This will be a personal thread, of why sex is a spectrum is harmful and how my former belief of a bimodal spectrum did damage as well. My harsh journey that's still going riddled with problem and floating around in clinical limbo.

My opinions on this as a woman with a CCSD.

My story is an unfortunate one, like many intersex people I found out I was intersex later in life but unlike many? I had the diagnosis from the start, it was hidden from me due to stigma and fear for my future. I remember asking my parents countless times "Why am I different?"

How was I answered? It was avoided, the question was never answered and my parents just dodged my concerns. I knew from a young age as my peers changed and I felt stuck that I was different. Yet I was never told I was normal either, even asking if I was really a girl.. same thing

My parents took advice from a trans person active in LGBT groups. Intersex organizations barely had their foot out in this period of time, so lack of resources. My parents were convinced that since I couldn't go through puberty, I could choose based on interests and expression.

Puberty occurred, the differences became clear as day. I was isolated, picked on and my body grew weaker and sicker with each month. As my peers grew into young men and young women, I was just frozen in time.. Yet I also was sick more often, not able to participate in things.

The longer I went on, with no sex hormones really in my body the worse my health became. I broke bones easier, I got sick more frequently, longer too and my skin's complexion seemingly became permanently pale and discolored. I began to internalize I was a freak of nature.

No one would tell me the truth and my classmates although first thinking it was neat that I seemed to be like Peter Pan, now really empathized the fact I was a freak of nature. I grew desperate and just wanted to be normal, boy or girl? I didn't care, I wanted to be like them.

It worsened as I found myself in a facility where they literally broke and rebuilt me. They would use my infertility[at the time] and undeveloped sexual organs to convince me I was defective. At the time I believed these people were helping me, when they were just manipulating me

I was convinced I was an other and that I was defective, that I could be helped and made into a boy, or a man.. because I couldn't perform my role as female because I was defective. I was lesser, an other.. these thoughts overwhelmed me and I became consumed in my self hatred.

Years after stopping T I sought out medical help as a young adult and my doctor of the time was horrified at the sight before her. I was pushed into testing and that was when I found out I had two karyotypes, but the second karyotype was brushed aside and I blindly trusted.

My hatred was justified, encouraged even toward my parents.. I felt betrayed, let down and I let my parents know exactly how I felt when I discovered I had a CCSD.. which they finally told me of my diagnosis. I'm thankful I didn't go too far down that dark path.

Had I been exposed to certain communities and their influences in that delicate period of time in my life, I would have embraced a non-binary identity and embraced my "neither" status. I would have identified and embraced my "disorder" to spite my parents. What happened instead..

Was that I fell into deep amounts of shame and disgust. I didn't know who, or what I was anymore.. I fell into denial, even convincing myself I was technically a trans woman for awhile, although I had help reaching that conclusion thanks to someone trans who also manipulated me.

"you're a trans woman, except you were born with a vagina." "You're born male just like us, just more lucky." .. Yes.. Lucky, that isn't how I saw it, but that's what I was convinced to believe.. I was lucky for being like this? I felt like a freak. "you're not female" ...

Back then I had a diagnosis of AIS, which my second revised diagnosis didn't really help matters. Any LGBT community I told I was intersex always ended in being reminded that I was neither male nor female, technically male.. but it remained: "I wasn't female." My life was a lie.

Everything just added into more self loathing and confusion. Especially adding the fact I medically transitioned in desperation to be "normal" to be "fixed." Only to find out that too, didn't work. Was I a male? a Female? or... some kind of it? I wanted to go back, desperately.

I cursed the fact I was coerced into taking testosterone in the past, I still felt anger that my parents hid this from me and tricked me into thinking I had a "choice." The communities I kept finding myself in just reaffirmed the belief that I was wrong, a freak of nature.

On that spectrum I posted earlier, I'd end up on these two points with both of my wrong diagnosis. I even believed this, I wasn't female nor male.. I was something else yet I wanted to piece together, make my life make SOME sense so I desperately clung to identity.

Where do I sit now on this spectrum? The dead center, female leaning. I'm a freak of nature to these people, some arguments have even ended in being told I belong in the center and should stop denying "my truth." I'm effectively deserving of being called an "it" to them.

I've been called an "it" my whole life, even before I knew I was intersex. My own mother in a drunken rage has even called me an it not to mention other vile names. I've been dehumanized so much for being me, in a way I wished many days I was NEVER BORN! You think I wanted this?!

This spectrum that is constantly defended and argued? It erases me as a woman, no as a female. It puts me in a category like I'm supposed to be in some cage and subject to dehumanization, like my humanity is raised into question! What even is this stupid spectrum based off of?!

Is it based off my gonads? I have a singular ovary, so I guess I'm defective in that range. My genitalia? Born with clitoromegaly and vaginal atresia, so I guess I don't count right? My sex characteristics? I'm naturally ambiguous... in the middle? My chromosomes? I'm an outlier.

So what is someone like me? Born with 46 XX, XY - Vaginal Atresia and clitoromegaly? Being naturally androgynous due to neglect and IGM. Having an undeveloped reproductive system that can support ova? What exactly is this spectrum judging me on? That it has the right to say "it."

I still grew up as a girl, I genuinely believed I was female even if I was seen as a weirdo. Sure I was nearly subject to several reassignment surgeries that my mother put a stop to but I still grew up with the belief I was a girl, even if I desperately tried to Identify out.

So what does it mean when you use the bimodal spectrum to tell me I'm not a woman, that I'm not female? What is it based on? Do you realize how dehumanizing that is? You're literally telling me I'm broken, or defective. You're justifying what those doctors wanted to do to me. ---

You are telling girls with CAIS, PAIS, Swyer, that something is wrong with them and that they should either fix themselves or embrace being an "other." You are telling these girls and women that they're sideshow circus attractions and many of them have broken that they believe it

You are telling boys with Klinefelter's, De La Chapelle, PAIS, MAIS and others that they aren't normal. You're telling them they're girly and not "real boys/men." They're failures and should man up in other ways or just become girls. That's what you're telling these boys and men.

You're telling girls with Turner's that they're defective and incomplete. Same with girls with MRKH, or CAH girls that they're some male-girl. Boys with XYY, XYYY are being told they're too boyish, too masculine. Defective, not right. This spectrum accomplishes NOTHING GOOD!

Sex is binary in nature and funny enough even though we've stopped using the slur hermaphrodite, it's still used by many. Intersex has become a more "progressive" way of saying it, how is this an improvement?! Are we just an other being hidden under a thin veil of solidarity?!

Then, don't even get me started on extremely harmful graphics like THIS. Imagine, that as a child you just found out you're intersex and you don't belong to the LGBTQ. Then you see something like this?

You'll feel othered. Your life is a lie and you will never be "normal."

Then you have this horrible stuff, the Gender Unicorn being thrown in your face where it's swallowed up intersex to the point of just being a "cool way" of saying hermaphrodite. This isn't acceptance, this is using intersex adults and children as a circus attraction.

It shouldn't be like that. The idea of acceptance is to explain that intersex happens, that these conditions don't make anyone less of a male or female. That intersex people are just well.. people! This isn't even factoring the severe medical aspects of having these conditions.

Congenital Conditions of Sexual Development don't make us lesser males, lesser females or some entirely other sex. They just mean something happened in development and some of us may require help, medical and psychological to move forward. We aren't an other!

In the majority of cases XX and XY are indeed simple 99.8%, XX = Usually female, XY = male but there are exceptions. They exist, they happen. Chromosome purity has its flaws in this and education of XY females and XX males should be in biology as well to show these exceptions.

Even our own organizations have stressed this with the Darlington Statement although of course opinions are varied. Some feel sex classification is harmful, some do not, intersex people have differing thoughts on it but we agree classifying intersex as a third sex is harmful.

Sadly most intersex organizations now are going against what many intersex people signed toward. That the idea of a third category, becoming "hermaphrodites again" is harmful. None of them seem to care anymore what this will create, who this will hurt.

Especially since we're in a different time of science. We can literally screen someone for their karyotype, genitalia, gonads, internal reproductive structures and to some degree the hormones in their body! The five factors of sex determination, intersex people STILL are M or F

I've come across so many trans people justifying intersex people as an "other" so they can use our conditions to validate their feelings when the two have no overlap. I've come across trans people arguing that transgender is an intersex condition of the brain which just.. no!

Sexual development does not factor the brain, especially with how little info we have on neuro science. It's just a mess all around and I'm so tired of intersex people being used as a weapon in this argument and having all our progress over decades be undone.

Intersex people have been fighting for ACCEPTANCE, even ISNA sadly predicted what would happen if we gave into using intersex for everything, even in a medical environment. It's just the "progressive" form of hermaphrodite, it raises confusion and it doesn't help us.

ISNA had their issues, but they did not support what happened through the usage of disorder. They tried to seek a balance between medical and social terminology and they failed as a result. I'll just let their quote do the talking here...

This was an extremely lengthy thread, honestly I could go longer but I think this is enough for a revisit. This was personal too because it stresses my own personal thoughts and experiences on how believing that sex was a spectrum hurt me.

I'll add this, a recycled graphic but it gets the point across: How is the spectrum an improvement, exactly?