Content Warning: Intersexism (discrimination against intersex people). This is an important post by ipso-faculty about intersex misconceptions and how to be a better ally:
Source: ipso-faculty
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In addition to the intersex blurb being extremely wrong (which was very excellently explained above), the trans, asexual, and queer blurbs are also wrong to a lesser extent.
First of all, trans people do not “identify with a sex” (which is terrible phrasing). It is about gender, which is a separate thing. Suppose you were put in a robot body, which is a machine. Machines are referred to as an it. Would you be happy with being called an it because that’s what matches your body? Most people I’ve asked have responded no and that they would consider it rude. Either they’d want to keep being called what they were before and still consider themself the same as before (and maybe change their body to look more masculine/feminine), or they would just go with whatever they’re used to out of familiarity. Some people do respond that they’d go with something different, but the majority of them end up being trans (or transhumanist).
Non-binary people – people who are neither male nor female – also fall under the trans umbrella. Many of them have similar experiences to binary trans people (the ones who are male or female) and many of the same challenges. However, this blurb explicitly excludes them. Which is very weird given that the gay blurb states ‘valid for all genders’ and the bisexual blurb states ‘attracted to multiple genders’. So they do acknowledge more than two genders, but go for a strictly binary definition in the category where it matters the most?
A better blurb would be “Their gender does not match the gender they were assigned at birth.” Though at least they’re correct that it has no relation to sexual or romantic orientation.
In the asexual blurb, being asexual means that you are not sexually attracted to other people. Orientation is not about behavior, it’s about attraction. Which is something they got right with the lesbian, gay, and bisexual blurbs, so how did they get this one so wrong?
For the record, while some asexual people are indeed repulsed by the idea of sexual contact, others are indifferent to it and some enjoy it. People who aren’t sex-repulsed could be interested in it because, for instance, they want to engage in a fun activity with their partner. All being asexual means is that one reason for it (i.e. looking at someone and thinking “wow, they’re hot”) isn’t there.
As for the queer blurb, it’s less wrong than the others. The main issue is that queer refers to both sexuality and gender. Basically, it’s an umbrella term to describe the entire group, but can also refer to people who don’t fall neatly into one of the other categories. Also, why is this blurb an imperative while all the others are descriptive?
This infographic sounds like someone who was completely clueless – not even an ally – just threw the “info” together from various sources, some of them VERY sketchy, and then didn’t bother to make sure it was correct or even self-consistent.
Side note: if you want to refer to body types without referencing gender (female/male), there are the terms mullerian/muellerian and wolffian, respectively. For instance, “He thought he was completely wolffian, but the doctor says he has an underdeveloped uterus.” Both of them refer to perisex (non-intersex) parts according to the embryonic ducts they stem from: Mullerian ducts develop into the uterus and associated parts, Wolffian ducts develop into the body tube system for the other set, and usually one gets developed and the other shrinks/disappears. They’re fairly new terms, but they make it much easier to talk about intersex people without accidentally invalidating their gender. Plus, they’re half the syllables as ‘biologically [gender]’.