May 3, 2008

A Public Apology

Hi everyone;

Recently I received an email from a woman of intersex birth who asked to be added to the TransReSext mailing list. She explained why she wanted to join and why she was interested in coming along to TransReSext.

If you had seen my face as I read this email, my expression dropped like a rock off a cliff. Because I realized that in everything I have written about TransReSext, whenever I talked about it, whenever I thought about what I was organizing... I had not been thinking about intersexed people.

I am very ashamed of this; it's not like I am unaware of the existence of intersexuality. It's not even like I don't know anyone who is intersexed. I have no excuse other than blind privilege. I didn't think about it. And that's exactly the kind of thinking that made me feel so frustrated as to create TransReSext in the first place.

The transgender + genderqueer community and the intersex community often have different goals and needs. However, I believe that when it comes to feeling sexually safe and desired, and free to express one's sexuality without judgement, these needs intersect. I am not throwing all transfolk, genderqueer folk and intersexed folk into one big barrel here. We're all different, we have different experiences and different struggles.

But I think we all need a space like TransReSext, and I think we all need it to be as welcoming to everyone who is not cisgendered as possible.

So this is my public apology; I'm sending it to the mailing list, posting it on the LJ community (and in both my personal blogs), and posting it on the main page of the TransReSext blogspot for a couple of weeks.

I am sorry, to any and all intersexed folk who looked at TransReSext and felt unsure whether they would be welcome. I am sorry to any and all intersexed folk who may have felt ignored by me, by the event, or by the language I have used to talk about it.

If you look at the main blogspot, I have changed the language. I have included "intersex people" where I have written "transgender people". I have briefly explained, as above, why I welcome intersex folk without believing that we're all just a part of the LGBTIQ alphabet soup.

Once again, I am sorry.

I look forward to welcoming all people of intersexed birth who wish to attend TransReSext, and I certainly hope that they feel safe to do so.

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