Strange Tensions Legacies of the Colonial Racial History of Trans Identities and Intersex Subjectivities Q U I N C Y M E Y E R S Abstract This article analyzes the history of trans identities and intersex subjectivities to under- stand intersex and trans intercommunity relations and identify coalitional strategies. Citing Black and postcolonial studies scholars such as C. Riley Snorton and Zine Magubane, it concludes that trans identity and intersex subjectivity share a colonial racial history. Specifically, it builds on Snorton’s “analysis of gender as a racial arrangement wherein the fungibility of captive flesh produced a context for understanding sex and gender as mutable and subject to rearrangement in medicine and law” to account for how the same racial arrangement of gender also formed intersex subjectivity. Trans identity and intersex subjectivity, then, have roots in colonialism and slavery, and the ungendering of Black flesh made interchangeable goods. This history has left a legacy of intercommunity tension in the form of whiteness. Consequently, addressing sex/gender as a racial arrangement is necessary to address tensions and build coalitions. Keywords Blackness, coalitional politics, colonialism, intersex and trans, race, sex/gender, slavery, whiteness Introduction: “No Natural Allies” W hen I first entered trans and intersex online spaces as a white, intersex, genderqueer person I expected to find two communities working toward common goals, namely the elimination of stigma and the establishment of bodily autonomy for those who do not fit binary sex/gender expectations. It seemed intersex and trans people would be natural allies given how both communities experience victimization due to being situated outside of binary sex/gender norms, albeit for different reasons. Yet, as intersex trans feminist Emi Koyama (2001) warns, “ To suggest that we are ‘natural allies’ to one another erases the specificity of our multiple and mixed identities and backgrounds. ” This absence of “ natural allyship ” held true in my experiences of trans and intersex spaces where, instead of solidarity, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly * Volume 9, Number 2 * May 2022 199 DOI 10.1215/23289252-9612851 ª 2022 Duke University Press Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 tensions over transphobia and categorical conflation were evident. Further, it is notable that these tensions took place in predominately white spaces where anti- racism was not prioritized. In many ways my first experiences in trans and intersex spaces resembled those of sociologist Cary Gabrielle Costello. In a longitudinal study on trans and intersex intercommunity relations, Costello (2016: 107) finds that “ among the majority of the intersex community that employs this [disorder] framework, transphobia is sadly common, making alliance unlikely. And the minority of trans* community that uses the disorder framework is prone to presenting trans- identification as an intersex condition, which alienates the intersex community. ” In short, Costello argues the tensions between trans and intersex communities over transphobia and conflation are rooted in an ideology that frames difference from the established norm as pathology. While Costello’s conclusion does explain some of the tensions, questions do remain. From where did this disorder frame- work for understanding trans and intersex originate ? What role could the inter- sections of sex, gender, and race be playing in this history and in contemporary relations between trans and intersex communities ? What does all this mean for intersex and trans coalition building ? Drawing on scholarship from Black and postcolonial studies as well as intersex and trans studies, I theorize on these questions and the colonial racial history of intersex subjectivities and trans identities. Specifically, I draw on C. Riley Snorton’s work on the racial history of trans identity and Zine Magubane’s work on intersex subjectivity, race, and colonialism. Coming to these sources as a white person, my goal in citing these authors is to honor the critical discussion on sex/ gender as a racial arrangement taking place between them and to name the white- ness within this arrangement as it relates to intersex and trans relations so it can be confronted. To achieve this goal, I build on Snorton’s (2017: 12) “ analysis of gender as a racial arrangement wherein the fungibility of captive flesh produced a context for understanding sex and gender as mutable and subject to rearrangement in medicine and law ” to account for how the same racial arrangement of gender has also shaped intersex subjectivity. In essence, trans identity and intersex subjectiv- ity both have roots in colonialism, slavery, and the subsequent ungendering of African captive flesh turned interchangeable goods. These roots can be found in how these conditions led to the conception of gender as mutable and rear- rangeable necessary to the formation of contemporary trans identity and intersex subjectivity. This colonial racial history has left a legacy of tension in which the whiteness of sex/gender plays a major role in conflicts between intersex and trans communities. Consequently, I conclude that addressing sex/gender as a racial arrangement is necessary to address tensions between intersex and trans com- munities, build coalitions, and achieve common goals. 200 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 Intersex and Trans: A Shared Colonial Racial History To better understand how sex/gender can be addressed as a racial arrangement, we must first have context for our current conceptions of trans and intersex. I begin with a colonial racial history of trans identity and intersex subjectivity, starting with the period of chattel slavery. In “ Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book, ” Hortense J. Spillers explores how sex/gender (and with it, rec- ognition of human status) was afforded to some bodies and not others according to race through the undgendering of Black female flesh. In her own words, It makes good theory, or commemorative “ herstory ” to want to forget, or have failed to realize, that the African female subject, under these historic conditions, is not only the target of rape—in one sense, an interiorized violation of the body and mind—but also the topic of specifically externalized acts of torture and prostra- tion that we imagine as the peculiar province of male brutality and torture inflicted by other males. . . . This materialized scene of unprotected female flesh—of female flesh “ ungendered ” —offers a praxis and a theory, a text of living and for dying, and a method for reading both through diverse mediations. (1987: 68) In sum, Spillers sees the ungendering of Black women’s bodies in how white enslavers subjected Black women to the same kinds of violence one would expect to occur only between men. Within this context, the enslaved Black woman no longer represents a human body endowed with gender but rather another col- lection of interchangeable, ungendered flesh that is only valued for labor. If an enslaved person could be forced to work, their gender and sexuality mattered little to their enslavers. Thus, Black bodies are ungendered in the process of being made interchangeable flesh within white supremacist ideologies that emerged out of chattel slavery. Snorton examines the meaning of this ungendering for trans identity in Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity . Using Spiller’s theories on the “ ungendering of African female flesh ” as a guide, Snorton (2017: 12) argues, “ the fungibility of captive flesh produced a critical context for understanding sex and gender as mutable and subject to rearrangement. ” To make this argument Snorton begins with the nineteenth-century inceptual works of gynecology and how the field treated women unequally based on race. Namely, enslaved Black women were experimented on openly (20–30) while white women were afforded privacy, as represented in woodcuts of physicians examining their patients (33). Such blatantly unequal treatment of white women and Black women at the hands of gynecologists reveals a great deal about race, gender, and sex. As Snorton notes, “ On the one hand, white femininity is conferred in relation to an unwillingness to view white female genitalia, that is, to look upon white women as flesh. On the MEYERS * Strange Tensions 201 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 other hand, the unrelenting scopic availability that defined Blackness within the visual economy of racial slavery becomes the necessary context for producing a field of sex/gender knowledge ” (33). In short, early gynecologists felt the need to cover white women’s bodies even in woodcuts because, operating within the racial arrangement governing the field, they saw white women as humans with gendered bodies. Enslaved Black women within this arrangement, however, represented ungendered flesh that could be subjected to experimentation without consider- ation of ethical issues in their minds. The surgical rearranging of ungendered captive flesh then proved to be key to the formation of sex/gender as a racial arrangement. As Snorton goes on, “ In this arrangement, gender socially constructs sex, and the captive flesh becomes the material and metaphorical ground for unsettling a view of sex and gender as neatly divided according to each term’s relation to medico-scientific knowledge ” (33). Here one can see the fundamental role undergendered captive African flesh played in the unfixing of sex and gender categories, leaving room for a more mutable understanding of these categories to emerge. For Snorton, it is precisely this mutable understanding of sex/gender that makes trans identity, as currently conceived, possible (12). A similar claim can also be made regarding intersex sub- jectivity given how experimentations on enslaved Black women and the conception of sex/gender as rearrangeable that came from it led to a conception of intersex as changeable. Thus, the racial history of trans and intersex subjectivities is a painful one of anti-Blackness, white supremacy, medical racism, and slavery. Nevertheless, some enslaved persons found ways to use the “ fungibility of flesh ” to escape through cross-dressing. Examples of this can be found in William Still’s preface to The Underground Rail Road in which he describes how fugitive men “ disguised in female attire and women dressed in the garb of men have under very trying circumstances triumphed in thus making their way to freedom ” (Still 1872: 1). In so achieving their freedom, these gender-crossing fugitives present malleable genders that are grounded in a context where captive flesh is ungen- dered and rendered interchangeable. Hence, in the cross-gender performances of these fugitive figures are the makings of an understanding of gender as change- able. In Snorton’s (2017: 57) words, “ Captive flesh figures a critical genealogy for modern transness, as chattel persons give rise to an understanding of gender as mutable and as an amendable form of being. ” Thus, the genealogy of modern transness is wrapped up in Blackness, slavery, and the actions of those who escaped. Without this history, trans identity would, at the very least, look much different than it does now. In turn, these ways of understanding gender as mutable have also been key to creating a context in which intersex bodies are shaped according to racial arrangements of sex/gender. Here, one can see how the ungendering and ren- dering of African captive flesh as interchangeable during the era of chattel slavery 202 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 contributed to a context necessary for theories like those of John Money, a doctor practicing in the mid-twentieth century who had a tremendous influence over intersex medical care for decades. Specifically, Money “ believed, speciously by today’s appraisal, that one’s sense of gender identity was malleable until about eighteen months of age ” and, “ therefore, concluded that those born with ambig- uous genitalia could have their gender surgically assigned as infants (and later reinforced during puberty with hormones) without negative consequences ” (Reis 2009: 135–36). For such a theory to gain widespread acceptance, the idea that sex and gender were malleable and rearrangeable needed to already be available and established to make it appear plausible. As has been shown, by the mid-twentieth century there had already been a centuries-long history of constructing sex/gender as mutable and rearrangeable through the acts of gender-crossing fugitives from slavery, early gynecological experimentation on enslaved Black women, and the framing of Blackness as outside of white dichotomous sex. This racial arrangement of sex/gender as mutable and rearrangeable devel- oped further under the influence of modern European colonialism and nineteenth- century evolutionary theory. For example, according to the then highly renowned sexologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his manuscript Psychopathia Sexualis ([1886] 1965: 26), “ The secondary sexual characteristics differentiate the two sexes; they present the specific male and female types. The higher the anthropological development of the race, the stronger these contrasts between men and women. ” Krafft-Ebing creates a racial hierarchy in which sexual dimorphism is assumed to be a sign of evolutionary superiority; to him, white people are somehow more sexually dimorphic and, therefore, superior (thus justifying their actions as colo- nizers). In turn, according to Krafft-Ebing, everyone else is somehow less sexually dimorphic and, therefore, inferior, thus making them fair game for colonization. The imaginary sexually dimorphic white body of Krafft-Ebing’s theories stood in contrast to publicly displayed Black women’s bodies who white Europeans negatively imagined to be sexually excessive when compared to supposedly com- plementarian white women (Henderson 2020). For example, when Saartijie Baart- man (also known as the “ Hottentot Venus ” ) was exhibited throughout Europe from 1810 to 1815, white audiences focused on her protruding buttocks and anomalous genitalia, both of which would become key characteristics of the “ Hottentot ” body (Gilman 1985: 213). Given these features were contemporaneously interpreted as sexually ambiguous, the presence of the “ Hottentot ” as imagined in history dis- rupts the idea that biological sex has always been thought to be dualistic. As Kevin Henderson (2020) notes, “ In this schema Black people supposedly had the lowest levels of sexual dimorphism. ‘Biological sex’ thus was never simply binary but was, from its inception, categorized along racialized degrees of difference. ” In short, biological sex has always been nonbinary with racialized, ambiguously sexed subjects standing in contrast to the clearly sexed and white. MEYERS * Strange Tensions 203 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 In fact, the origins of racialized nonbinary sex arguably go back further than Krafft-Ebing’s evolutionary theories, the display of Black women such as Saartijie Baartman, or even the ungendering of captive African flesh. As historian Leah DeVun (2021: 12) notes, “ Ideas of nonbinary sex actively shaped the reality of the period [the thirteenth century], suggesting which bodies could not fit within Christian territory and justifying violence that was all too real. ” In other words, concepts of nonbinary sex were used to draw boundaries between Christian Euro- peans and racialized others. A prime example of this process can be found in the Hereford Map’s employment of “ monstrous races. ” On this large thirteenth-century English world map, a turbaned male-female figure is situated at the geographic edge of the map in Ethiopia and is described in an inscription as “ ‘a race of both sexes, unnatural in their customs’ ” (40, 55). This inscription and the figure’s location imply that the population they represent are “ monstrous ” because of their dual sex and geocultural remoteness from England. In short, nonbinary sex and geographical remoteness are used to other Africans and sort them into a lower category in relation to Christian Europe. Thus, the Hereford Map presents a form of racialized nonbi- nary sex that is embedded in the geographies of whiteness and Blackness, one that has contributed to the formation of modern race, sex, and gender categories. Here, some historians may caution against applying modern racial and gender terms onto premodern sources. While it is best to evaluate the past on its own terms, it is also crucial to acknowledge the role of medieval sources in the development of racism. In fact, as DeVun observes, “ A growing number of scholars now view claims of African, Muslim, or Jewish inferiority on the basis of a matrix of embodied and cultural traits as compelling evidence of what we now call racial sorting ” (66). In other words, scholars are now recognizing how medieval sources contributed to the geographies and ways of sorting peoples that are now key to modern racism. Among these scholars is Geraldine Heng, who argues that “ the monstrous African on the Hereford Map concretized racial stratification, indexing ‘each vector of the world according to its relative distance from Europe in human as well as spatial terms’ ” (66). In short, the Hereford Map represents the solidification of Eurocentric geographies and ways of sorting peoples that later informed the racism of modern European colonial projects and the con- ceptions of sex and gender therein, including intersex and trans. Evidence of this can be found in how the sexual ambiguity in the Hereford Map’s “ race of both sexes ” (40) parallels that of the sexually excessive “ Hottentot ” body of nineteenth- century white European imagination (Gilman 1985) and the ways the ideas con- veyed through these images have shaped intersex and trans as categories. In the case of intersex subjectivity, notions of “ Black aberration ” and “ white normalcy ” as depicted in the Hereford Map, displays of Black women as somehow sexually excessive and ambiguous, and Krafft-Ebing’s evolutionary 204 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 theories became the racialized and gendered standards of male and female according to which doctors shaped actual intersex bodies. As Magubane (2014: 775) observes in her analysis of intersex studies and the problem of race, “ Race also played a role in whether or not doctors thought normalizing surgeries were nec- essary ” with some eighteenth-century colonial doctors deciding to operate on white bodies they considered to be ambiguous but not Black ones. This is because a Black body not conforming to binary standards of sex did not disturb colonial ideas of sex, whereas a white body not conforming to the ideal of human sexual dimor- phism did. In fact, “ The trauma of surgical correction arose to address a gender panic that was racially and nationally specific. Surgical correction figured so pre- dominantly in the United States because of a political imperative to establish the normality of whiteness ” (Magubane 2014: 781). Such a national gender panic reveals a racial bias that goes back to the ungendering of African captive flesh during chattel slavery (Spillers 1987; Snorton 2017) and colonial conceptions of “ biological sex ” (Henderson 2020). While race may not always play the same role in medical decision making today, the continued impact of whiteness and colonialism can be found in the treatment of intersex and trans people as well as those who are perceived as such. One example of this is the experience of Caster Semenya, a Black South African sprinter who was forced to undergo sex verification testing in 2008. As Magubane describes South African discussions on intersex and Semenya, Caster Semenya’s defenders struggled to articulate their resistance to the sweeping imposition of a culturally specific category—on a culturally embedded individual. Leonard Chuene, the head of Athletics South Africa, declared, “ we are not going to allow Europeans to describe our children. ” Chuene’s lament captures the centrality of whiteness to the construction of intersex subjectivity. (780) In short, within South African discussions on intersex in relation to Semenya, intersex is a white, European colonial category that takes on certain meanings within specific national contexts, and those meanings are now being imposed on Black South Africans. Whiteness and colonialism then are integral to intersex as a category and, by extension, to intersex subjectivity itself. In this way, the influence of colonial, racist, and cis-heterosexist biases over intersex subjectivity go deeper than the trauma of surgery to the meaning of intersex as a category. In turn, similar biases also came to inform trans identity. This can be seen in the assumption in most medical circles that all trans people should aspire to have bodies that resemble typical cisgender bodies. This is a model of care soma navidson calls “ transnormativity, ” which “ encourage[es] us [trans people] to make our bodies like cis bodies to whatever extent possible, while offering us no other options ” (navidson 2016: 37). Such a model of care not only reinforces essentialist MEYERS * Strange Tensions 205 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 ideas of gender but also reinforces whiteness. One can see this in how the standard cisgender body desired within transnormativity resembles the imaginary sexually dimorphic white male and female bodies of nineteenth-century evolutionary the- ory. Further, these same imaginary bodies also form the standards according to which intersex bodies are shaped. Thus, the colonial racial history that laid the conceptual groundwork for transnormativity also led to the understanding of intersex as a mutable, rearrangeable sex/gender category needed for the practice of “ corrective ” surgeries on intersex children. Given how all these practices were originally based on racialized constructions of “ normality ” and “ aberration, ” one can see how a shared colonial racial history led to the “ disorder framework ” Costello (2016) criticizes in his analysis of intersex and trans community rela- tions. It is to the legacy of this shared history that I now turn. The Legacies of a Colonial Racial History: Current Intercommunity Tensions Given the divisive nature of white supremacy and colonialism, it is not surprising that the colonial racial history of trans identity and intersex subjectivity has left a legacy of intercommunity tensions. These tensions are analyzed closely in Cost- ello’s work, albeit using a single-axis framework. Drawing on data from interviews and surveys of a large sample of trans and intersex people, Costello (2016: 107) cites the following as major tensions between intersex and trans communities: transphobia within many intersex communities and the conflation of trans and intersex within some trans communities. Ultimately, Costello concludes that these tensions “ originate in the disorder framework ” that serves to increase stigma and misunderstandings of what it means to intersex and/or trans (107). As such, he proposes, “ If those intersex and trans* people who are working together wish to see their allied numbers increase, I suggest that what they must do is work internally within their two communities to convince more of their intersex and/or trans* siblings to relinquish the disorder framework and take up the identity framework ” (108). In short, Costello proposes an ideological shift away from a belief that intersexuality and transness are pathological to a belief that intersex and trans represent ways of being that are a part of human diversity. While this approach is useful to intercommunity efforts to combat stigma and foster a sense of solidarity based on similarities across identities, it still leaves many issues unaddressed. Namely, a shift from a disorder framework to an identity framework alone would not necessarily address the whiteness and coloniality of sex/gender that is a major part of intercommunity tensions between intersex and trans people. For instance, one can see the reinforcement of the whiteness of sex/gender in the transphobia expressed in many intersex communities. As Costello observes regarding the origins of this transphobia, “ The majority of intersex people . . . live in isolation, raised from birth to understand themselves as having been born with a DSD [Disorder of Sex Development] that they must conceal in order to 206 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 avoid shame and mistreatment ” (102). Not only does being raised with such beliefs reinforce transphobia through the stigmatization of sex/gender noncon- formity as disordered, but it also reinforces racial arrangements of sex/gender. For example, one of Costello’s participants states, “ I hate when people think I’m a transsexual. We have DSDs and our issues are physical. We aren’t like these [trans*] people who want to change their perfectly normal bodies for whatever mental reason ” (102). In this participant’s view, intersex people are the rational ones who simply have an objective physical disorder while trans people are the unreasonable ones who wish to change their bodies based on subjective feelings. Although not explicitly stated, such a transphobic view is based on the idea that identities and bodies that do not fit white colonial standards of male and female are disordered or socially aberrant. Thus, to engage in transphobia via a disorder framework is to engage in white colonial conceptions of “ properly ” sexed/gen- dered and racialized bodies and identities. Consequently, addressing transphobia in intersex communities and moving away from a disorder framework requires deconstructing white supremacist conceptions of sex and gender. Similarly, the reinforcement of the whiteness and coloniality of sex/gender can be seen in the intercommunity tension taking place over the categorical con- flation of intersex and trans in some trans communities. Often this sort of con- flation alienates intersex people who experience it as a misunderstanding of their experiences at best (Costello 2016: 104) and an erasure of their needs at worst (Koyama 2002). Perhaps the most explicit examples of conflation and its con- sequences can be found when some trans people describe themselves as having an “ intersex condition of the brain ” to explain their transness and justify their access to health care. As one of Costello’s interviewees puts it, “ I was born with a female brain in a male body. So, I’m intersex, too. My condition is just as real, and needs treatment just as much ” (Costello 2016: 104). In sum, the interviewee con- flates trans and intersex to make the argument that being trans is a medical dis- order that is just as worthy of care as similar disorders. However, rather than make an effective case for trans health care, this conflation inadvertently reinforces racist standards of sex/gender. Thus, much like the expression of transphobia via a dis- order framework, to conflate intersex and trans via a disorder framework is to con- tinue the racial arrangement of sex/gender on which the pathologization of intersex and trans is based. For this reason, any effort to address the tensions between intersex and trans communities must involve retiring the disorder framework as part of a larger coalitional effort to address sex/gender as a racial arrangement. Conclusion: We Are the Allies We Have Been Waiting For As has been shown, the colonial racial history of trans identity and intersex sub- jectivity and its tension-filled legacy demonstrates the need for trans and intersex activists to address sex/gender as a racial arrangement. This will require bringing MEYERS * Strange Tensions 207 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 intersectional analyses to bear on issues impacting intersex and trans people. A vision for these intersectional analyses can be found in Pidgeon Pagonis, Lynell Stephani Long, and Sean Saifa Wall’s “ A Statement from Intersex People of Color on the 20th Anniversary of Intersex Awareness Day. ” Given the importance of their example to coalition building, their words are worth quoting at length here: As intersex people of color, we acknowledge that we cannot have intersex liber- ation if we are not in alliance with other oppressed peoples fighting for liberation across liberation movements. As such, we are committed to expanding the conversations about bodily integrity and autonomy so that our movement as intersex people can align with reproductive justice activists, transgender community, those who are incarcerated, disabled, undocumented, and anyone else fighting for sovereignty over their bodies, communities, and sacred lands. (Pagonis, Long, and Wall 2016) In Pagonis, Long, and Wall’s statement we find insights into the need for intersex movements to align themselves with a variety of social justice movements who share their concerns for bodily autonomy. More broadly, to form these alliances more intersex and trans activists need to engage in reproductive, disability, and racial justice movements. Regarding trans and intersex coalitions, this means coming together around common goals with an emphasis on the specific stigmas and barriers to bodily autonomy intersex and trans people of color face. Accom- plishing this task requires trans and intersex activists of color to take central posi- tions in trans and intersex movements and their white counterparts to deconstruct their whiteness and its relationship to their transness and/or intersexuality. Going through all these steps will require rising to the challenges of working across a variety of differences. The tensions between trans and intersex commu- nities exemplify these challenges and evince Koyama’s (2001) assertion that there are no “ natural allies ” to be well founded. This leaves the question: if there are no natural allies, how do we build coalitions ? According to Koyama (2001), “ If we are not ‘natural allies,’ then, we need to work at it in order build alliances. ” In other words, allyship is a conscious choice that must be actively pursued even when there is tension. Fortunately, Koyama also offers us an example of how to effectively negotiate tension for the pursuit of allyship in her feedback on one trans organi- zation’s Trans Inclusion Policy Manual as archived in the public service announce- ment “ Intersex and Trans: Conflation Almost Always Leads to Erasure. ” First, Koyama (2002) expresses thanks for the document. In doing so, she expresses her appreciation for the work put into the manual and the opportunity to give feedback, making it more likely her comments will be addressed. Next, she clearly states her concern: the author “ attempts to be inclusive of intersex, but ends up simply replacing ‘trans’ with ‘trans and intersex’ with no consideration given to 208 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 the specificities of intersex people’s needs around services and accommodations ” (Koyama 2002). Finally, she offers a list of relevant intersex community resources (Koyama 2002). This leaves the author aware of her concern and equipped to start addressing it. Further, in sharing her feedback online, Koyama brings a much-needed demonstration of how to build intentional alliances to a wider audience. Such demonstrations are necessary because, since there are no “ natural allies, ” we must choose to be the allies we have been waiting for, both to ourselves and to one another. Quincy Meyers is a PhD student in women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University, where ze is also pursuing a minor in queer studies. Hir upcoming dissertation work focuses on narrative approaches to coalition building between trans and intersex com- munities. Hir research and teaching interests include feminist, queer, critical race, and narrative theories, the history of gender, sexuality, and race, and trans and intersex coalitional politics. Works Cited Costello, Cary Gabriel. 2016. “ Intersex and Trans* Communities: Commonalities and Tensions. ” In Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives , edited by Stefan Horlacher, 83–114. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DeVun, Leah. 2021. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance . New York: Columbia University Press. Gilman, Sander L. 1985. “ Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature. ” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1: 204–42. Henderson, Kevin. 2020. “ J. K. Rowling and the White Supremacist History of ‘Biological Sex.’ ” Abusable Past , July 28. https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/j-k-rowling -and-the-white-supremacist-history-of-biological-sex/. Koyama, Emi. 2001. “ Interrogating the Politics of Commonality: A Possibility for Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Alliance. ” Transcending Boundaries , October 21. https://www.transcending boundaries.org/index.php/22-workshops/343-interrogating-the-politics-of-commonality -a-possibility-for-bisexual-trans-and-intersex-alliance. Koyama, Emi. 2002. “ Intersex and Trans: Conflation Almost Always Leads to Erasure. ” efeminism , April 6. https://eminism.org/interchange/2002/20020406-transfeminist.html. Krafft-Ebing, Richard von. (1886) 1965. Psychopathia Sexualis with Special Reference Antipathic Sexual Instinct: A Medico-Forensic Study . Translated by Franklin S. Klaf. New York: Arcade. Magubane, Zine. 2014. “ Spectacles and Scholarship: Caster Semenya, Intersex Studies and the Problem of Race in Feminist Theory. ” Signs 39, no. 3: 761–85. navidson, soma. 2016. “ Unlearning: Improving Trans Care by Reorienting Medical and Nursing Discourse. ” In The Remedy: Queer and Trans Voices on Health Care , edited by Zena Sherman, 31–38. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp. Pagonis, Pidgeon, Lynell Stephani Long, and Sean Saifia Wall. 2016. “ A Statement from Intersex People of Color on the Twentieth Anniversary of Intersex Awareness Day. ” Pidgeon: Your Local Hermaphrodite , October 26. https://pid.ge/blog/2016/10/26/a-statement-from-intersex -people-of-color-on-the-20th-anniversary-of-intersex-awareness-day. MEYERS * Strange Tensions 209 Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022 Reis, Elizabeth. 2009. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Snorton, C. Riley. 2017. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Spillers, Hortense J. 1987. “ Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book. ” Diacritics 17, no. 2: 65–81. Still, William. 1872. Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c., Narrating the Hardships, Hair Breadth Escapes, and Death Struggles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom . Philadelphia: Porter and Coates. 210 TSQ * Transgender Studies Quarterly Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-pdf/9/2/199/1630960/199meyers.pdf by Cambridge University user on 07 October 2022