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An open letter to Iain Morland

by Curtis E. Hinkle
29 January 2009

In response to his blog about Sophia Siedlberg's essay.

I wrote to Iain Morland about the genital cutting conference in July 2008 and received only a dismissive reply about why nothing was done to accommodate OII’s member Michelle O’Brien at the conference. What then happened was quite unfortunate. I provided EVIDENCE to support my opinion that there were some serious issues surrounding this conference by inviting someone like Bo Laurent to speak on genital cutting without having invited anyone to speak who had other perspectives.

• I published evidence from primary sources that proved that the Accord Alliance was in fact SUPPORTING genital cutting. The Chicago Consensus organizers had very quickly written a consensus on CAH (which was published almost without any publicity, as opposed to the original Chicago Consensus Statement) and in that consensus statement there were recommendations for surgical intervention before six months of age. That is the consensus that is being supported by the Accord Alliance. I quoted from the document itself. I showed by using the text from Accord Alliance's website that it was supporting the Consensus documents. This is EVIDENCE. Instead of dealing with evidence and real documentation, Iain simply dismissed everything I wrote as if it had no relevance to the conference. So, who is dismissing EVIDENCE?  

• During the conference, the website of Accord Alliance went down so that no one could actually verify the primary source material that I had given in the essay. The website did not go back up until the conference was over.
  

• I published documentation which showed that ISNA had been incorporated by Dr. Dreger's husband (a pediatrician) and Chase's partner who is an insurance specialist along with Bo Laurent and Cheryl Chase, who were one and the same person.  
  

• I published EVIDENCE of contradictory narratives published by Bo Laurent, aka Cheryl Chase, and I also published EVIDENCE of what appears to many to be academic fraud on the part of Bo Laurent, such as giving footnotes to herself under another name in publications, and writing articles in which she speaks about herself in the third person under another name, etc.
  

• Then I was accused of slander by someone who was at this conference but who obviously had not taken the time to read the documentation. 
  

My suggestion to people who demand evidence is that they deal with the evidence. I have done that and have moved on. It is NOT scientific to attack the person who simply publishes the evidence and that is what happened.  

I have not written about any of this for quite a while. I don't think there is much more that needs to be said quite frankly. Anyone who wants evidence can find out what happened with the DSD controversy, the Chicago Consensus and other issues surrounding ISNA. There is no need to continue unless there is new evidence.

I am very much open to constructive dialog with anyone and that is why I have not written anything negative about Katrina Karkazis. I do believe in EVIDENCE. I do believe in allowing others to speak. I read her book Fixing Sex and thought that it was a good book. The fact that she founded the Accord Alliance is not going to make me ignore the EVIDENCE. I don't agree with the principles of the organization she founded. However, she has been honest and in my opinion, she is a real scholar who is willing to deal with EVIDENCE. That is refreshing. I respect her right to start any organization she wishes. I may disagree but I recognize that what she is doing is well researched and informative about the actual experiences of intersex people. That encourages me.  

I am waiting for Iain Morland to deal with the evidence. He continually keeps organizing conferences which are set up as if intersex activism were where it was 15 years ago. It has changed. Inviting DSD activists and people from organizations which are advocating surgery and being funded by Blue Cross Blue Shield (Accord Alliance) to a conference on genital cutting is not just ironic, it is intellectually dishonest to do this if you have been presented with the EVIDENCE and instead of discussing the evidence with me, I was simply dismissed as irrelevant. I don't take that personally. I am convinced that OII is allowing intersex people to speak. I am very proud of that and I am very patient.  

OII is not about me. It is about all of us. It is about our own individual experiences and our collective spirit of reconciliation and hope. I remain very hopeful and know that OII has so many good people from so many places that there will never be any way to continue all this denial of the EVIDENCE as the years go on.  

Things are working themselves out and I feel very good about that.

Curtis E. Hinkle
Founder, OII

Documentation:
Open letter to the organizers of the Forum on Genital Cutting in a Globalized Age

Genetic Screening

This article is about a breakthrough in detecting Down Syndrome. However, it includes the following:

The maternal serum test developed by Lenetix medical director Dr. Stephen A. Brown at the University of Vermont incorporates the use of methylation-sensitive amplification (MSA) of fetal nucleic acid markers. In the preliminary studies, more than ten clinical plasma specimens of various ethnicities provided by clinical partners were tested with clinical partners using the MSA approach developed by Dr. Brown. Data from pilot studies indicate that highly accurate screening for common fetal autosomal (Trisomy 18, 21) and sex chromosomal (47, XXY) chromosome abnormalities is feasible, particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy when MSA features of early pregnancy-derived cells can be leveraged. This approach affords diagnostic confirmation by CVS, an invasive first trimester procedure, or genetic amniocentesis in the early 2nd trimester.

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Is the Equality and Human Rights Commission trying to “forget” trans people?

In 1996 the European Court of Justice issued an important judgement which compelled the United Kingdom to update the Sex Discrimination Act so as to outlaw rampant employment and education discrimination towards people who intend to undergo, are undergoing or have undergone Gender Reassignment.

The Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations were eventually enacted in April 1999. Even so, research conducted for Trevor Phillips' Equalities Review and published in February 2007 showed that, among 872 trans people questioned, 42% said they had lived in fear of workplace discrimination when they needed to transition. (Engendered Penalties: Transgender and Transsexual People's Experiences of Inequality and Discrimination; Whittle, Turner and Al-Alami; Equalities Review; Feb 2007).

Ten years after the law was introduced, transsexual people continue to describe instances of discrimination. Meanwhile transgender people are not even protected, because they don't fulfil the law's criterion that changes in one's gender presentation must be under medical supervision in order to count.

That same year (1999), the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier High Court judgement against North West Lancashire Health Authority and in favour of three transsexual women who had been denied NHS treatment for their condition. The Court ruled that gender reassignment treatment was the proper clinical response to the condition described as 'gender dysphoria' and that it was unlawful for any NHS organisation to operate any system of control which amounted to a blanket ban.

Ten years after that judgement and in spite of countless guidance publications from the Department of Health, several Primary Care Trusts and whole regions of the country persist in operating policies which do amount, in effect, to blanket bans. Their rules, when obtained under Freedom of Information procedures, read like a travesty of the founding principles of the National Health Service.

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Indians campaign for 'third sex'

Melbourne Community Voice, Australia
Wednesday, 28 January 2009 16:13

While the status of India's transgender community remains low, a public interest litigation (PIL) petition currently before India's Supreme Court could pave the way for official recognition of a third sex, according to campaigners for the country's eunuchs.

If successful, gender boxes on government forms could be ticked male, female or 'kinnar', the word India's estimated 1.5 million eunuchs use to describe themselves.

Eunuchs once enjoyed a proud place in Indian society, with many rising to position of power and gaining trusted positions in royal courts.

Today, London's Daily Telegraph reports, most eunuchs – born with 'deformed genitals', and later castrated – say they suffer serious discrimination, and are denied equal opportunities in employment and education.

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OII Demostrates before the UN in Geneva, Switzerland

Image © ERIC J. ALDAG

Nicolas, OII-Switzerland

43 years old, Lausanne

“Everything was going just fine until a doctor decided to ‘normalize’ me, at the late age of 38. I was married and I had a child but I knew I was XXY. I found out I had this particular karyotype when I was 20 during a medical checkup and I thought for a long, long time before consulting a specialist. The only answer I got was that the doctor prescribed “something that would be good for me” and then told me not to read the warnings. Since he was afraid that I would be more of a girl, he gave me testosterone. For me, this treatment was like undergoing chemical castration: my joints started to swell, my testicles shrunk and I started getting hairy like a bear. My hairiness went back to normal when I stopped taking testosterone, but a very serious illness attacked my joints. Then a whole series of events started: a separation from my wife, changing professions. I have been fighting for three years and I can depend on my parents and friends for support: they understand that I was used as a guinea pig. But what keeps me going and gives me the courage to continue as an activist is my rage. It was not up to my doctor to decide to turn me into a “virile” man: the medical protocols must be changed so that this never happens to another person.

Intersex people are totally invisible. I prefer the term “intersex”. Hermaphrodite makes the public have fantasies because they supposedly have two sets of genitalia. I refuse to be the object of such fantasies.”

Summary of article by Curtis E. Hinkle

To read the original article in French: Click here

Four people showed up yesterday in Geneva to protest genital surgery of intersex infants. Among the participants was OII member Nicolas from Switzerland who is in the picture holding the placard.

There were four placards that were held by two intersex people and two activists who came to the Place des Nations (Nation’s Square) which is a very huge place for such a small gathering. Daniela Truffer stated that the reason only four people showed up is because of all the fear and shame that keep intersex people from showing up or coming out publicly. There are approximately 3,500 intersex people in Switzerland who were born like Daniela Truffer who have genitalia which resemble either a small penis or a large clitoris. She stated that the doctor was the one who chose her sex.

“Let the children decide!”

Only the most committed activists came to Geneva with a friend from Zurich. Matthias angrily stated that they had met at the University and when Daniela had confided in him about what had happened to her, he realized that this taboo was hiding one of the most serious human rights violations. Demonstrating was one of the few ways for intersex people to assert some power over their own lives. Matthias also pointed out that no legislators were taking up any of their demands and he wondered if it was because of the power of the medical lobby.

According to the medical authorities, allowing a child to grow up with ambiguity does not eliminate their suffering. They are of the opinion that a child cannot construct an identity if the parents cannot consider the child to be either their son or their daughter. They said that the choice of sex takes into consideration physical, genetic, hormonal and psychological chrematistics of the child but they also said that the feelings of the parents were also taken into consideration. However, the four demonstrators were of a different opinion and stated that these early sex assignments do not take into consideration the emotions and metabolism of the individual affected – the child. Philippe Scandolera, co-president of the gay rights association 360° also agreed: “Let’s accept their difference and let them decide.”

Daniela Truffer talked about her surgical assignment as a girl and how she was raised in secrecy and shame. At 12 she started synthetic hormones and at 18 she had a vagina constructed. She was born with a micropenis but the doctors decided that she should be a girl. This was all based on a lie. They told her parents that she had malformed ovaries when in fact she had testicles.

Antony and the Johnsons THE CRYING LIGHT

By Danica Li
Contributing Writer
Monday, January 26, 2009
Category: Arts & Entertainment > Music > CD Reviews

At first glance, the album cover of The Crying Light appears to feature a desiccated skeleton with clawed hands, vampiric canines and sightlessly staring eyes. The skeleton is the source of Antony Hegarty's love and inspiration, a famous intersexual Japanese butoh dancer, Kazuo Ohno, to whom the singer attributes his own growth as an unabashedly queer artist. After 2005's I Am a Bird Now fetched Hegarty's achy, tear-stained serenades the prestigious Mercury Prize and 20,000 pounds of pocket money to boot, the singer has indulged in a variety of collaborations. But none have risen to the realm of tortured, symphonic romanticism that he's consistently attained with the Johnsons.

Regardless of the lyrical content, Hegarty's voice is the sound of a man quietly derailing. Like the cover, Hegarty's songwriting veers frequently toward darkness. Repeated and grotesque invitations to "cut [him] into quadrants" urge the obvious comparison to past records, where implications about self-mutilation ran the gamut from cutting off one's digits to breast amputation. First single "Another World" mourns the impending loss of the world as we know it around a down-key piano medley, while "Daylight and the Sun" laments the absence of its title subject to a swelling, hoarsely cacophonous string section. Do we detect a running trend? Common here are classical composer Nico Muhly's swooning, orchestral arrangements-vibrations transmuted through wood and wire into the magnificent, gold-spangled stuff of romance and tragedy. Wretched and wrenching, Hegarty's voice takes the foreground and distorts a petite 39-minute record into a seemingly lengthy, difficult listen-one that nevertheless has its share of operatic peaks and elated, cathartic releases. Safe to say, then, that emotionally wringing will always be Antony and the Johnsons' calling card.

Article online with illustration:
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For information about Kazuo Ohno
Visit the following sites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuo_Ohno
http://www.kazuoohnodancestudio.com/english/kazuo_desc/

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Did Alice write that? What?

By Sophia Siedlberg.
25 January 2009

It seems that our deeply beloved Alice Dreger, in between making huge necklaces with pictures of the U.S. president on them, and polishing her large teeth, is now debating the approaches to be taken towards transsexual kids. Believe it or not, this one article of hers, "Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood: Inconclusive advice to parents" seems remarkably unbiased. OK, she does mention her usual cronies. But she does seem to equally present the notion that there are two competing models and approaches, the "Really a homosexual" model we find from Zucker and Bailey et al, and the "Feminine essence narrative" which is supported by the work of Swaab and Zhou etc.

This is not the Alice Dreger I have come to read with both disgust and amusement. This is a strange Alice Dreger from a parallel universe. There is a key reason for my extreme confusion; it is the sight of Alice Dreger, the Alice Dreger, yes the Guggenheim Alice Dreger, the self same one and only Alice Dreger writing what appears to be an equal representation of two competing models of transsexualism. So far all I have heard from Alice Dreger is that all transsexual folks are either autogynephiles or homosexual transsexuals (The BBL model). In fact she has to date defended this particular "Truth" to the point of jumping into bed with the main advocates of this model. Now we find her talking to parents and not really veering one way or the other. Perhaps she is about to admit that Gender Identity, whatever it actually is, is something that cannot be easily predicted, in which case she cannot make proclamations about the gender identity one should expect from certain intersex variations.

Ah yes! Here is the rub. If she admits that infant transsexualism is difficult to define, that is you simply cannot predict how a child will end up, she cannot by any standards hope to predict the outcomes of children with certain intersex conditions. So perhaps she can drop the "All 5 alpha children identify as male" and "All with CAH end up as female" arguments now. Perhaps in situations like that the "accomodative model" (as she puts it) would help, where the child with something like 5 alpha should be left alone and allowed to decide for themselves what they are, let them decide what surgery may or may not be needed.

Has Alice finally got to realize what we at OII are really saying? That ultimately a child will grow and settle upon a sense of self. It may be male or female; it may be contrary to the initially assigned or birth sex. But there is no way one can predict the end result.

If Alice Dreger takes the time to read beyond the sheer rage that she has herself been involved in causing, she will notice that much of her commentary in that last article does tally with what we have been saying all along.

The problem has been her "Change minds not bodies" line of reasoning that in intersex children resulted in expecting intersex children with specific conditions to end up as a specific sex. With 5 alpha she often insisted on a male outcome while with CAH she insisted on a female outcome. I have 5 alpha and am female, Curtis has CAH and is male. Meaning that two public faces of OII are living examples of this unpredictability in terms of intersex. The problem with identity politics has always been that everyone expects a specific outcome in the life of the individual. OII is "trans friendly" and that means we do accommodate transsexual people, because we are NOT mired in identity politics. An important point when you consider that the human condition is essentially unpredictable.

I am inclined to believe that Alice Dreger has simply not got our core message until now, or she has, but is trying to distance herself from the Clarke Northwestern. She openly admits that the "Therapeutic model" (espoused by Zucker et al) causes harm. And she also admits, even-handedly that while there are many children who have what appears to be G.I.D., they may grow up gay. At the same time she does say there are those in whom this will persist, and they will end up as transsexual men or women. The children in this latter group are those who the Clarke Northwestern have basically denied existing.

In OII we have always been aware of this, and have fought hard to defend autonomy. This is perhaps the core issue here. It is not about chromosomes or hormones; it is not about identity politics either, but autonomy.

For the first time Alice Dreger has essentially seen what we are about. We disagree with the arbitrary ideal of the therapeutic model. We also worry about the accommodation model going too far. As she correctly points out Peggy Cohen-Kettenis, despite my own criticisms of her, has illustrated that it is possible to be both therapeutic and accommodating at the same time, provided that the autonomy of the child is always respected. I say this because the child is the one who will have to live with the final outcome. This has consistently been the issue with me. I always felt that during my childhood it was never about gender roles, toy guns or dolls. I never had a female essence narrative. If I did, it never formed the basis of my arguments and certainly not my anger.

But more importantly I have never sought to deny it. I was after all born in between the two sexes, and would have probably veered toward female anyway, and yes I accept that may have been biological in origin. This is why I do not go bashing transsexual folks, or opposing the ideas of Swaab and so on.

What did cause me intense grief, as Alice will be fully aware by now, was the over compensated "male" upbringing which was in my opinion to prop up a social delusion and rob me of my autonomy. What would be so wrong with a kid with 5 alpha ending up as a woman? Chromosomes? What? The truth is people don't do Buccal smear tests on everyone else on every social interaction.

As a result of all this I have always said that the best approach with intersex kids is to avoid surgery and let the child grow and decide who and what they are. It may not be as disconcerting to society as many think. With transsexual kids I think the same probably applies, the idea of using puberty delaying drugs later on (with the child's consent) is a good one. There are some complications which I am painfully aware regarding some of these drugs, but why not research that more fully?

If Alice Dreger understands what I have just said, perhaps she may see OII differently, in which case my invitation is still there, even now after all the rows. Feel free to talk. Also, I will say I will be listening if this is genuine and not some ploy to distance herself from the antics of the Clarke Northwestern. I don't want to talk if she is just jumping from a sinking ship. There is much more at stake than her saving her reputation after one of the most acrimonious controversies in gender political history. And yes if you look at all I have written Alice, I have always left the door open to talk. If you are finally seeing reason, then feel free to talk to us.

This article is available on OII's website:
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Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood: Inconclusive Advice to Parents

Alice Dreger, “Gender Identity Disorder in Childhood: Inconclusive Advice to Parents,” Hastings Center Report 39, no. 1 (2009): 26-29.

For purposes of this essay, let’s invent a contemporary American child named William Lee. William is five years old and, as far as anyone can tell, his body is that of a typical male. But William has long acted in a fashion more typical of girls: he likes to play with “girl” toys like Barbie dolls and My Little Pony; he strongly prefers playing with girls to playing with boys; and he likes to dress up like a conventionally pretty woman, in pumps and dresses, with jewelry and make-up. He increasingly insists he is really a girl and indicates a belief—or a desperate hope—that he will grow up to be a woman. He wants to be called “Julie” and to go to school as Julie. He exhibits what psychologists call gender dysphoria. This stresses out his parents; it is not easy to have a child who challenges social norms, especially norms about gender.

Note from Curtis E. Hinkle: I find this to be a very good article which has many of the same findings that I wrote about in the following article:

Zucker: Manipulation of Young Feminine Boys

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WHEN SHE BECOMES HE (ON WHY IT WAS GRANTED)

Several months ago we printed an article concerning the failed attempt of a male petitioner to change the entry of his name and sex from male to female in order to reflect the result of a sex reassignment surgery. The Supreme Court in the case Rommel Jacinto Dantes Silverio vs. Republic, G.R. No. 174689, October 22, 2007, held that there is no such special law in the Philippines governing sex reassignment and its effects. It was emphasized that under the Civil Register Law, a birth certificate is a historical record of the facts as they existed at the time of birth. Thus, the sex of a person is determined at birth, visually done by the birth attendant (the physician or midwife) by examining the genitals of the infant. Considering that there is no law legally recognizing sex reassignment, the determination of a person's sex made at the time of his or her birth, if not attended by error, is immutable. The words “male” and “female” in everyday understanding do not include persons who have undergone sex reassignment. Furthermore, “words that are employed in a statute which had at the time a well-known meaning are presumed to have been used in that sense unless the context compels to the contrary.” Since the statutory language of the Civil Register Law was enacted in the early 1900s and remains unchanged, it cannot be argued that the term “sex” as used then is something alterable through surgery or something that allows a post-operative male-to-female transsexual to be included in the category “female.”

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Punishing Difference

Vaibhav Saria

Tamil athlete Santhi Soundararajan attempted suicide in September 2007 in Pudukottai by consuming dangerous amounts of a veterinary drug. She was driven to take her own life because, in 2006, after winning the silver in the women’s 800m race at the Asian Games, she was stripped of her medal, her accolades, and her job (she had earlier that year won the gold in the 1,500m and the silver in the 800m at the South Asian Games in Colombo) and subjected to humiliation and governmental indifference. This is because a test ostensibly revealed that she was biologically intersexed. (which means that while the male has XY chromosomes and the female has XX chromosomes, there are instances when a person might have an XXY chromosome as well, hence, intersex, somewhere between the two sexes). Furthermore, I should just mention at the outset, that having this extra chromosome doesn’t necessary mean that you have external physical manifestations of both the sexes. Hence, let us straightaway clear Santhi of any intentional deception.

The way media represented the case didn’t help either; calling it “the sad story of” or “the mysterious case” or “the strange case of” Santhi Soundararajan instead of looking at what assumptions of gender and sex were problematically being made by the federation. Instead of raising a ruckus — the reports were relishing the sensation of the ‘freak’ and had hideous and offensive headlines like ‘Santhi runs like a man, but cries like a woman.’ The Olympic Council of Asia assumes that there are two genders and two sexes (the International Olympic Committee does not do gender tests), but also that these genders and these sexes have something universally definitive about them. There is a plethora of genders out there — male, female, intersex, hijra, transsexual, transgender, male-to-female transsexuals (MTF), female-to-male transsexuals (FTM): should they not be given the chance to become sportspeople?


There are a lot of sexes as well: the male sex (XY chromosomes), the female sex (XX chromosomes), the Turner Syndrome (XO chromosomes), the Triple xxx Syndrome (XXX chromosomes), the Klinefelter syndrome (XXY), XYY syndrome, XX male syndrome, Swyer syndrome (XY female). And I have just hit the three chromosomes list — the list is longer if you look at anomalies with four chromosomes. And none of these “deviations” necessarily imply any physical manifestations, deformities or incapacities. The point is that there are not just two sexes. The intersexed condition, with which Santhi was ostensibly diagnosed, itself has five variations. People are born with both or neither of the male and female gonads. Further, the stage of development of either results in more combinations, which ultimately makes it impossible to determine clearly whether you fall into the male or the female category. The ambiguity in the reports about Santhi in the Indian media shows this ignorance. References to her ambiguous sex organs, to her anatomy not matching her chromosomes, to her characteristics of a woman and the internal sex organs of a man.

If this is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), she is not a man because her body does not respond to testosterone she is producing, but there is no space, at the end of the day, for an XY female athlete.Now, take the plurality of genders (which by no means is an exhaustive list) and take the numbers of choromosomal patterns (which again is not an exhaustive list) and create all sorts of permutations and combinations and see the number you come up with. How can then you clearly say this is a man and this a woman? Should people with all of these “syndromes” not be allowed to play? Should they not be allowed to live? The violence of such archaic notions of sex, uninformed by science, and unethical in practice are clear. Santhi tried to kill herself because she was an athlete, a brilliant athlete, who had won for her country one of the few medals that it manages to win every four years, who had been shamed and stripped of her hard-earned and well-deserved medal because of some outdated and unscientific beliefs about sex and gender. Very few among us can claim to know that feeling that an athlete, especially a lower caste athlete from a small town (Kathakurichi) gets, when, after years of toil and discipline, she holds the fruits of her work in her hands and makes her village and family proud. The shame and the violence of having all of that negated because of unsubstantiated and unjustified reasons backed by some old boys’ uninterrogated crap about sex and gender must be bafflingly painful to her.Nobody contested not only the administering of this test (the team comprising a gynaecologist, endocrinologist, psychologist and genetic expert — god save us from these!) but also what it assumed. I find such assumptions rich coming especially from the field of sports which has a long history of encouraging the consumption of performance-inducing drugs that play havoc with one’s hormonal system, starting from cocaine and opium in the 17th century. What kind of “natural” performance and “natural” athletes are the sports federations around the world looking for when they pump their athletes with all kinds of unnatural substances that they first allow and then ban? Give me the kabbadi tournaments in Punjab, the football clubs of Calcutta, and mohalla cricket over the cruel, discriminating arena of international sports. They apparently are not concerned with whether you’re a good athlete, but whether you have the right chromosomes.

The only relief for Santhi and for us is that the Tamil Nadu government recognised her as a female athlete and awarded and feted her. More recently, reports have stated that with the support of the TN government, she has started coaching youngsters in athletics. Along with the aravani voter rights issue, the Tamil Nadu government is proving to be arguably the most progressive government in the country. —Vaibhav Saria is doctoral student in Medical Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University researching HIV and AIDS in India. He can be contacted at vaibhav@jhu.edu

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Refusing to be classified

by Dheera Sujan
22-01-2009

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"A woman with a penis surely is by definition a woman." Norrie is not a person to mince her words, and she's also not a person to ever be short of them.

Norrie:
"Some people may be puzzled by that remark Norrie," I challenge her tentatively, and she instantly has a comeback: "If you're saying one woman has black skin, another has white. Someone else may have a sixth finger, or there are hermaphrodites who have the ability to reproduce - having features that are masculine, doesn't stop them from being a woman." Norrie describes herself by many names - eunuch, androgyne - and woman. "Being a woman is a social identity. We don't see people's privates in public, yet we make assumptions about them. If you're talking like a woman, dressing like a woman, moving like a woman...then you're a woman."

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Whose Body is it anyway? Hermaphrodites, Gays, and Jews in N. O. Body's Germany

Sander L. Gilman

"N.O. Body" is a most appropriate pseudonym for Karl M. Baer (1885-1956) to have used when he sat down to pen his autobiography, which appeared in 1907. For being "nobody" was his way of seeing his body: it was neither male nor female. It was doubly foreign ("nobody" is English rather than German) as it was Jewish as well as German. This is how he imagined his past life raised as a woman, Martha Baer, in a Jewish family in Imperial Germany. But it is "nobody" that Odysseus tricks the Cyclops to answering when asked who has harmed him—"Who has hurt you?" "Nobody," the blinded giant responds. In his autobiography Baer is simultaneously the clever trickster but also the damaged giant.

On its surface Baer's autobiography is a remarkable fin-de-siècle document of "hermaphrodism," as the Berlin sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) notes in his afterward. Its subject suffered from false gender assignment because of the apparent ambiguity of his genitalia as an infant. He was registered and treated as a "female" child rather than a "male" child, an error of assignment that became evident only with puberty. He was a "pseudohermaphrodite," to use the terminology of the day, as his body was hormonally and psychologically gendered male, even though his genitalia seemed at first glance ambiguous. Sex was defined by the appearance of the body and was dimorphic—there were men and women. Any one who was neither or both was seen as pathological.

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I was born a hermaphodite

Published Date: 23 January 2009
By Staff reporter

Sir,

I live overseas but I read your paper on-line. The story 'I'm not your aunt - I'm your sister' was very moving and I’m glad to see that things are changing over there.

As for me, I have been in exile well over 35 years due to family prejudices. I come from a small village outside Derry and I was born a true hermaphrodite.

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What "Consensus"?

By Sophia Siedlberg

Anyone who has followed the environmental debates of the past ten years will probably have noticed the use of the term "consensus statement" to give various documents an air of authority, in this case with the intent to clarify what is known about the impact of human activity on the environment, but also to send a message to critics of the current dogma that their dissent will not be tolerated. It is this second line of reasoning that has proven problematic. Personally I am not a "climate skeptic" but I do often sense that some environmentalists are going too far when trying to stamp out dissent. This is because some aspects of the criticism will inevitably involve legitimate scientific questions.

The concept of "consensus statements" actually originates in medical science. Often such a statement will be published with the intent to clarify an established diagnosis and lay the foundation for any future guidelines. But when the Euro DSD consortium started waving the "Chicago Consensus Statement" around like it was the medical equivalent of the Ten Commandments, knowing full well that this statement does not have the consensus of those it applies to (people with intersex health issues). It only has the consensus of a group of academics in Chicago, which was initially funded by an American health insurance agency, based in California (Blue Shield), with the purpose of making sure that poor outcomes of treatment will not end up being the subject of charges of medical malpractice in the US courts.

Putting it bluntly, the Chicago Consensus Statement was the culmination of American health insurers covering their backs, academics in Chicago wanting to engage in a political process of social cleansing and European "experts" who wanted to over simplify any future guidelines arising from this statement.

You will notice the absence of a broader patient consensus simply because patient input was deliberately ignored. Two “intersex advocates” were involved, but when one of these advocates lost her mandate among patient groups, amid accusations of fraud and serious conflicts of interest, the Chicago Consensus Statement came to lack any credibility.

Did Euro DSD seek to distance themselves from this statement? Far from it. They have obviously adopted the terminology of the Chicago Consensus Statement by defining intersex people as "Disorders of Sex Development". And the focus has shifted from simply treating any intersex condition as a health issue to what can at best be described as punitive psychological control of patients.

And today you will find Euro DSD publishing documents, most of which have titles starting with "Consensus Statement on." As I have pointed out before, the one thing that characterizes the Chicago Consensus Statement is the arbitrary manner with which they will assign a sex to a given condition, and this is designed to disregard what the patient may feel about it. I will go further and say that this protocol of arbitrary "sex assignments" has been purposefully designed to maximize the distress of the patient, forcing them to consult mental health professionals and thus making more money for said mental health professionals. Furthermore, they have made the prospect for their future victims so bad that their suicide will make savings for health insurers and healthcare providers. Simply put, talk is cheap and viable treatment costs money. Better then for healthcare providers and insurers to maximize profit by offering punitive "talking cures" and hoping that before actual cost enters the equation, the patient is dead.

I would like to see Dr. Olaf Hiort and Professor Euan Hughes (two leading specialists involved in the European side of all this) try to worm out of that accusation. Well, they don't have to, why? Because they constantly publish "consensus statements" which have been "agreed upon". A patient who is enduring a negative outcome will be subjected to deliberately damaging forms of mental "care", thus rendering their ability to question all this in the courts as good as impossible, and in this state they will then be put up against what is described as a "Scientific Consensus" which cannot be questioned.

Euro DSD is already enjoying a lot of funding from the European Union. Why? Because they have already conned the politicians into believing they have all the answers, but the truth is these "answers" are simply a means to alleviate the cost of health care and nothing else.

You have probably read this so far and sense that I am talking about conspiracies rather than a set of health care policies that appear to be badly thought out. Regardless of the underlying intent, the outcome will be as predicted because the level of anger among non affiliated patient groups is considerable. And affiliated patient groups have consistently been ignored and in some cases told by Bo Laurent, alias Charlie Sullivan, alias Cheryl Chase, alias Brian Sullivan and Bonnie Sullivan to avoid those organizations that disagree with the Chicago Consensus Statement. What makes this individual with more aliases than a con artist with a multiple personality disorder most interesting is the fact that “they” are currently an item via a civil partnership with someone who is involved with, wait for it, health insurance.

And just who ends up forming this "Consensus" anyway. Well, the well-heeled vultures who attend these "conferences" with charismatic grins on their faces presenting papers with titles like "Slicing, dicing, chopping, carving, hacking and liquidizing freakish brats in a Kenwood chef for the nation, an academic study of the misery we enjoy causing".

If you need proof of unethical intent, you need look no further than those conferences, organized by the likes of Hughes, Hiort, Morland and so on. They are nothing more than a pale imitation of a brainstorming session for a particularly sadistic reality TV show. Flapping around like bleached vultures talking about "sociomedical emergencies" while watching a PowerPoint presentation that involves very graphic images of carved up genitalia. Are these people ethical? I doubt it. Like the endocrinologist from Middlesex who is about to end up in court for telling "Maid Marion" about his interpretation of my medical history. Well, breaking confidentiality to defend the quack circle is not very clever.

This misuse of consensus statements is nothing new. In the 1930's they were very popular when defining who was "dysgenic" and who was therefore going to get gassed. The most important point to remember is that the Chicago Consensus Statement was little more than a total fraud, and the only people who really formed this "Consensus" were as Alice Dreger herself points out, those with "power": that is compliant parents and doctors seeking to make a fast buck.

Also available on OII's website:
Click here

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National Intersex and Transgender Rights Organization of Nevada

National Intersex and Transgender Rights Organization (NITRO) of Nevada is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated in the state of Nevada.

NITRO seeks to improve the lives of transgender, intersex and genderqueer (TIQ) individuals by advocating for equal rights and benefits in the workplace, ensuring individuals are treated equally under the law and increasing public support through innovative advocacy, education and outreach programs.

NITRO works to secure equal rights for TIQ individuals at the national and state level by lobbying elected officials, mobilizing grassroots supporters, providing educational programs, investing strategically to elect fair-minded officials and partnering with other organizations.

NITRO of Nevada
PO Box 70040
Reno, NV, 89570

Contact them at info@nvitro.org

Visit their Yahoo Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nitro-nv

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Dr. Anne Lawrence, DSM V and other agendas

Submitted to OII by someone who wishes to remain anonymous
January 2009

A few researchers are still trying to propagate the erroneous hypothesis put forward by Ray Blanchard that there are two types of M to F transsexualism: homosexual and autogynephilic transsexualism. One researcher in particular, Anne A Lawrence, continues to beat this hypothesis, milking it for all of its worthlessness, in what may be called the pay-per-view journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Around 75% of this author's publications appear in Archives of Sexual Behavior.

Peer review publications in this field are not significant when one sees those on the board with whom Lawrence has made affiliations.

A great many peer reviewed journals have the date submitted for a manuscript, date of revision by the author(s) and date accepted. We should have seen this for Archives of Sexual Behavior, knowing the lack of credence given to sexology as a discipline by many. Yet we can read that this journal's readership and citations are up. However, how may times has the Jerry Springer Show's viewership gone up and how many cite that show?

With Dr. Anne Lawrence's career as an anesthesiologist knocked out, we can see that her attendance at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality has made some strange bedfellows:

J Michael Bailey, Dr. Anne Lawrence's mentor (although Bailey's writing style in his "Queen" book, seems very much like that of Anne Lawrence, M.D., Ph.D., M.A.)

Ray Blanchard (Anne Lawrence's "fetish guru" who takes a backseat to Paul McHugh for concocting a heterosexual fetish vs. homosexual two-pronged theory of transsexualism) and who also is a tie-in with the Clarke-Northwestern clique

Alice Dreger (an ISNA “associate” along with Bo Laurent aka Cheryl Chase, Charlie Chase, Bonnie Sullivan, Brian Sullivan)

Bo Laurent, like Anne Lawrence, was a student at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and now carries the ISNA fallout into the Accord Alliance.

Dr. Alice Dreger played around with Bo Laurent's ISNA site and is a colleague with Anne Lawrence's mentor J Michael Bailey who has (not surprisingly) championed the work of Dr. Anne Lawrence.

Dr. Meredith Chivers, a student of J Michael Bailey and co-author of Anne Lawrence on the infamous (but flawed) plethysmograph work in transsexuals.

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Asexuality and the DSM

by David Jay

Near as we can tell, about 1% of the world's population doesn't like sex. Though we are not sexuality researchers, the folks from the asexual community have been working for years to create open, honest public dialogue about our orientation. You can find out more about asexuality on wikipedia or at www.asexuality.org. Both have excellent breakdowns of the research that has been done on asexuality so far.

Recently people from the asexual community have put together a task force around the DSM V. The current DSM's definition of Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder can be problematic for asexual people seeking treatment. Under the current rules, asexual people are diagnosed as having HSDD if we experience distress or if our partners do. This raises a couple of thorny issues. Lots of asexual people experience distress when we're coming to terms with our orientation, the same way that gay, bi and pan people do. Many more of us are in relationships with sexual partners and are working through the complicated issues that that entails. Neither seems like grounds for a disorder.

We want to make certain that the subcommittee working to revise the definition of HSDD takes asexuality into account, and we'd like your help. We're trying to solicit opinions from people in the sexual health field on effective ways to account for asexuality when treating low interest in sex.

Got an opinion? Drop us a line, we'd love to arrange a time to talk.

Book Announcement: Gender Madness in American Psychiatry, Essays from the Struggle for Dignity", by Kelley Winters, Ph.D.

More than three decades after the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, those who do not conform to their assigned birth-sex, either by inner identity or outer social expression, are labeled mentally ill in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), with grave consequences to their human dignity and civil liberties. For transsexual individuals, the current diagnostic categories of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and Tranvestic Fetishism also pose barriers to access to medical transition procedures. As the APA works toward its fifth revision of the DSM in 2012, these gender diagnoses provoke growing controversy while perpetuating harmful stereotypes that fail to explain the existence of countless well-adjusted transsexual, gender queer and gender transcendent people who have contributed to society for millennia.

Gender Madness in American Psychiatry: Essays from the Struggle for Dignity provides an overview of the literature and attitudes behind the current diagnostic nomenclature and a historical snapshot of the issues and challenges faced by gender transcendent people on the eve of publication of the Fifth Edition of the DSM. This book contains a collection of essays from the struggle for transgender dignity and health care access. They are expanded from pieces posted to the GID Reform Advocates web site in 2008 and incorporate the generous feedback and discussion from advocates and critics.

For students of psychology, sociology, anthropology and gender studies curricula, this book provides an overview of the literature and social context that led to the current diagnostic nomenclature. It offers a historical snapshot of the issues and challenges faced by the trans-community on the eve of publication of the DSM-V. For gender transcendent people, this book is a call for respect and celebration of the broad diversity that exists within our community. Yet, it is also a call for unity and solidarity in demanding change for psychiatric policies and stereotypes that harm all trans-people. For mental health clinicians who work with transitioning clients, this book is intended to provide some insight, from a trans-perspective, into the barriers to social legitimacy and access to medical care that are posed by the categories of current Gender Identity Disorder and Transvestic Fetishism.

Source: Click here

Download PDF: Click here

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News from New Zealand

In a programme recently replayed on Radio New Zealand as part of the "best of" Kim Hill from 2008, Hill interviewed Mani Bruce Mitchell about the challenges of being an intersex person - one born with genetic and physical variations that mean they are neither wholly male nor female.

One point in particular struck me. Mani Mitchell told how she was born to parents in a small country community and at first was treated as a boy. But she had a uterus and, at the age of one, she had an operation and became Margaret.

The community held a meeting in the local hall to discuss how it should deal with this unusual situation. Mani Mitchell described this as an example of a rural community functioning as it its absolute best.

Hill seemed momentarily taken aback by this and asked if her guest was being sarcastic, to which Mani Mitchell assured her that she wasn't. The community agreed at that meeting to close the door on her past life as a boy and from that time on she was accepted as Margaret.

What was interesting was Hill's initial reaction. It seemed that, for a moment at least, she had difficulty accepting that a community in rural New Zealand in the conservative 1950s could have reacted to this predicament in a compassionate, positive way, rather than demanding that this freakish child be cast out.

It's common among sophisticated urban types to equate rural communities with bigotry and ignorance, but history shows country people are a lot more liberal and tolerant than urban stereotypes give them credit for.

It was a supposedly conservative rural electorate that elected feminist MP Marilyn Waring and kept returning her to Parliament even after Truth newspaper outed her as a lesbian. And it was a supposedly conservative rural electorate that voted for the world's first transsexual MP, Georgina Beyer.

The liberal farmer politician - of whom Tom Shand, minister of labour in the Holyoake government of the 1960s, is often held up as an example - is a recurring figure in New Zealand politics. Sir Keith Holyoake himself was from that mould and so too was Jim Bolger, who threw his weight behind the Treaty settlements of the 1990s.

Sure, you find rednecks and philistines in the country, just as you do in the cities, but not all country people have hair on the palms of their hands and eyes in the middle of the their foreheads.

Source:
Click here

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"La Pastora Durrut" of the Maquis a heroic story of autonomy.

iosaf | 20.07.2008 18:28

Hopefully later this year will see a book by José Calvo published which draws on files and archives and interviews and his own attendence as a youth at a trial of one of the "Maquis" those guerillas who offered the last organised resistance against Franco and fascism in Spain from the end of WW2 and the vain hope that the allies would re-establish the legitimate republic through to their dwindling end in the 60's.

His book will at last tell the story of One of the Maquis who has long needed reclaiming from the lies and distortions of the past.

An individual who took the nom de guerre as a Maquis, or member of the AGLA (usually denominated as communist), of "Durruti" (after the honoured Barcelona anarchist). Before that at the age of 32 he had taken the equally momenous step of taking the name "Florencio" in replacement of the "Teresa" which his parents upon seeing his genital malformation had registered on his birth certificate "to avoid later complications" & it was said "military conscription".

Teresa / Florencio Pla Meseguer was born in 1917 on a small farmstead in the Tossal de la Pallissa mountains, its nearest village was Vallibona itself closest to the town of Castellón in the Valencian region of the Catalan speaking eastern Iberian peninsula.

His remaining photos show clearly the gender confusion that this young man must have felt as he grew to maturity mostly hidden from any meaningful socialisation by his family who had put him to work as a shepherd dressed as a woman on the mountainside, hence the name "La Pastora" or shepherdess.

At the age of 32, he was subjected to an interrogation and sexual assualt by members of the Francoist "Guardia Civil" who characteristically given their role of enforcing parochial structures turned a village gibe into an excuse for torture. Such was and is how fascism is installed - by the most mediocre and insensitive use of violence.

Whatever the exact incidents of the occurence, Teresa never returned to female clothing and henceforth took the name Florencio. I have written many times that "autonomy begins with self", which of course it does for "auto-" means self, but I have written it many times believing that the act of naming oneself or declaring oneself is an essential rite of passage to individuation and liberty. It is my opinion that such a rite of passage is not one which may only initiate those who are or were "classified" as different, it can be experienced just as easily [to quote myself again] "to take the first step in the class war and recognise which side you're on".

Nonetheless it is a rite of passage which is familiar to many minorities who arguably today find their most tolerated "official fomentation of equality" in the modern Spanish state. But Francoist fascism which still holds more than a quarter million graves of republicans of all hues as well as the poet Garcia Lorca whose own prophecy of his death still rings a bitter sad bell over such catharsis which is modern Spain's equality laws on marriage or gender reassignment on official documentation :-

"Then I realised I had been murdered
They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches ....
but they did not find me.
They never found me?
No. They never found me."

She who would be hunted through the posters of Franco's Spain as a member of the XXIII (23) sector of the "Agrupación de Guerrilleros de Levante y Aragón (AGLA) as "La Pastora" a "lesbian woman with criminal tendencies".

He was known as “Durruti” to his comrades in arms and their supporters in the territory [which the 23rd sector under the "command" of Jesús Caellas Aymeric, "Carlos the Catalan" took over from the 17th which had extended from Teruel in Aragon to Castellon in Valencia to also engage in Zaragoza]

One by one, or handful of handful the Maquis were literally hounded down and killed as their initial successes faltered for many reasons not least the decision by the allied powers not to restore the legitimate 2nd Spanish republic, and thus the ending of the supply lines which had allowed them antibiotics whilst Franco's troops were still bribing villages with sausage meat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Maquis

"Durruti" / "La Pastora" - Teresa / Florencio Pla Meseguer built a hideout in a gorge in the mountains of less than 3 metres length and 1.5 metres width camoflauged with branches, from whence any approaching could be seen. Several years of subsistence passed and his voice was lost for want of practise. One can only imagine the lonliness and agony of not only being a fugitive but certain that all others considered him to be a monster as well.

Eventually he tried to make the crossing into Andorra and what would have been the relative freedom of exile in France. He was arrested on the 5th of May, 1960 and tried as Florencio. Sentenced to death, this was later commuted and he would wait till the "general amnesty" of 1977 to sleep without a locked door or weapon by his side.

Source: https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/world/2008/07/404262.html

For more information in Spanish:
http://actualidadesintersexuales.blogspot.com/2009/01/un-prximo-libro-sobre-la-pastora.html
http://actualidadesintersexuales.blogspot.com/2009/01/una-tv-francesa-ha-rodado-un-documental.html

Dr. Phil Show hosts homochromosexual, Dr. Nicolosi

DR. NICOLOSI LIES ABOUT DNA, SEX AND TRANSSEXUALS

We read Dr. Nicolosi's errant comments here on the NARTH site.

Perhaps it is good that he did not say this on the show. For the experts such as Dr. Siegel and Angello which appeared on the show, would likely have clarified these errant statements, further discrediting Dr. Nicolosi.

http://www.narth.com/docs/drphil09.html

"No one on the Dr. Phil Show mentioned the implications of taking the opposite approach--actively preparing a boy for future sex-change surgery. Surgery can never truly change a person's sex. Doctors can remove the male genitals and form an imitation of the sex female sex organs, but they cannot make the simulated organs reproductively functional--nor can they change the DNA which exists in every cell of the boy's body to indicate that he is, and always will be, biologically a male."

Dr. Nicolosi is taking a chromosomal or genetic definition of sex even though this definition has been DISPROVED as being the decisive or true definition of sex.
There are persons with XY chromosomes in all of their cells who are nonetheless female. Some are caused by alterations on genes other than those on the X or Y chromosomes. BUT, some can also result from environmental factors interfering with male development, thus showing that a person with no atered DNA in their cells who is XY, can still be biologically female. Some XY females produce eggs. Some carry babies to term in their uterus when provided donated embryos through IVF. Some individuals are XY, don't have a uterus or ovaries, (thus they do not have reproductively functional female organs just like a post-operative m to f transsexual), yet have female appearing external female organs, such as cases of androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS or severe PAIS).

These examples demonstrate that phenotypic sex, morphological sex and hormonal sex are biological sex and CAN BE CHANGED, and that so-called genetic or chromosomal sex is not the ultimate definition. Thus, Dr. Nicolosi is in error. Perhaps Dr. Nicolosi has what some think could be labelled a disorder known as homochromosexuality.

http://www.intersexualite.org/Homochromosexuality.html

Either way, Dr. Nicolosi is proven wrong in his statements here. We are glad that he did not further subject himself to further lack of credibility on the Dr. Phil show. But we need to correct him here so that others may see this.

Source:
http://www.gendercare.com/English/message_italiano1.html

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The self-proclaimed experts on intersex: Zucker and Lawrence

by Curtis E. Hinkle

On OII's website at: http://www.intersexualite.org/APA-booklet.html

Just recently I received the following link:

"Answers to Your Questions About Individuals With INTERSEX Conditions"

I am sure that many intersex people were aware that the APA had brought out a booklet on intersex. However, I am not sure that many understand how problematic it is to many intersex people to see some of the following names associated with this booklet:

Margaret Schneider, Walter O. Bockting, Randall D. Ehrbar, Anne A. Lawrence, Katherine Louise Rachlin and Kenneth J. Zucker

At first glance, the booklet seems apparently harmless. However, that is what's so clever about it. It's a way for the Clarke/Northwestern clique to get their nose under the tent and then later "come on in".

I think that I should alert the intersex community that these people have self-declared themselves to be "experts" on intersex issues. If this goes unchallenged, they will now become the "leading scientists" who will speak on behalf of the APA about all intersex issues. Zucker is already the "expert" for WPATH, a transgender association which most intersex people have no desire to be associated with but which feels it has the right to speak about intersex issues with no consultation with or expertise concerning the patient groups affected around the world.

They are thus doing to intersex people what they've done to transgender people: Become the international scientific authorities who will tell the world what to think about us.

Even now they couldn't help reveal an important part of their agenda, by slipping the following into the booklet:

"Intersex was originally a medical term that was later embraced by some intersex persons. Many experts and persons with intersex conditions have recently recommended adopting the term disorders of sex development (DSD). They feel that this term is more accurate and less stigmatizing than the term intersex."

I think you can see where this is going.

That same group also released a "booklet" on transgenderism, which was similarly apparently harmless at first glance:

"Answers to Your Questions About TRANSGENDER Individuals and GENDER IDENTITY"

However, when you go to the bottom of that page and look at the references, you'll see that the deck is stacked with citations of Bailey, Blanchard, Lawrence and especially Zucker, i.e., that whole page is about establishing Bailey, Blanchard, Lawrence and Zucker as THE scientific authorities over transgenderism, and it deliberately EXCLUDES any citations of scientific papers that conflict with their point of view.

For information about Anne A. Lawrence: Click here
For information about Kenneth Zucker: Click here and here

Note: The Task Force had claimed they were not going to address intersex, which was originally part of their mission with the Trans task force.

http://www.tsroadmap.com/notes/index.php/site/comments/apa_task_force_on_gender_identity_and_gender_variance_comparison_of_drafts/#

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Was Arthur James Balfour (1848 - 1930) intersex?

Arthur Balfour was born in East Lothian. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge where he read Moral sciences, and took a second-class degree.

He expected to marry his cousin, May Littleton, but she died of typhus when he was 27. He then remained a bachelor. He is credited with the expression: "Nothing matters very much and most things don't matter at all”. In middle-age he had a long friendship with Mary Wemyss, who was later Countess of Elcho, but biographers have not established that this was a sexual relationship. On the other hand he was in good terms with Harold Nicolson, the homosexual diplomat husband of Vita Sackville-West.

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The Euro DSD Project

By Sophia Siedlberg.

It is my belief that it is time to step out of the gutter and to try to discuss our concerns (and objections) with real academics instead of sexologist hacks. Dr. Olaf Hiort is the head of "Euro DSD" which to date has been raising some concerns in Europe. I am I admit very concerned myself and hope that Dr. Hiort will take the time to discuss with those patient groups he is dealing with and in particular those who do not agree with the underlying ethos of Euro DSD.

The main concern with Euro DSD and Dr. Hiort himself appears to be that while Euro DSD seems to gain funding and increasing prominence, the fact that this organization has close ties to the ethical framework of the Clarke Northwestern, has caused many patient groups to fear that Euro DSD will be motivated more by social cleansing than actually providing a framework for healthcare that covers inetersex people and their concerns.

In Europe, there is a far deeper fear of the sort of ideas the Clarke Northwestern represent. Eugenics being the main cause for concern, do Euro DSD advocate de-centralized, market driven eugenics of the sort the Clark Northwestern ascribes to? Or "Parantal choice" to use Alice Dreger's euphemism? Are the motives of Euro DSD about normalization at all costs?

Well, I am going to avoid expressing my instinctive reaction until Dr. Hiort responds (or fails to respond) because I do feel that it is only fair to let Dr. Hiort outline which direction he intends to go with the Euro DSD and what the underlying agenda actually is. I would also like to remind Dr. Hiort that he will also not be able to blind me with science, and statistics. I will take the time to study, in close detail what he has published to date and what scientific framework he is using.

The primary reason why these unpleasant questions land on his doorstep lies in the fact that his organization has taken its name from the Clarke Northwestern clinical model of intersex healthcare. "Disorders of Sex Development". A lot of European patient groups associate that with the Clarke Northwestern agenda, and all the gutter "debate" that has been going on through controversy after controversy over a group of sexologists and one geneticist who seem to regard intersex people as disordered or less than human.

There are also many concerns about some of the European specialists, in particular Dr. Claire Nihoul-Fékété, a surgeon based in Paris who has a rather bad reputation for conducting surgery on children, who when they grow up objecting to it, are as good as silenced. I am led to understand that Dr. Claire Nihoul-Fékété is somewhat feared by some in the community because of her status.

Again I am hoping that she takes the time to engage in dialogue and explain what her ideas are and what her working philosophy actually is. If her reputation is as bad as I have heard it to be, I will say now that I will not put up with any of the sort of nonsense I had to endure from the Clarke Northwestern, and I am very serious about this. I want to make this clear that this is not some witch hunt, (as the Clarke Northwestern have portrayed it to be) but a pressing need for constructive dialogue. As it stands at present, a lot of intersex people genuinely feel a deep sense of threat. I can see why this is so and hope that Dr. Hiort can start to allay a lot of fears by talking to those who are feeling deep concern about these developments. I am sorry that this may appear a bit harsh or confrontational, but given the recent experiences of the Clarke Northwestern, and how some (Alice Dreger) have pulled the debate into the gutter, I am hoping that the European experience will not be the same, given that Dr. Hiort is a more serious clinician and academic who I feel is capable of engaging in a more reasonable debate.

As of today I am planning to start a European discussion group that is specifically about Euro DSD. I will invite all those intersex activists who have concerns about Euro DSD to join and hope that representatives of Euro DSD will accept my invitation to them as well. We need to discuss this situation as it is developing and to come to some sort of mutual understanding.

I would strongly advise Dr. Hiort to engage his present critics in discussion or at least appoint a representative for this role, so that discussion can begin. The group "Euro IS" will be started, regardless of whether or not Dr. Hiort decides to engage with us. I just hope that he does accept our invitation when it is made and takes the time to talk.

This article is also on OII's website.
Click here

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Honesty at Last

By Sophia Siedlberg, OII Spokeswoman - United Kingdom
12 January 2009

Katrina Karkazis' new book, Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, made me sense that there really are some glimmers of hope. Okay, most reviews of her book start of with "What is a boy or a girl, how do we know XX or XY etc", so this is not a book review. I find such book reviews irritating and they are not conveying or looking at the message as I am reading it.

What I am reading and what I have heard of Karkazis is basically of someone who Alice Dreger should be but isn't. Here is an ethicist who stands back from this debate and looks at it objectively and then takes the time to discuss issues that are of importance to intersex people. While the core focus of her work still revolves around Dr. John Money's policies, much of what she is saying is actually very informative. She certainly explains something that has puzzled me for a long time, and that is how ISNA in particular focused almost exclusively on victims of infant genital feminization. Karkazis points out that much of this early activism in the 1990's had been drawn from the women's health movement. If you add this to the fact that Dr. John Money did operate a policy of blanket feminization, this does go some way to explaining why organizations such as ISNA took the focus that they did. Unfortunately this remained the tone of their activism which resulted in ISNA becoming irrelevant, if not harmful as the debate moved on.

What I particularly like about Karkazis is the way she questions the current medical approach which is indeed focused on the mechanics of sex and the outcomes of infant surgery relative to this. In fact she has pointed out that many follow up studies were about clinical outcomes and sexuality rather than quality of life. For me this is perhaps the most important issue she raises because even today this is what we see in the "DSD" guidelines. They are about sexual function and social acceptability rather than about quality of life and social acceptance.

Karkazis also correctly points out the way intersex people were treated as a threat to the established heterosexual order, by virtue of the treatment being dictated by various moralistic attitudes of the 1950's. My own description of the self same social order "The norm born rut" perhaps caricatures these attitudes, but that caricature does illustrate that as Karkazis herself says, this "moral order" still exists in an oppressive form. I find it deeply oppressive and describes it as I see it. Karkazis describes it more politely but manages to describe it well all the same.

If I am critical of Karkazis, I will say that it would be the focus on how intersex people were treated in the US, citing the case of Dr John Money, and how his blanket feminization even involved the feminization of a boy called David Reimer. But to be fair the American situation is the best documented from a historical perspective.

She mentions OII as "continuing on where ISNA left off", I would say that OII has done this mainly because OII is a multilingual organization which can as a result give voice to those outside the US and as such presents a broader picture of how we are all treated, and were treated in different cultures. Prior to OII there was the AISSG which is multi national and as such again had the advantage of understanding different cultures.

This above all else was ISNA's primary downfall. The political landscape and culture in which they existed did not represent anyone who was intersexed, but not living in the US and not treated under Money's protocols. I would say that Karkazis represents an honesty among academics that has not really been seen before. She openly states that there are people who reject their original sex assignment, and she also puts the discussion in a broader context by discussing the real complexity of the intersex experience. We are now reading more about how intersex people themselves are describing their lives, rather than the narrow clinical stereotypes presented by ISNA. Karkazis refers to other intersex groups and other intersex experiences.

I am sort of hoping that those who have yet to review her book take the time to read beyond the chromosomes and mechanics of sex, and avoid asking the now dumb question "What if it is not a boy or a girl, XX for a girl XY for a boy, what is this?" and actually read what I sense to be the true message of her book, which is to see intersex people as whole people, rather than mere bits of flesh and molecules that should be made to conform to social norms. For me this is the most important thing that can be gleaned from her book and the interviews I have heard her giving. She invites people to look at things in the broader context, to open their eyes and see what intersex people are really saying, and this is good because so far the discussion has been handled by spin doctors who talk about listening to intersex people but have consistently failed to do so. Here we have someone actually saying "listen to intersex people" and actually being honest about a lot of the issues that have been avoided to date.

Katrina Karkazis certainly gets my vote after having read and heard what she has to say.

See also:
Review by Curtis E. Hinkle, founder of OII: Click here

This article is also on OII's website:
Click here

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Organisation Intersex International

Discordant Alliances

By Sophia Siedlberg.

Accord Alliance is an organization that essentially acts as the central reference point for "Disorders of Sex Development". You can look at them in two ways. Either they are the fruition of Bo Laurent's evil plan to bring about more surgery, secrecy and shame, or they are primarily a group of doctors who, while having Bo Laurent as their patient representative, genuinely believe that the DSD model is the best way to present intersex health and health care. If they are a manifestation of the first definition, that is, an evil plan by Laurent, then I will oppose them at every turn. If however (as is beginning to look more likely) they are simply doctors "doing their job", then I am prepared to try to talk with them.

The problem they have is that at present Accord Alliance looks like a doctors talking shop with Bo Laurent as the "safe" patient representative. Now there was a time when Laurent (under the pen name of Cheryl Chase) was a bit of a firebrand, rather like some of us in OII are now, but she had all those contacts and funding which enabled her to take the prominent position she now has. But she is a "safe" activist.

I think that it will prove difficult for Accord Alliance to gain any credibility while they appear to have Bo Laurent as the main advocate. It is nothing against Laurent personally either, but no single person can encompass the whole range of intersex experience. Laurent is not popular with many of us because of her activism having being focused on the practices of Dr John Money. She only opposed blanket feminization and other John Money specific policies.

To read the whole article:
Click here

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