The popular singer Lady Gaga is a hermaphrodite

The popular singer Lady Gaga, who recently said that she is a hermaphrodite, is the topic of the American music magazine.

Lady Gaga - Transmission Gaga-vision: Episode 40

Questioning the Truth bitch

We are all led to believe that Dr Alice Dreger, the Truth Bitch, has been working away on a "History of what happens when doctors say nice and wholesome things to help the ungrateful masses and the ungrateful masses do not agree!" 

What we actually read in her blogs and her articles is something that is quite intriguing. Basically Dr. Alice Dreger has this utopian vision of a world where intersex people can be fitted into nice neat categories and she has this role of overseeing the care of intersex people in her new utopia. 

The problem is that she does not fully understand what intersex people really are. She seems to have this view that intersex people are children who are born with medical questions about whether they are male or female. For example a girl with XY chromosomes or a boy with XX chromosomes is in her view a "Disorder of Sex Development". While there are many variations and conditions, she clearly aims to have them all categorised as children under this "DSD" scheme. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, while much has been said about the terminology of "DSD", the idea of a set of diagnostic criteria is workable and probably would help ease a lot of confusion about many intersex variations. The problem starts when she gets into areas she simply does not understand, the lived experience of being intersexed perhaps eludes her the most. For good reason, she is not intersexed, and as she often likes to remind the world, she is a mother of a healthy child herself, with a nice job in a university. 

She seems preoccupied with the notion that adults with intersex conditions or "DSDs" (To use her terms) can be split into two groups, the first group consists of those who conform to her diagnostic standards and have a life narrative that matches to her expectations.  The second group would be those who do not fit into her expectations, a group she dismisses as "Transgender". This is perhaps the first characteristic of the Dreger utopia that looks a bit dystopic when looked at in more detail. For some reason she does have this very arbitrary set of expectations about who should be assigned to what sex. She will define a "DSD" and then define the sex they should be assigned. If she encounters an adult who does not live according to those expectations she then turns their history from that of an intersex history to that of a psychiatric disorder or that of a political trouble maker. 

This is one reason she appears to have invested so much time and effort into defending Professor. J Michael Bailey, a psychologist at the Northwestern University of Chicago who has gained some notoriety for his discussions about transsexual people, or transsexual women in particular. He essentially describes them as men who are sexually aroused by being female. There is plenty of discussion about this and this does not fall within the scope of the article, but the one thing Bailey does provide is a sort of mental health waste disposal service where the labels of "Transgender" and "Mentally ill" can be applied quickly to anyone with a "DSD" who does not conform to Dr. Dreger's expectations. 

Dr. Dreger often seems to repeat the mantra that people who are transsexual and ashamed of it opt to be defined as intersexed in order to avoid the pathologization of being transsexual. Which is interesting because she clearly supports the pathologization of transsexual people. If your life does not conform to Dr. Dreger's strict criteria, you are in a no win situation, you are suddenly a "Transgender seeking to avoid being pathologized by people like Professor. Bailey". But Dr. Alice Dreger has clearly ensured that it is all set up like this anyway by supporting Professor Bailey and his work in the first place. 

Where was it ever said prior to the founding of the Intersex Society of North America that transsexuals were lower down some pecking order from intersex people? While there were certainly some transsexual people who claimed to have an intersex history (Some who helped Dr. Dreger set up ISNA for example, which is curious - more on that later). There were not any significant numbers of such people. Dr. Dreger also describes those who do not fit her expectations as "Transsexuals seeking intersex privilege". A very strange thing for a self proclaimed intersex activist to say given that she likes to remind us all that intersex people suffer a life of unwanted surgery, secrecy and shame. How is suffering a life of unwanted surgery, secrecy and shame a privilege? 

She could argue that people are more sympathetic to intersex people than they are transsexual people, well yes, but then Dr. Alice Dreger is engaged in making sure that this is even more the case. It is almost as if she has been setting the situation up so she does not have to make a real argument. She just repeats the situation as it now is, the situation she has been instrumental in bringing about. 

This is the point where you have to step back from the debate and ask a few questions she probably won't be able to answer. In terms of activism ISNA used to claim that before anyone could consider themselves to be an intersex activist, they either had to be a lesbian who was born fully female or provide endless documentation to prove they were intersexed. It was during this time the strict criteria first started to appear. But as a woman who boasts endlessly about her heterosexual status (Not that lesbianism has anything to do with intersex anyway) who was involved with Denise Tree (Who has to this day never explained what her diagnosis actually was and yes she is now seen as the very thing Alice Dreger despises, a transsexual claiming to be intersexed) and "Cheryl Chase" (Bo Laurent) another individual with about 5 other aliases and at least four contradicting narratives about her intersex history.

Dr. Alice Dreger became the main player in an intersex organisation she claimed to be "The genuine article"  as a heterosexual woman, with two people who certainly would not measure up to her strict criteria as people with "DSDs". Today she claims that "intersex" is a word to describe a political identity, and was never a medical term, which is odd because it was used prior to her promoting the "DSD" terminology and a lot of medical literature did use "intersex". She also claims that "intersex" is a demeaning term used today by transsexual people seeking legitimacy. Yet today she still describes herself as an "Intersex activist". So is she a closet female to male transsexual seeking legitimacy? 

There is also her almost obsessive commentaries in various sexology discussion groups insisting that transsexual people have no innate sense of being male or female that would contradict the sex into which they were born, she was even instrumental in making sure Professor. D. Swaab's study on the BSTc in transsexual women never gets a mention in any academic publication she has any influence over. It is as if she is still trying to drive home the notion that "Transgender = mental illness". 

It all starts to look less like some utopia and more like some very oppressive form of gender policing. And this gender policing does seem to have a very bizarre system of reward and punishment. The reward is that you get to be defined as a physical illness, but it is probably not a reward most people would want. "I award you with being a Disorder of Sex Development". How does that act as a reward? The punishment is to be deemed as some "Gender Identity Disorder". This utopia is beginning to look a little hollow; there is no benefit in it for anyone because wherever you are placed within it, you are deemed to be some sort of disorder that has to be managed. OK the levels of (Engineered) cruelty may differ, if you are seen as a "Disorder of sex development" you don't get psychologists and sexologists classifying you as some "Gender identity disorder that has to be stigmatized".

The reality of this is that either way you lose, she wins. There are a few other strange contradictions with the way Dr. Dreger presents her utopia.  She clearly has a problem with identity politics.  She does seem to insist on unbiased, neutral perspectives in any discussion with intersex activists who do not agree with her because, according to Dr. Dreger, they identify as "intersex activists" (As she herself does curiously enough). Her latest article that really goes into her problem with identity politics has "Feminist Theory in action" in the title. This is where the greatest mystery of all seems to make a little more sense. ISNA was an organisation run by "Lesbians" for "Intersex", and we are not talking the present day third wave feminism (As you may have guessed) either. But the second wave feminism as espoused by Germaine Greer and Janice Raymond. You know the feminism I am talking about, the feminism that was synonymous with lesbians huddled in female only spaces telling everyone else not to invade their sacred space, and really being angry when there is even a whiff of colonisation from any outside groups. Now think of this carefully when reading "Feminist theory in action" by an "intersex activist" who is very much a woman who breeds and tells the world about it. 

This is where we get on to those "Acceptable DSD narratives". You may notice that the one theme that runs through all her writing is that she likes to talk about boys who were made into girls and grew up wanting to be men. These are acceptable, if it just happened to be the other way round, that is someone was assigned male as a child by surgery or hormones etc. and someone rejected being male, well they are "Transsexuals using intersex to gain legitimacy". 

What sort of "Feminist perspective" is that? It is as if she is saying that boys are better off than girls and in order to make a child with a "DSD" conform, assign them male. Which does not address the core problem which is that the very conclusion she makes is sexist. 

And this is where you see the dystopia for what it really is. Much of what she says makes little or no sense when you look at it at on its face value, but it does when you put it into a context of someone who clearly does not like any deviation from a norm.  Another contradiction (and perhaps her biggest) is the way she berates the sort of men who go onto emailing lists and online support groups looking to get a thrill out of those mysterious intersex people. Two contradictions arise from this.  She herself creates a mystique around intersex people. She constantly talks about the "Majority of intersex people" and "The real intersex people " as if she is always holding conversations with some mysterious and enlightened group of intersex activists who are invisible, for most of the time, claiming that those people who describe themselves as part of a grass roots community are all interloping transsexuals or genuine "DSDs" who have been deceived. But who is she talking about? The AISSG? Well I am a member of the AISSG myself,  I don't hear what she claims to be said.  And many of them were not all that keen on her "DSD" model either. So who does she mean? Cheryl Chase/Bo Laurent and Denise Tree/Kiira Triea? It would seem that way considering the praise she heaps on them in her blog. But they have not exactly made their own histories clear while demanding that others do. The other contradiction lies with her clear distaste for men who appear on gender variant, or intersex websites to get a cheap thrill. And yet there she is supporting Professor. J Michael Bailey a man who is notorious for that sort of behaviour.

This where any analysis of Alice Dreger seems to end. It is a drainage pipe full of contradictions that ends up in the gutter. It is quite possible that her attacks on the present day intersex support groups who simply do not agree with her will probably result in her ruining her own reputation. ISNA is gone. It was not quite the beacon of intersex activism she claims it was and people who speak in many different languages, worldwide are going to see her writings in English as irrelevant and spiteful. 

She objects very strongly to the word "Interloper". Well perhaps she can explain what she really is. She is not an impostor because she makes no pretence of being anything other than a fertile woman. Which does beg the question, what is her interest in this subject? She is a very strong advocate of pre natal screening and abortion; perhaps she is nervous about the possibility that she may be a carrier of one of these "DSDs". Well thankfully for her child, it has not been passed on if this is indeed the case.  

Her interest in intersex people and her need to control the lives of intersex people does leave more questions than answers. When she said she was going to focus on "Little people" and cut her ties with intersex activism the comments that ran around the emailing lists were something like "Oh she is going to pick on someone else now? Well at least it is not us!" 

Instead of attacking people or dismissing their experiences as "Transgender" to feed into a prejudice she herself was instrumental in promoting, she perhaps needs to consider how all this is beginning to reflect on her, she may be a prominent figure in the history of intersex activism, but as it stands, she appears like a petty minded dictator who cannot let go of the past. ISNA is gone. People no longer consider her involvement as relevant and her DSD model has caused more anger than anything else.

References: 

Progress and Politics in the Intersex Rights Movement, Feminist theory in action.  Dreger A, Herndon A 2009.

London Pride

By Sophia Siedlberg

© May 2009

I have sort of kept quiet about this because pride festivals bore the hell out of me quite frankly. They have a huge one not far from where I live and to be honest it tends to consist mainly of people waving rainbow flags and corporate logos around. It sort of reminds me of that Advert for Honda that was out in 2006, with all the little rainbows and bunny rabbits with the word "HATE" written everywhere. I say that because the "Diversity" and "Unity" are often restrained affairs that pander to stereotypes. 

However, this is precisely why London Pride sparked my interest last year when the oh so liberal organisers insisted that transsexual women use the men's toilets and pretty much turned a blind eye when the inevitable happened and one of them was sexually assaulted. The fact is there is a deep prejudice that runs in the LGBTQQXYZ community and this is the reason I as an intersexed individual have avoided pride festivals like the plague. 

If they cannot deal with transsexual folks (This is obvious given that this year there are profound differences of opinion between London Pride and Trans@London more on that later). What chance have they of understanding the needs of intersex people? 

They would probably call me as a "Subset of transgender". Well fine but it does not describe me or my experience. I think transsexual folks are also coming to similar conclusions about the LGBTQQXYZ movement as it currently stands. 

If I am honest, I was quite shocked to read that in 2008 there was an incident where a number of transsexual women were told to use the male toilets. I was even more shocked to read that one of them had been sexually assaulted and the organisers of the Pride festival didn't seem to care much about it. In one sense this illustrates the point of many transsexual folks I have come across. They claim that the term "Transgender" is used to define them as "Men in dresses" and not the men or women they have become after surgery. In fairness to the organisers of London Pride I don't know fully what happened but this row about some policy on toilets is nothing new. 

To read the complete article: Click here  

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

Frauds, Liars, Nutjobs and Burqa Wearing Sock Puppets

05/26/2009 — Suzan
About 12-13 years ago Out Magazine (IIRC) ran a cover story on Intersex. It had Cheryl Chase and Kiira Tirea and several other folks.

Wow yeah… Instant sympathy Suzanne Kessler wrote a book Lessons from the Intersex and I though that infant sex assigning via surgery sucked as bad as FGM (female genital mutilation) as performed in North African nations.

First of all I believe in consent and agency and all those sorts of empowering things. Sort of how people with transsexualism are treated as adults by enlightened physicians.

Then I encounter Kiira aka Denise Tree on various lists. Having a knowledge of the lesbian feminist history of California some of the things she confided in me regarding did not ring true. She claimed to have been part of the Berkeley Women's Music Collective, a band that was active during the transwars.

This was when Sandy Stone was getting trashed. The devil is in the details. I know that John Money is sort of discredited yet he wrote a very detailed acount of many various intersex conditions.

But something else didn't ring quite true and this is because I've heard so many impossible claims to intersex from people unwilling to admit to the intersex condition they do have which is transsexualism

Actual intersex people would have more to gain by pointing to the way transsexualism is dealt with in matters of agency than in perpetuating IGM.

Interestingly much of the surgery is pretty much the same other than agency.

Details, details. If one were actually transsexual and trying to pass oneself of as IS, what better way than pointing fingers at actual people with transsexualism and belittling the idea that it too is an intersex condition.

As time has gone on Kiira has been shown to be a fraud and a liar as has Cheryl Chase aka Bo Laurent. See Andrea James website.

Now we have the latest darling, Hontas Farmer. Am I supposed to be impressed because this one is a culture vulture hiding behind a burqa? I don't think so. Lay that one on some one who believes in invisible sky daddies. You are about as real as some of the fake Indians like
Carlos Castaneda.

But I must admit it is sort of amusing to watch Taliban Christers have social intercourse with people who fantasize about being actual Taliban.

Go read Ayaan Hirsi Ali and grow up. You are a human sock puppet and a laughing stock as well as an insult to actual women who are so oppressed they are forced to wear that crap for fear of having acid thrown in their faces. 

Source: Click here

Miracle baby stuns the world again

Excerpt: "Despite the good news, various doctors have advised the family to consider gender reassignment. While plastic surgeons can create a penis that looks natural, they warn that the reconstructed organ will have 90 percent less sensation than normal."

Northwest Asian Weekly - Seattle,WA,USA

Miracle baby stuns the world again

May 21st, 2009 by admin.

By Kids Without Borders

For Northwest Asian Weekly

Dubbed the miracle baby, Vietnamese toddler Thien Nhan Phung, who was abandoned at birth and brutally mauled by wild animals, has once again lived up to his name. It was believed that Phung's testicles had been severed in the attack.

However, recent tests performed by Thai specialists at Bangkok's Preecha Aesthetic Institute revealed that the toddler, who is almost 3, has retained two undescended testicles.

This condition exists in only about 3–4 percent of male babies at birth. Had Phung's testicles descended normally, they would likely have been lost during the mauling.

Found 72 hours after his teenage mom had left him in a fallow field, his ravaged body was covered with blood and ants.

The infant was carried for two hours by a motorbike over rough mountain roads to the closest hospital in Quang Nam, Vietnam. He survived but was later released to the care of relatives who were unable to care for him.

When Vietnamese journalist Mai Anh Tran, 35, first met the boy, then 16 months old, he was severely malnourished and suffering from chronic urinary tract, gut, and skin infections.

"After all that he had been through, I could not bear to see him suffering like that," said Tran. "I could not sleep at night thinking of him living in those conditions."

Tran and her journalist husband, Quang Nghinh Phung (no biological relation to Thien Nhan Phung), adopted the boy when he was 20 months old. The child now lives in Hanoi along with the family's two biological sons, ages 4 and 8.

"At first, Nhan was like a wild animal," recalled Tran. "All he ate was cold rice and bananas. But he soon began to gain weight and his terrible rashes cleared up. He is now very bright, active, and talkative."

In August 2008, the Seattle-based charity Kids Without Borders and American philanthropist Greig Craft arranged a urethral surgery for the child at Dartmouth University Hospital in the United States. Thanks to this operation, for the first time in his young life, Phung could urinate free of pain.

"Thien Nhan has overcome a great deal but many more challenges remain," said Craft. "Along with prosthetic care, he will need multiple surgeries over the next 10 to 15 years to rebuild his genitals."

Despite the good news, various doctors have advised the family to consider gender reassignment. While plastic surgeons can create a penis that looks natural, they warn that the reconstructed organ will have 90 percent less sensation than normal.

"We do not agree to turn him into a girl," said Tran. "Thien Nhan's character, way of thinking, and behaving are very obviously male. If we changed him into a female and then found that in 20 years he couldn't accept it, we would all feel terrible."

Approximately one-third of the boy's penis remains intact and the family hopes that by the time he reaches adolescence, technology will have advanced enough to allow the reconstruction of a functioning, sensate penis. They are currently investigating advances in transplants and stem cell research.

Next month, Phung will return to Bangkok for more tests in preparation for surgery to create a scrotum in order to bring down his testicles.

"We hope that if we can raise enough money and gain the support of pioneering doctors, Thien Nhan will one day become a fully functioning man," said his mom.

A special fund to cover medical treatment for Phung has been created.

Ongoing fundraising efforts are led by Kids Without Borders and the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, which is founded and managed by Craft.

For more information, visit www.KidsWithNoBorders.org or www.asiainjury.org.

Posted in: World News.

Tagged: 2009 · Vol 28 No 22 | May 23 - 29

http://www.nwasianweekly.com/wp/?p=252

OZ LEADS ON INTERSEX RIGHTS

In a world first, the Inner City Legal Centre will launch a legal advice service specifically geared towards the intersex community.

It is an important step for the intersex community and will provide invaluable assistance for people wanting advice on medical and discrimination matters, a board member for the Organisation Intersex International (OII), Gina Wilson, said.

“Worldwide, intersex people have no specific human rights or legal protections,” she said.

“For us to argue anything as far as our health goes, our human rights go or discrimination, they’re always very difficult and complex arguments. Because of that, I suppose we, more than most groups, need legal assistance.

“The intersex rights movement is giving voice to people to come forward, be proud of their differences and stand up against some of the things that have happened to us.

“These kind of services make that kind of freedom and that kind of a voice more possible.”

As a founding member of OII, Wilson said she was proud to see the initiative beginning in Australia and hoped to see it adopted in other parts of the country and overseas.

“We’ve started talking with other groups and have some prospects of similar help in a few states in America,” she said.

“A member of ours over there has been relatively successful in advocating for intersex rights in, surprisingly, Texas.

“There has been some movement in a few midwestern states as well, but nowhere near as definite and specifically directed as this, but we’re under way.”

info: The Inner City Legal Centre is at 50-52 Darlinghurst Rd, Kings Cross. The intersex advice service runs on Wednesdays from 6pm. Call 9332 1966 to make an appointment. For more on OII, visit intersexualite.org.

OII-Australia: Click here

Original article: Click here

Condemn Horowitz's Speech and Israeli Apartheid

AN OPEN LETTER

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

We, transgenders, bisexuals, intersexuals and queers, citizens of Israel, wish to express our outmost rage and disgust with Israeli Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz’s appearance in the World Congress on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity that took place on May 15, 2009 in Paris, France. Not only did MK Horowitz exclude transgender, bisexual and queer issues and misrepresented lesbian and gay issues in Israel, he also represented and advocated the Israeli apartheid in Palestine/Israel in his patronizing speech.

While the conference Horowitz attended dealt intensively with issues of gender identity, transgenderism, bisexual, intersexual and queer politics, in his spokesman's message to the press Horowitz talked exclusively about lesbian and gay issues, excluding this way our predicament from his illusioninst description. In contrast to this description, discrimination in medical care and access to jobs and incrimination with "impersonating" are some of the distinct issues transgeners and intersexuals in Israel face. Violence and social unrecognition are ongoing difficulties for LGBTQI people in Israel. Horowitz's claim that the main issue for lesbians and gays in Israel is legalizing marriage or couples agreement has no evident basis.

Moreover, Horowitz's regard to Palestinian gay rights is outrageous. By creating a false racist picture of Israel as the western liberal and the Palestinians as the oriental conservatives Horowitz sent a message that advances the "white-washing" agenda of the Israeli foreign ministry he has chosen to represent. Horowitz's appeal to the Israeli goverment to grant sanctuary for persecuted gay Palestininas is no more than a service to the Israeli apartheid and the "permit" system that puts restrictions on Palestinian movement in the first place.

In accordance with the Palestinian call to sanction Israel until it ends the occupation, sieges and apartheid, dismantles the separation wall and allows the return and compensation of dispossessed Palestinians, we further uphold that Israel should have been banned from participating in this conference from the outset. Horowitz's appearance only testifies to the moral disgrace of this failure.

Sincerely,

Yotam Ben-David

Yossi Bartel

Shiri Eisner

liad kantorowicz

Yossef Mekyton 

ayala shani

Sharon Schlesinger

Roy Wagner

Curtis E. Hinkle

Read a report on Horowitz's speech here:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3716470,00.html

TRANSSEXUALISM will no longer be classified as a mental illness in France

published on Saturday 16 May 2009 at 20H07

Translated by Curtis E. Hinkle, Founder of the Organisation Intersex International

TRANSSEXUALISM will no longer be classified in France as a mental illness, a government decision hailed Saturday as "historic" by the associations concerned, on the eve of the International Day Against Homophobia and transphobia.

The Minister of Health, Roselyne Bachelot, has appealed "in recent days" to the High Authority of Health in order to make a decree that transsexualism be removed from the category of psychiatric disorders, a spokesman for the department stated.

Until now, transsexuals benefited from a fee waiver for their medical care by being classified under ALD23 (affection de longue durée 23 – long term condition 23) for “recurring or persistent disorders”.

For the Department of Health, it is a "strong signal sent to the whole community", since transsexuals felt that being included under the ALD23 was stigmatizing.

This classification, arising from that of the World Health Organization (WHO), was also linked to the fact that transsexualism appeared on the list of pathologies identified in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) to which the medical profession refers, as was the case for homosexuality a few years ago.

In a forum published in Le Monde (newspaper) dated Sunday-Monday, numerous personalities including first secretary of the Socialist Party Martine Aubry, the communist Marie-George Buffet, Green (party member) Daniel Cohn-Bendit and even Nobel Prize winners such as Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (medicine) and Elfriede Jelinek (literature), asked the WHO  “to no longer consider transsexuals as being affected by a mental disorder".

It is because the WHO decided on the 17th  of May 1990 to remove homosexuality from the list of mental illnesses, that this date has been retained for the International Day Against Homophobia and transphobia, celebrated Sunday, starting Saturday in many places.

It is therefore symbolic that France chose this time and date to be "the first country in the world" to "remove transgender identity from the list of mental diseases", commented the IDAHO Committee.

This "historic decision" is also "an explosion of hope for all trans persons around the world", according to Joël Bedos, secretary-general of the IDAHO Committee.

The HES (Association for Homosexuality and Socialism) also “hailed” this announcement which is in response to “demands that the LGBT community have been making for a long time in France.  For HES, it is time, at present, to go beyond the symbolic and take concrete actions to fight against the violence and discrimination facing trans persons.

Because beyond "this measure for declassification, there is still much to be done before transsexuals (...) are recognized as full-fledged citizens",  insisted the coordinator of the group Inter-LGBT.

Original French article: Click here

“Can you ordain a hermaphrodite?”

Santa Clara University theology professor says Church had long history of ordaining women that ended because of “virulent misogyny”

 

Gary Macy, a professor of theology at Jesuit-run Santa Clara University, told attendees at a Monday night lecture at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, there is little room for historical doubt that women were ordained in the Catholic Church until about the end of the 12th century. 

 

To read the complete article: Click here

Vanderbilt University has posted a podcast of Macy’s lecture and the question-and-answer session. To hear it: Click here

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

New Intersex Support Group forming in San Francisco

Kellyn Antolak, a clinician at New Leaf Services in San Francisco, is in the process of forming an ongoing Intersex support group. If you know anyone who would benefit, please pass the following information along. Please feel free to contact Kellyn Antolak at kantolak@newleafservices.org or (415)626-7000 ext.415 with any questions.

Intersex Support Group

Now Forming

New Leaf’s Intersex Support Group will offer a professionally facilitated, safe space to meet people with similar experiences.  This will be an opportunity to share your own struggles while receiving and offering support to others.

Who:  Anyone who identifies themselves as intersex.

Where: New Leaf Services at 103 Hayes Street (at Market St)

When: Every Wednesday evening (Time TBA)

For more information on New Leaf Services, please visit www.newleafservices.org or call 415-626-7000

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

Transphobia and Intersex Experience

I woke up this morning to a set of transphobic comments on my last blog post. Rather than mope (OK, I did mope, but rather than continuing to mope), I thought I'd use this as a teaching moment.

Transphobia 101

Transphobia is the disrespecting of people who are transgendered--considering trans people to be pitiable or disgusting or evil or deluded or just plain weird. It is usually expressed by cis sexed people--those whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth. (Note that my definition of cis sex treats an intersex person assigned female at birth in the same sex category as a person with normative-appearing female genitals and gonads.) But other people can be transphobic.

To read the complete article: Click here

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

To all people searching for pics of intersex genitals

by Caitlin Petrakis Childs

Excerpt:

"I want to start by saying, I am glad you are here. I am glad you stumbled upon a page of an actual intersex person. I hope that you take advantage of this opportunity to educate yourself.

Intersex people are not something you can can gawk at to fill your curiosity, get a good laugh or get your rocks off. We are real people with feelings, lives, friends, families, jobs and hobbies just like you. Our bodies have been marginalized, mutilated, photographed without our consent, poked and prodded by multiple doctors, nurses and medical students. We have been labeled disordered, freaks, accidents, mutations, defective. We have been told our bodies are wrong, that no one could ever love a body like ours and that it needs to be 'fixed'.”

To read the complete article: Click here

This is a service of the Organisation Intersex International

Disciplining Sex: Economies Etched in Intersex Flesh

By Dr. Jessica Cadwallader

Excerpt from article:

 

“Some intersex advocates have recently adopted the term ‘DSD’ or ‘Disorders of Sexual Development’ as a better term than intersex (see www.isna.org). I resist this for a number of reasons, which I hope will become clear as the discussion progresses; but briefly: the adoption of medical language in this case works to reinforce that there is a proper order of sexual development, an order which intersex bodies fail to follow properly. This minimises the challenge that intersex poses to our assumptions about sexual dimorphism, as we shall see.”

 

To download the complete article: Click here

This is a service of OII-Australia 

There are not just two sexes

Interview with Curtis Hinkle, founder of the Organisation Intersex International

Dulce María López Vega

For years it was thought that the distinction between sex and gender was a useful tool in achieving equality. It was believed that the world was divided into male bodies and female bodies, because the belief prevailed that there was an essential difference and that this difference was related to sex.  However, what is sex really?  Is gender the only one of these two categories that is a social construct?

Curtis Hinkle is the founder of the Organisation Intersex International. Intersex activists, previously known as hermaphrodites, have much to teach us about the misconceptions surrounding the classical concepts concerning the difference between the sexes.

How does one define intersex?

It is difficult to answer this because we do not have precise definitions for male and female.  Without  the discursive power of modern biomedical technology, intersex would not exist at all, because in past centuries the majority of people who were intersex did not even know it since the modern technology necessary to determine it did not exist.  It is a quest specific to our modern societies, armed with the required technological innovations, that is determined to define the “true” sex of every human being.  Personally, I find this search (or so called “research”) to determine the “true” sex of every individual ridiculous, because it is something that we cannot define. Once we feel we have found the precise definitions for male and female, new technologies emerge which reveal even more variations and exceptions.

The problem which results from this inability to conceive of more than two sexes and all the variations possible is that many infants are subjected to very painful and irreversible treatments.

For many intersex people, their intersexuality is not something that is detected at birth. It appears only later, and for the children that are detected in infancy, there are surgical and hormonal treatments, which are very difficult because they often require numerous interventions to reshape or cut the clitoris or to construct a penis which is more in conformity with what the medical experts feel is appropriate for a male. This is very traumatic and all this is undertaken without the consent of the child and since these interventions are done at such an early stage of the child’s life, they have no way of taking into account the gender identity of the child. And we know that in many cases, the individual is not in agreement with the assigned sex. For this reason, it is very important that parents be told what the most likely gender identity will be and above all that the doctors inform the parents that the child may change opinions later.

In our societies, we constantly have to declare our sex: forms, legal documents, bathrooms…

The most basic problem is the idea that there are only two sexes because that is not true. It is a problem based on binary thinking and categorization, heterosexism and sexism in general.  All three of these are violations of our basic human rights and that is why I am an activist. Presently, it is impossible to get sex designations off birth certificates because it is obligatory: before leaving the hospital it is necessary to have a sex on the birth certificate in almost all countries. Why is it necessary to put the sex on birth certificates? I don’t think it is and that this only serves to perpetuate sexism in our societies.

For example, in the state of Louisiana where I lived before moving to South Carolina, it was necessary to put the race of all persons on birth certificates, but like sex, it is difficult to define the race of everyone because there are people who are neither black nor white and therefore the state of Louisiana had to come up with a whole group of categories and if an individual had only one eighth of “black blood”, the race on legal documents was black. This is now illegal in Louisiana.  This is similar to the same situation now concerning sex on legal documents: it is sexist. It is a way of oppressing intersex people and women. 

Health care professionals, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts need to listen and revise their theories

If there were so much difference between the two sexes, then intersex people could not exist at all. If there is so much difference between males and females, then how is it possible for so many intersex people to present as either or to switch quite easily from living as one to the other? And for many intersex people this can prove rather easy, especially if they have not had too many early treatments.  This would not be possible if there truly were so much difference. No, all this is an invention of modern technology which oppresses many people.  That is what I think.

Original article in Spanish: Click here