- MYTH #10: Intersex is extremely rare
- MYTH #9: Only true hermaphrodites are really intersexed.
- Myth #8: If you're transsexed, then you are intersexed.
- Myth #7: ISNA advocates doing nothing and raising intersexed babies in a third gender
- MYTH #6: You can't raise an intersexed child as a boy or girl without surgery.
- MYTH #5: Surgery makes normal looking genitals.
- MYTH #4: Once surgery is better, we won t have to worry about intersex
- MYTH #3: Corrective cosmetic surgeries make parents forget their kid was born different
- MYTH #2: John Money is responsible for all of the troubles that have befallen intersexed people
- MYTH #1: My little contribution to ISNA can't possibly make a difference.
Myth #8: If you're transsexed, then you are intersexed.
This myth comes from our nutty cultural notion that your identity has to find its basis in your anatomy. It’s just like the old-fashioned (sexist) idea that if you’re a strong woman, you must really be a man inside. In fact, it’s the same kind of stereotype that assumes that all black people are lazy. Aren’t we past the point of believing that one type of anatomy necessarily maps to only one type of identity? Get over it!
Transsexed people are sometimes people who were born intersexed, but far more often they are people who were born with “standard” male or female anatomy. By a common definition, transsexed people are people who were assigned a gender that doesn’t work for them. ISNA supports the right of all people, regardless of what their body looked like when they were born, to assume the gender identities that makes sense to them. This leads us to Myth 7 …
