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DiscussionYA books and the portrayal of being intersex
So I used to read a lot of YA social issues fiction from around 2016 - 2020 (some 'LGBTIA+' related) and I've been thinking a lot recently about how intersex conditions were portrayed.
Off the top of my head, most of these books would have
Anyway, I'm curious as to if anyone else has ever come across these types of plotlines in YA lit/media and what you think about them? I used to lap these plotlines up, but now all they make me think 'this is why I is different to the L or the G and probably shouldn't be in the acronym' though I'm assuming that was never the author's intent, lol
OP, from the language you've used in your title thread and throughout the rest of what you've written, I'm confused about your POV and the point you're trying to make.
On the one hand, you seem to be questioning the way DSD conditions and individuals with specifc DSDs have been portrayed in the YA lit/media you've consumed. I think it's to your credit that you're doing that, so I say "brava" and give you a big round of applause on that score.
But on the other hand, you seem to be endorsing - or at least going along with? - the idea that there's such a thing as "being intersex" that the media you're questioning promotes. You use the word "intersex" more times than I can count, and repeatedly describe people with DSDs as "being intersex" or say they "are intersex." So on that score, I'm scratching my head in bewilderment and wondering "what gives?"
Apologies if I've said something ignorant or offensive - I'm using the word 'intersex' as that was the umbrella descriptor that was generally used in the majority of the novels to refer to anything vaguely DSD related.
My point with this post was that, like a lot of other things related to women/the body, fictionalised depictions are often radically at odds to real life experience.
Interesting. I have never read a YA book where that was a topic!
When I was a teen, the current "social issue" was anorexia.
It is rather baffling that there's so much "intersex" literature, considering how rare such conditions are. But I guess it is useful to TRAs to conflate intersex with trans, and the target audience of such books are not in fact teenagers with DSD conditions but trans identified teenagers.
Let me guess: There's no heartwarming book for teens about the life story of the man who won medals in women's skiing, then discovered he was in fact a man with a medical condition, admitted this, had surgery to put his genitals outside the body, married a woman and fathered a child.
(That's the guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Schinegger)