INTERSEX NEWS: November 2008

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Increased Estrogen Rather Than Decreased Androgen Action Is Associated with Longer Androgen Receptor CAG Repeats

Excerpt: The correlations of this polymorphism with various endocrine and phenotypic features of men have been exhaustively studied. Many, though not all of these studies, demonstrate inverse correlation of the repeat length with androgenicity, suggesting that men with longer repeats have weaker overall androgen action. The phenotypes found to correlate directly with the CAG repeat length include poor spermatogenesis and male-to-female transsexualism.

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Sunday, November 23, 2008

THE ANDROGYNE (The Third Gender Classification)

An androgyne in terms of gender identity, is a person who does not fit cleanly into the typical masculine and feminine gender roles of their society. They may also use the term ambigender to describe themselves. Many androgynies identify as being mentally "between" woman and man, or as entirely genderless. They may class themselves as non-gendered, gender-neutral, a gendered, between genders, Inter gendered, bi gendered or, gender fluid.

Androgyne was once used as a synonym for hermaphrodite, a term since replaced by the word inter sex.

Prof. Sandra Bem's work on androgyny preceded the current widespread use of the term as a gender identity, and uses the term more in terms of character traits than core gender identity. She considers an androgynous balance of traits to be desirable, stating that those who are able to draw on both traditionally masculine and feminine emotions and behaviors are best able to cope with life's challenges in a well-rounded way.

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Saturday, November 22, 2008

Doctors re-identify intersex child’s gender

Doctors from a southern pediatrics hospital are conducting both testicular and ovarian tests on a six-year-old intersex child to identify his “real” sex, a doctor said on Wednesday.

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Hairspray is linked to common genital birth defect, says study

Women who are exposed to hairspray in the workplace during pregnancy have more than double the risk of having a son with the genital birth defect hypospadias, according to a new study published today in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

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Friday, November 21, 2008

Female Embryonic Sexual Development Driven By Universal Factor

A gene essential to the growth and development of most organ systems in the body also is vital to female - but not male - embryonic sexual development, scientists report this month.

The study, from researchers at the University of Illinois and the University of Texas, appears in Human Molecular Genetics. The findings lend support to a controversial hypothesis about mammalian sexual development.

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Research Maps Out Evolution of Genders from Hermaphroditic Ancestors

PITTSBURGH-Research from the University of Pittsburgh published in the Nov. 20 edition of “Heredity” could finally provide evidence of the first stages of the evolution of separate sexes, a theory that holds that males and females developed from hermaphroditic ancestors. These early stages are not completely understood because the majority of animal species developed into the arguably less titillating separate-sex state too long ago for scientists to observe the transition.

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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Now, gender tests for women lifters

BANGALORE: If you are a woman weightlifter you have to prove it. This seems to be the diktat from the Weightlifting Federation of India (WFI) to all women aspirants who are selected for the federation's its training programmes.

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Coalitions are not safe spaces

I’ve been thinking a lot about coalitions lately. Coalitions and communities, about how those two concepts overlap and how they are very different creatures with very different functions, and different needs.

Some of these musings were sparked by a conversation with a friend of mine, who mentioned how he had spoken up in an LGBTQIQ support group about his experience as a transgender person and gotten nothing but an an awkward silence back from the other members. This led to a discussion of the limitations of the LGBTQIQ (etc) umbrella, and how the word “community,” so commonly applied to the LGBTQIQ movement, is often a misnomer. The issues faced by lesbian and gay people are not the same as issues faced by bisexual people are very much not the same as issues faced by transpeople are not identical to issues faced by intersex people. The issues faced by queer people of color are not the same as those faced by queer White people. The issues preoccupying affluent and middle class queer folks may be completely irrelevant to queer people living in poverty. And all too often the umbrella doesn’t cover everyone the way it’s supposed to or assumed to.

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Organisation Intersex International

Gender diversity: A Transsexual Woman’s view of Sexism

An interview with Julia Serano

The rising visibility of trans, intersex, and genderqueer movements has led feminists—and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world—to an increasing awareness that m and f are only the beginning of the story of gender identity. With the release of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, Julia Serano offers a perspective sorely needed, but up until now rarely heard: a transfeminine critique of both feminist and mainstream understandings of gender.

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Nepal's highest court confirms full rights for LGBTI people

A Nepali MP has said his "eyes were filled with tears" when he read the full written decision of the country's Supreme Court on a writ petition from four organisations representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex people.

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“JT LeRoy,” “Danny Ryan,” and “transkid” hoaxes

The “transkid” fraud JT LeRoy has been back in the news.

It reminded me Denise Tree, aka Kiira Triea, another middle-aged eccentric who has claimed to have undergone genital surgery for an intersex trait in 1974 when she was 14. Among other telltale signs of fraud in her fantastic tale, she was in fact born in 1951. The gullible press and a few sloppy academics lapped up Tree’s improbable tale of sexualized torment as a teenager in the clutches of the Johns Hopkins clinic. Tree’s aunt, Nancy Henley, got her Ph.D. in psychology from Johns Hopkins in 1968, which may expain Tree’s fixation on the school and knowledge of various programs.

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Monday, November 17, 2008

An Intersex Mynifesto

This is an Intersex Mynifesto written by Michelle O'Brien - OII-UK

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Organisation Intersex International

Two New Videos added to OII’s Library

Video 1

No on Prop 8 rally. David Cameron, OII-USA Spokesperson for Human Rights

Cameron is Intersex Outreach Director at Marriage Equality USA.

Video 2

Androgynous Reflections

An extract of the lyrical musical comedy of the male soprano Fabrice di Falco and the dancer Marius Helder.

I have added a new video of one of my favorite IS/androgynous artists. Both singers in this video are "male". When I watch this video, I wonder how many intersex people assigned male have lost their beautiful voices and beautiful androgynous features because of forced normalisation treatments. Fabrice de Falco was born in Martinique and is famous in France and many other French speaking countries.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

OII’s Statement of Dissent

OII is working to end NON-CONSENSUAL normalisation treatments of intersex children and adults without consultation with the individual intersexed person.

We oppose all consensus statements, especially those without representation of intersex people as equal stakeholders in the consensus.

We have no desire for any consensus statement because intersex people do not agree on:

the exact definition of intersex
what treatments are appropriate for all intersex people
what gender assignment, if any, is appropriate for all the different intersex variations
pathological definitions of our bodies and identities

OII is working in favour of human rights for individuals affected by intersex variations and therefore is opposed to all attempts to impose definitions, treatments and terminology on all people with bodies which do not meet the current standards for male or female.

Consensus statements imply that there is consent. We dissent!

Available online:
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Remembering Two-Spirits this Thanksgiving

Historically, I am reminded that for many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is not a cause of celebration, but rather a National Day of Mourning, remembering the real significance of the First Thanksgiving in 1621 as a symbol of persecution and genocide of Native Americans and the long history of bloodshed with European settlers.

I am also reminded of my Two-Spirit Native American brothers and sisters who struggle with their families and tribes not approving of their sexual identities and gender expressions as many of us do with our families and faith communities.

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Nepal MP speaks for rights of sexual minorities

Mumbai, November 13 - At home Sunil Pant is an articulate and successful Member of Parliament who fights for the rights of people of his country, Nepal, whether they are homosexual or heterosexual. On a visit to Mumbai, the only openly gay MP from the Himalayan country marched with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and inter-sex (LGBTI) people in Azad Maidan to campaign against the alleged violence perpetrated by the police against sexual minorities in Bangalore and other parts of India.

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Obama Yay: No Discrimination in Hiring

The Obama transition team issued a statement saying that it will not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, among a variety of other bases.

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Solidarity

The autistic self-advocacy (neurodiversity) movement has, in my view, many issues of shared concern, particularly a rejection of the narrative of “being cured,” with other movements. Autistic self-advocates reject the pro-cure agenda of Autism Speaks, Defeat Autism Now, and other organizations; the intersex rights movement resists attempts to force the dualistic model of sex on their bodies; the LGBT rights movement, gays and lesbians in particular, have, along with mainstream psychiatry, dismissed the view that homosexuality is a disorder to be cured; and the deaf rights movements opposes the idea that cochlear implants and lip reading are superior to signing.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Request for participants in research on forgiveness

The study involves participants thinking of something hurtful that someone has done to them at some point in their life that they haven't forgiven, and then answering questions about the hurtful event and why they haven't forgiven this person. The survey is available online and only takes approximately 20 minutes to complete. It is completely private and confidential (any identification information will be kept separately to survey responses and will be deleted in January, following data collection), and participants are free to withdraw at any time. The study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of they School of Psychology, University of Adelaide. As incentive to participate, I am offering Australian participants entry into a draw to win a $100 Westfield voucher (this voucher is only valid in Australia, which is why I'm only offering it to Australian participants).

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Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Stanford Author Explores Struggles of Intersex Individuals, Their Families and Doctors

Karkazis, a medical anthropologist at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, wrote her book to examine the conflicts and struggles around treating intersex conditions. Intersex individuals, formerly known as hermaphrodites, have genetic, gonadal or anatomic characteristics that range from mostly male with some female features to the reverse. Some, but not all, intersex adults are infertile. The most obvious intersex diagnoses are made in infants born with ambiguous-looking genitalia.

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Organisation Intersex International
http://www.intersexualite.org

Nicole Kidman Goes Transsexual for ‘The Danish Girl’

There’s information that suggests that Einar was intersex, looked very feminine and had both male and female physical characteristics. In other words, this isn’t going to be Kidman trying to look very masculine. It’s been said that Einar was often mistaken for a woman wearing man’s clothing.

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Katrina Karkazis, author of new book on intersex

Katrina Karkazis, PhD, MPH will be reading a bit from Fixing Sex at a bookslut reading in Chicago on December 2.

More details will be here:
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For more information on the book:
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Organisation Intersex International

Protest Genital Cosmetic Surgery!

Join NWHN ally, the New View Campaign, on November 17 in New York to protest the genital cosmetic surgery industry that is medicalizing women's sexuality!

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Organisation Intersex International

For some babies, gender is neither pink nor blue

Is the baby a boy or girl? Few things are harder for new parents than hearing their doctor say, "I don't know."

"It is shocking," said Katrina Karkazis, PhD, the author of a new book, Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority and Lived Experience, which will be released by Duke University Press on Nov. 14. Shame and confusion may overwhelm parents whose infant's anatomy doesn't match typical male or female patterns, Karkazis said. "It's not something you find in most books that prepare you for having a baby."

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Posters for Intersex Children

As many of you know, many of us were subjected to sexual abuse as children. Also, many of us experienced our own treatments as a form of sexual abuse and have had to have a lot of help to work through this.

I have posted a series of posters for intersex children in many languages. This is part of OII's effort to educated the public and specifically intersex children that they have the right to say NO!

You can access the posters for children here:
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Organisation Intersex International

Indonesian transgendered find refuge in Islamic school

YOGYAKARTA (Indonesia): Heavyset and wearing the pink Islamic headscarf and matching flowing clothes of a pious Indonesian housewife, 48-year-old Maryani says her penis is a gift from God.

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Dear fatwa council and Malaysians...

ON 23 October 2008, the National Fatwa Council of Malaysia issued a fatwa saying that tomboyism, where a girl behaves or dresses in what is seen as a boyish manner, is forbidden by Islam. According to the council chairman, Datuk Dr Abdul Shukor Husin, this decision was made because — in their reasoning — young women who behave like men will engage in lesbian sex.

We, as rakyat Malaysia, reject these views and wish to express our solidarity and sympathy with those affected by such declarations. This letter is a statement of our principled stand as the people of this nation, regardless of religion, gender, ethnicity, or political belief.

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