd Edition). On page 2 of the booklet (or page 5 in the Adobe PDF), she explains the following:

“One of the biggest problems with this “treatment” is that it sets in motion a lifelong pattern of secrecy, isolation, shame, and confusion. Adult intersex people’s stories often resemble that of those who survived childhood sexual abuse: trust violation, lack of honest communication, punishment for asking questions or telling the truth, etc. In some cases, intersex people’s experiences are exactly like those of childhood sexual abuse survivors: when they surgically “create” a vagina on a child, the parent – usually the mother – is required to “dilate” the vagina with hard instruments every day for months in order to ensure that the vagina won’t close off again.”

I would expand on this to include forced dilation at any interval during “treatment,” and not restricted to those post-mutilation surgery. This is definitely how I feel about my experiences.

Koyama continues:

“Even so, many intersex adults report that it was not necessarily the surgery that was most devastating for their self-esteem: for many, it is the repeated exposure to what we call “medical display,” or the rampant where a child is stripped down to nude and placed on the bed while doctors, nurses, medical students, and others come in and out of the room, touching and prodding and laughing to each other. Children who experience this get the distinct sense that there is something terribly wrong with who they are and are deeply traumatized. “

I have not experienced this, but can easily see how being publicly ridiculed would be traumatizing, and how one’s emotions while/after being touched and prodded against one’s will may be akin to those of childhood sexual abuse survivors.

This post is a major bummer, but I’m not sorry, because I believe that negative feelings, when properly channeled, can be used as vehicles to initiate oositive change. If you’re outraged, there are lots of conversations to be had with those that don’t know about intersex issues, e-mails and letters to write, lots of protests to organize, lots of petitions to create and sign, lots of books, zines, art, and music to make and support that raise awareness and try to change these medical abuses. I always must remind myself that it is okay and healthy to allow oneself to experience negative feelings, but if it just stops there after my own negative feelings have passed, will they be gone for good if the social systems and problems informing them still exist? If my own feelings are resolved for the moment, is that justification to stop fighting for others still experiencing pain and trauma? I don’t think so.

Koyama states “…it is estimated that five children per day continue to undergo the medically unnecessary and irreversible surgeries in the United States.” These five (plus?) children a day are worth fighting for. We just have to go out and actually do it.