watsit said:
This honestly sounds like it's splitting hairs. You can say the same for male, being a person who was born with X chromosomes, yet it's still applied to characters despite not being able to see their chromosomal makeup. We look at a character's physical appearance and tag based on that, even if we know it's a result of a transformation or through physical alterations, we don't worry about chromosomes, embryological development, or birth sex, we tag sex as we see it now. Intersex falls plainly in line here, if someone has a mix of male and female characteristics they are intersex, just as a character that has primarily male characteristics is male.

I think there's an important difference in that "male" and "female" are also gender identities in addition to biological sexes, whereas intersex is something you're born with, you can't really "identify" as intersex if you weren't born intersex, the same way you can't identify as having Huntington's disease if you don't have Huntington's disease. And we also can't (usually) identify intersex characters without a visual indication of what sex organs they possess, but you can identify male or female (or ambiguous) based on facial features or body shape alone. The tagging procedures are different for male/female and intersex. I understand this is kind of splitting hairs, but it's important to me and probably important to intersex people that we understand that intersex isn't just "looks like a mix of both."

You're right, though, we don't tag based on a character's chromosomes or past history, and that's kind of my whole point. Unless a character is saying "I was born intersex" or a doctor is telling someone "your baby is intersex" then how on earth do we KNOW they're intersex? They could simply be post-op transgender, or magically transformed, applying the word "intersex" in this case feels very arbitrary to me when we could just as easily use a different, made-up one. "Altersex" seems like it wouldn't be a bad option, imo. I kinda liked the mixed_sexual_characteristics idea, or something shorter that begins with "mixed" might also be an option. Shortened to msc or mx.

pankino2002 said:
I think there's an important difference in that "male" and "female" are also gender identities in addition to biological sexes, whereas intersex is something you're born with, you can't really "identify" as intersex if you weren't born intersex, the same way you can't identify as having Huntington's disease if you don't have Huntington's disease. And we also can't (usually) identify intersex characters without a visual indication of what sex organs they possess, but you can identify male or female (or ambiguous) based on facial features or body shape alone. The tagging procedures are different for male/female and intersex. I understand this is kind of splitting hairs, but it's important to me and probably important to intersex people that we understand that intersex isn't just "looks like a mix of both."

You're right, though, we don't tag based on a character's chromosomes or past history, and that's kind of my whole point. Unless a character is saying "I was born intersex" or a doctor is telling someone "your baby is intersex" then how on earth do we KNOW they're intersex? They could simply be post-op transgender, or magically transformed, applying the word "intersex" in this case feels very arbitrary to me when we could just as easily use a different, made-up one. "Altersex" seems like it wouldn't be a bad option, imo. I kinda liked the mixed_sexual_characteristics idea, or something shorter that begins with "mixed" might also be an option. Shortened to msc or mx.

TBH, all I'm concerned about is that the tag is useful for searching, since it's obvious that people disagree on the definition that should be used. Mixed sex would be good for mx to alias to? There is a non-zero amount of people that will think that means sex with more than one person or different sexes or different species or something but we can't prevent that. ;)

https://e621.net/meta_searches/tags?name=*intersex*&commit=Go
You'd have to remove aliases like i/p/am first, before submitting a BUR, right? Implications would have to be reworked, too. This would lay the groundwork if/when a replacement term is used.

alphamule said:
There is a non-zero amount of people that will think that means sex with more than one person or different sexes or different species or something but we can't prevent that. ;)

Honestly I'd be surprised if there wasn't someone who thought "intersex" was like "interspecies" but for sex. Like a co-ed dorm. Any term we pick would have a learning curve, of course.

I just had the thought--what if someone thought "interspecies" basically meant "hybrid"? Turns out there are some examples: solo interspecies hybrid -sex -male/male -male/female -female/female -disembodied_penis -disembodied_hand -duo

Some of those results I can think of no reason why they'd be tagged interspecies besides "Interspecies is when it's like a mix between two species, right?"

pankino2002 said:
Honestly I'd be surprised if there wasn't someone who thought "intersex" was like "interspecies" but for sex. Like a co-ed dorm. Any term we pick would have a learning curve, of course.

see:

dba_afish said:
there is a problem which I have noticed with intersex I have noticed the tag being applied relatively often to just male/female posts, so I think there are a few people who read it and think it has a similar definition to something like interspecies.

also, I've seen people tag intersex on ambiguous characters which I believe would fit the real-world definition of "intersex" but not ours. although, that might be something else we can blame on the upload form only having pairing tags for male, female, and intersex.

pankino2002 said:
I think there's an important difference in that "male" and "female" are also gender identities in addition to biological sexes, whereas intersex is something you're born with, you can't really "identify" as intersex if you weren't born intersex [...]

And some people say being male is something you're born with... and that you can't identify as one. But people can identify however they want, including intersex. That is why intersex_(lore) exists. If you change this definition, intersex_(lore) will no longer apply to some posts its tagged on. A lot of these are posts in which the artist identifies a character as intersex.

Additionally @watsit makes a good point: "That goes for every sex, because that's how real-world biology works. But we're dealing with fictional drawings here, the standard rules don't apply so we tag as closely as we can based on visual appearance."

And we also can't (usually) identify intersex characters without a visual indication of what sex organs they possess, but you can identify male or female (or ambiguous) based on facial features or body shape alone. The tagging procedures are different for male/female and intersex.

With the TWYS (non-lore tag) I agree. This however does not make the tag invalid. This would be true for ANY tag used to describe any character who is neither strictly male nor strictly female but exhibits apparent body features of both.

[...] It's important to me and probably important to intersex people that we understand that intersex isn't just "looks like a mix of both."

It has three definitions. One means having physical characteristics intermediate between the male sex and the female sex. That's what the intersex tag uses. If the artist makes it known that a character has altered chromosomes (or another related congenital issue, which may or may not be visible), or simply deems the character as intersex, then intersex_(lore) would apply, as it covers the other two definitions.

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I also have more arguments as to why this change is not a good idea:

1. If someone was actually born with both a penis and a vagina... they'd still be intersex under both our definitions! Therefore, there is no reason to not tag such a character as intersex. Just because not every variant of intersex IRL can be tagged doesn't make intersex a bad tag.

2. I did some research. Altersex specifically excludes intersex. If a character is intersex_(lore), they cannot also be altersex without potentially upsetting the character owner. This is creating another male female_(lore) like conflict when there doesn't need to be.

kyiiel said:
2. I did some research. Altersex specifically excludes intersex. If a character is intersex_(lore), they cannot also be altersex without potentially upsetting the character owner. This is creating another male female_(lore) like conflict when there doesn't need to be.

...Huh? Could you link the source please?

wandering_spaniel said:
...Huh? Could you link the source please?

I went and looked and there seems to be some variation in interpretation. In general though, as personal identities they're neither mutually exclusive nor inclusive.

It was, however, coined in part to specifically address and offer an alternative to using 'intersex' on characters that do not have a real-world intersex condition. Largely, characters who have real-world intersex conditions can't be tagged 'intersex' with 'tag what you see' so the point is kind of moot.