tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4682495805538960462024-03-14T01:54:58.285-07:00IntersexusaOII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-69350293547958571212008-11-16T05:55:00.000-08:002008-11-16T05:57:03.390-08:00OII's Statement of Dissent<span style="font-family: arial;">OII is working to end NON-CONSENSUAL normalisation treatments of intersex children and adults without consultation with the individual intersexed person.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We oppose all consensus statements, especially those without representation of intersex people as equal stakeholders in the consensus.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">We have no desire for any consensus statement because intersex people do not agree on:</span><br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: arial;">the exact definition of intersex</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">what treatments are appropriate for all intersex people</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">what gender assignment, if any, is appropriate for all the different intersex variations</span></li><li><span style="font-family: arial;">pathological definitions of our bodies and identities</span></li></ul><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">OII is working in favour of human rights for individuals affected by intersex variations and therefore is opposed to all attempts to impose definitions, treatments and terminology on all people with bodies which do not meet the current standards for male or female.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Consensus statements imply that there is consent. We dissent!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This is on OII's website:</span><br /><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Dissent.html">Click here</a>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-5786510851996215232008-08-18T05:01:00.000-07:002008-08-18T05:02:14.185-07:00Ambiguous Medicine and Sexist Genetics<div><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>Ambiguous Medicine and Sexist Genetics: A Critique of the DSD Nomenclature</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">By M. Italiano, M.B.B.S. (A.M.) and Curtis E. Hinkle<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">© Aug. 8, 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Online at: <a href="http://www.intersexualite.org/sexist_genetics.html">http://www.intersexualite.org/sexist_genetics.html</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Many intersex persons around the world and their allies are concerned about the new nomenclature, DSD or “Disorders of Sex Development”, which has been endorsed by the Chicago Consensus (1) to replace the term “intersex”. We believe that the categories proposed are not only demeaning, but also scientifically flawed.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>The age of chromosomes</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">The DSD nomenclature uses chromosomes, instead of gonads, as the most important classifier of an individual's sex, such as “46,XY DSD” and “46,XX DSD”. This is no more helpful than using male pseudohermaphroditism or female pseudohermaphroditism which was based on gonads. (2) Instead of male pseudohermaphroditism and female pseudohermaphroditism, the new DSD nomenclature proposes “46, XY DSD” and “46, XX DSD” as replacements for the former taxonomy.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Furthermore, what was called true hermaphroditism is now dichotomized to fit more neatly within the binary. True hermaphroditism used to be called “true” because it meant that an individual had both ovarian and testicular tissue and gonads (ovaries and testicles) were considered to be the “true” determiner of one’s sex. Of course the word "true" was problematic because it suggested that all other forms of “hermaphroditism" were not legitimate, only “pseudo conditions”. Also, using the term “hermaphrodite” as a word to describe a person with an intersex variation has often been criticized as insulting and inaccurate. However, by replacing true hermaphroditism with "ovotesticular DSD", we still have another problem. The DSD nomenclature now wishes to divide "ovotesticular DSD" (formerly true hermaphroditism) into “46, XY ovotesticular DSD”, “46, XX ovotesticular DSD”, or “chromosomal DSD” (of “46,XX/46,XY” chimerism or “45, X/46,XY” mosaic types). In effect, it gives an individual in the latter case two types of DSD, an “ovotesticular DSD”, and a “chromosomal DSD”. Also, we see the division based on chromosomes, which again exposes the preeminence of chromosomes as the “true” markers of an individual’s sex. Further, by combining “ovostesticular DSD” with a chimeric or mosaic karyotype, as it does, it also fails to provide a clear classification of so-called “ovotesticular DSD” which has 3 or more cell line types, isochromosomes, inversions, or ring chromosomes in the karyotype.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">For individuals who have both 46,XX in some cells and 46,XY in other cells, and who are referred to as having a "chromosomal DSD" of "46,XX/46,XY(chimerism)" type, it is not uncommon for them to have male anatomy only (3) or female anatomy only (4) and they may also be fertile. In this new nomenclature they would be “diagnosed” as having a "chromosomal DSD" despite any practical relevance for them. Furthermore, although the DSD nomenclature is intended to be representative of congenital conditions, there are individuals who have become 46,XX/46,XY because their twin’s cells make up part of their own karyotype (5), or because an individual who is 46,XX received a bone marrow donation from someone who is 46,XY, as well as by many other means (6). In fact, a pregnancy may also lead to "false positives" for a DSD since fetal cells end up in a woman’s bloodstream. (5)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Likewise, individuals with a 45,X/46,XY karyotype are listed as having a “chromosomal DSD”, but with a parenthetical “mixed gonadal dysgenesis” or “ovotesticular” DSD. This is also confusing since many 45,X/46,XY individuals do NOT have mixed gonadal dysgenesis or ovotesticular tissue. Again, some have only typical male or female anatomy (some being fertile as such), and the XO cells are known to disappear during various stages of development. (7) Thus, predicting this type of “chromosomal DSD” in prenatal screening has been demonstrated to be hampered by a high rate of erroneous results, has provided unnecessary cause for alarm (by projecting birth defects which do not exist), has led to unwanted elective abortion, and is considered a serious problem in clinical genetics. (8)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Another problem is that the DSD proponents have misunderstood basic genetics (or intentionally distorted the information) and have assumed that XY chromosomes indicate that testicular tissue is expected. This assumption leads to another error in the new taxonomy because when gonadal dysgenesis is classified as a “46,XY DSD”, (see </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;118/2/e488/T2">Table 2</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> in reference 1) DSD proponents refer to it (parenthetically) as "testicular dysgenesis". This is misleading and ambiguous because many individuals with 46,XY gonadal dysgenesis actually have OVARIAN dysgenesis. (9) It has been known for over 30 years now that in the presence of an unaltered Y chromosome, but in the absence of substances which would cause testicular differentiation and development, that ovaries start to form, not testicles. (reviewed in ref. 9). It is therefore deceptive to classify 46,XY gonadal dysgenesis as 46,XY testicular dysgenesis because testicular dysgenesis is the result on some occasions but at other times the result is ovarian dysgenesis. The type of treatment indications for dysgenetic testicular tissue may differ from that of dysgenetic ovarian tissue, and thus may unnecessarily confuse clinicians. Furthermore, the preeminence of chromosomes in this taxonomy is apparent and the idea that XY chromosomes somehow are the real “male” sex marker is the result of sexist genetics which produces more ambiguous medicine.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">A basic problem with the DSD nomenclature is that it divides all the “disorders” into groups based on what are erroneously known as “sex chromosomes”. (10) This sexist interpretation of genetics, typical throughout this new nomenclature, leads to ambiguous medicine because there are individuals who have male anatomy only but have what appears to be XX chromosomes and are diagnosed as having a "46,XX DSD". Likewise, there are individuals who have female anatomy with what appears to be XY chromosomes and are diagnosed as having a "46,XY DSD". If these apparent XY individuals have a piece of the Y chromosome missing, (such as would include the SRY testis determining gene) they are still referred to as having a “46,XY DSD”, which is factually impossible since they are not XY, but X plus only part of the Y. Likewise, someone who is called XY (but in reality has an extra copy of an X chromosomal gene called DAX1) is also put in the category of having a "46,XY DSD", even though this is impossible, since they are not XY, but are instead X (PLUS another piece of an X)+Y. Likewise, individuals who appear to be XX, but are actually XX (PLUS the Y chromosome-specific SRY gene) are listed as having a "46,XX DSD" and a disorder of gonadal (ovarian) development, both of which are technically inaccurate. The fact that the DSD proponents (1) have put a note next to some conditions which indicates whether a deletion or addition of some X or Y chromosomal material exists, further demonstrates the inconsistency of their listing these conditions in the binary categories of “46,XY DSD” or “46, XX DSD” and not that of “chromosomal DSD.” In these regards, the DSD terminology is in violation of the principles and accepted diagnostic nomenclature used by clinical and molecular cytogeneticists. (11) Why didn't the DSD proponents put these in the "chromosomal DSD category"? One apparently needs an entire extra "sex chromosome" or to be lacking one, in order NOT to be put in the binary "EITHER XX or XY" category.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">The DSD nomenclature is ambiguous and sexist in its understanding of genetics and it appears that this is necessary in order to preserve an "artificial binary". People who have portions of the X or Y chromosome missing or added are neither XX nor XY. The DSD system again here is flawed. Technically, CAIS individuals do not have a so-called "46,XY DSD" (even though the proponents state that they do) because the androgen receptor gene on the X chromosome is altered so that, in fact, they are only "X"Y. The androgen receptor is certainly involved in sex development. Thus if it is not there or is altered, it is ambiguous and misleading to call these individuals XY. It is equally ambiguous and misleading to call CAIS individuals “genetic males”. Yes, they have the SRY gene and a typical Y chromosome, but the X linked gene sequences for androgen "action" are not something that they "have". The same is true for an XY individual who has a female anatomy only, unaltered X and Y chromosomes, but an alteration on one of the many genes on one of the so-called "non sex chromosomes" (autosomes) which are certainly sex determining.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Sophia Siedlberg, Genetics Advisor to the Organisation Intersex International, came up with a polygenic model which explained the role of genes, not chromosomes, in sex determination. (12) This model has been misappropriated by others who don't know how to interpret it correctly. We can be quite sure, that barring an environmental cause (such as a teratogen), if we have an XY individual who does not appear to be a male, but instead appears female or intersex, that this person CANNOT be a “genetic male”, “chromosomally a male”, “genetically a male” and vice versa for individuals who have XX chromosomes. How do we know this? By the simple rule of basic genetics, that<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">GENES (+ environment) = PHENOTYPE (observable trait)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Thus, the DSD model based on "sex chromosomal" divisions has failed. By using the umbrella term “development”, it has also misapplied the knowledge base from the field of (sex) “differentiation” and conflated it with that of “development”. (13) It is ambiguous and sexist (in that it prescribes what sex one should be and not what sex one is and it perpetuates gender and sexist stereotypes based on chromosomes). It promotes confusion and oppression. It is NOT scientific. It simply uses scientific terminology in such a way that is confuses those who have little knowledge of genetics and biology. In so doing, it victimizes intersex people while offering “unlimited immunity" to medical and psychological professionals who continue FORCED sex assignments, FORCED sex reassignments, and FORCED gender expression expectations.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>DSD makes the central health issue one’s sex</b><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">A second big problem with the DSD Consensus is that it largely ignores the health issues of intersexed individuals. With its emphasis on “sex” divisions based on chromosomes, they have persons with non-intersexed conditions like labial adhesions, cloacal exstrophy of the bladder and absent penis in an otherwise typical male, (or absence of a vagina in an otherwise typical female), mixed in with endocrine conditions, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, or mixed in with other organ system conditions, such as Smith-Lemli-Opitz Syndrome, and Turner's syndrome. These are then categorized as "sex development disorders", thus taking this "distant commonality" of one symptom, i.e., sex, and placing all of these disparate conditions as a disorder of one’s sex, while the predominant health issues become categorically "secondary" and likely to be ignored by clinicians.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>DSD lacks clinical relevance</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">Even without considering the fact that the DSD Consensus largely ignores health issues, its taxonomy is in many cases irrelevant for the purposes of clinicians, especially those with subspecialties. An XX male with testes, a penis, and no female reproductive organs, who finds out at the age of 30 that his chromosomes are atypical after an infertility check, is in the same category as an otherwise typical female with ovaries and a uterus who has vaginal atresia. Both have a “46,XX DSD”. The same holds true for a male, typical in every way but with isolated hypospadias (classified as having a “46,XY DSD”), whose clinician finds that they have given their prior patient, an XY female with streak ovaries, uterus, and vagina who has given birth after embryo donation the same diagnostic classification of “46,XY DSD”. Again, ambiguous diagnoses lead to ambiguous treatment implications and vice versa. This is ambiguous medicine.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>Gender conformity based on sexist genetics</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">With disorders of sex development, which sounds like “sexual development” (and can be confused with psychosexual development or psychosexual disorders), we now see a pathologizing of gender, gender identity, gender role, sexual orientation, and its ties to (re)assignment. People with a so-called DSD, especially in the binary XX or XY categories, are expected to conform in the above categories according to a binary gender expression, as indicated by the expectations of the DSD category, as well as the whim of the person who enforces the assignment or re-assignment. Those who reject such enforcement can be labeled mentally disordered, and treatment can be instituted or re-instituted at the whim of professionals, and this can be enforced legally.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">DSD is about ambiguous medicine, sexist genetics, body control, and mind control. It certainly is not a client centered consensus statement. The fact that almost no intersex people had input into this consensus is glaringly evident.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">In effect, we have moved from the “age of gonads” to the </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><b>“age of chromosomes”</b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> even though it has been established that "sex chromosomes" as portrayed do not determine one’s sex. (10) This is based on prescriptive notions about genetics, not a descriptive understanding of the role of chromosomes in sex determination. Genes, not "sex chromosomes", determine sex, and most of the genes involved are not on the X and Y chromosomes. They are on the autosomes.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">It appears to the authors of this article that the DSD nomenclature misinterprets genetics based on a sexist, binary male/female model and in so doing, it has erroneously pathologized and stigmatized intersex people in order to try to preserve the heterosexist male/female hierarchies that justify the oppression of many classes of people, not just those who are intersexed.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div align="center"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">REFERENCES<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">1) Hughes, I.A. et al. </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/118/2/e488">Consensus statement on management of intersex disorders</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">. J. Ped. Urol., 2006, 3:148-162.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">2) DamianiI, D. & Guerra-Júnior, G. </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-27302007000600018">As novas definições e classificações dos estados intersexuais: o que o Consenso de Chicago contribui para o estado da arte?</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> Arq Bras Endocrinol Metabol. 2007, 51: 013-7.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">3) Gencik, A. et al. Chimerism 46,XX/46,XY in a phenotypic female. Hum. Genet., 1980, 55: 407-408.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">4) Sudik, R. et al. Chimerism in a fertile woman with a 46,XY karyotype and female phenotype: Case Report. Hum. Rep., 2001, 16: 56-58.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">5) Schoenle, E. et al. 46,XX/46,XY Chimerism in a Phenotypically Normal Man. Hum. Genet., 1983, 64: 86-89.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">6) Ford, C.E. Mosaics and Chimaeras. British Med. Bull, 1969, 25:104-109.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">7) Chang, H.J. et al. The phenotype of 45,X/46,XY mosaicism: an analysis of 92 prenatally diagnosed cases. Amer. J. Hum. Genet., 1990, 46: 156-167.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">8) Robinson, A. et al. Prognosis of prenatally diagnosed children with sex chromosome aneuploidy. Am J. Med. Genet., 1992, 44: 365-368.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">9) Wachtel S.S. & Simpson J.L. Sex Reversal in the Human. In Wachtel S.S. (Ed.) Molecular Genetics of Sex Determination., 1994, 287-309. Academic Press, Inc.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">10) Italiano, </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Genetics_1.html">M The Scientific Abuse of Genetics and Sex Classifications.</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> Manuscript published July 17, 2008 © Organisation Intersex International.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">11) Schaffer, L.G. & Tommerup, N. ISCN 2005: An International System for Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature (2005): Recommendations of the International Standing Committee on Human Cytogenetic Nomenclature., 2005. Karger, S.C. Publ.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">12) Siedlberg, S. </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.gender.org.uk/chstnuts/ggg.htm">The Gender Genital Gene Genie</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">. Manuscript published 2001.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;">13) Italiano, M. </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Terminology.html">Some problems with the new terminology for intersex.</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;"> Manuscript published July 13, 2008 © Organisation Intersex International.</span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-8619192401297459682008-04-27T08:34:00.000-07:002008-04-27T08:45:06.443-07:00A message of healing and hope: a holistic, person-centered approach to intersex health<div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Curtis E. Hinkle, Founder of <a href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Index.html">Organisation Intersex International</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size8 Helvetica8" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Medical treatment of intersex people has a long history of pathologizing, stigmatizing and mutilating anyone who does not have a body which is totally “female” or totally “male” according to the definitions currently in effect for those two categories. Medical approaches to intersex variations are based on a false dichotomy, the assumption that everyone “should” be either male or female even though nature has not created such a world. The treatments are based on other false assumptions:<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >That heterosexual intercourse and reproduction are the most important contributions of an individual, despite the fact that intelligence, compassion and ability to care for others are equally, if not more, important for the evolution of humankind<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >That the sex of an intersex child is a disorder itself which MUST be treated without any input from the child at all.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><ul><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >That concealment, shame and manipulations of body parts of an intersex person will benefit the child when in fact this approach leads to trauma, a shattered sense of self and further marginalization and stigma.</span></li></span></ul><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The medical approach focuses on parts of a person and defines the intersex child as a disparate combination of chromosomes, genitalia, hormones, gonads and internal reproductive anatomy. This is dehumanizing. The child is not welcomed into the world as a complete, totally intact, part of the whole tapestry of nature which is constantly evolving and moving towards diversity which promotes the continued development of human potential. Welcoming diversity and respecting the wholeness of both the individual and the natural world in which we live, breathe and have our being opens human consciousness to hope, respect and finding solutions to many problems which currently face humanity, not just intersex people, but all of us.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Instead of a dehumanizing approach which focuses on body parts, we could choose to focus on the wholeness of intersex children and see this as part of their potential for development (not a disorder of sex development) and future contributions to society. This would be a radical shift from the current medicalization of sex variations but the benefits to both the intersex child and humanity itself would be enormous. This would not only promote the health of intersex children. It would promote the healing of humankind in general.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The current medical protocols based on a false dichotomy and dehumanization of intersex children are part of a wider social problem – sexism. OII has been concerned about this issue from its beginning and several years ago OII published our declaration of fundamental principles:<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Intersex is not a medical condition: intersex refers to those individuals born of “intermediate” sex between what is considered standard for male or female in our societies.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Contrary to what is often asserted, the various degrees of intersex are not innately an illness or deformity. They are simply variations of the human body similar to the length of the nose, the colour of eyes, etc.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We reject medical categories for the various degrees of intersex, which are in fact only different reference points on a natural continuum of anatomical and genetic variations.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We stress the whole person from infancy through adulthood and choose not to focus on an individual's genitalia. We are people, not genitals. As people, we have a right to our own genitalia and our own identity without interference, forced treatment or other coercion from legal and/or medical authorities.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The basic problems faced by the intersexed are socio-cultural in nature and not medical and are a result of the dogmatic fundamentalism inherent in the current binary construct of sex and gender. Some intersexed individuals are subjected to genital mutilation in childhood as a result of this totalitarian, sexist oppression. For this reason, we denounce all forms of sexism prevalent in our societies, which is principally directed against women, the intersexed, and other communities which challenge sex and gender norms.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >To promote visibility and the recognition of our existence as a normal and natural part of humanity will benefit not only the intersexed but all people oppressed by the sexism which prevails in our societies.<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >OII chooses to focus on healing, not managing body parts and defining children as disordered or sick when they are in fact not sick. The word “healing” is derived from the Old English word “whole”. Society can choose to welcome the wholeness of each intersex child and open up a place for them by making it possible for each one to affirm their own true sex and sense of self. This is a person-centered approach to healing and wholeness, one that would be of benefit to society as a whole.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The two central concepts of OII’s person-centered approach to healing are<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >wholeness<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><ul class="lpx"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><li><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >affirmation<br /></span></li></span></ul></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We can choose to welcome children as a gift which has been entrusted to our care, as an integral part of the potential for human development as a whole, not incomplete, undeveloped beings that we control and manipulate into images and abstractions that we feel they “should” be. We can choose to accept the wholeness and oneness of life as a constantly evolving and developmental process which is to be honored and work towards harmony and mutual cooperation, not domination and manipulation. Welcoming intersex children offers hope and healing to human understanding and development towards a model based on human rights and respect for the natural world we all share as one.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The choice is ours.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-80493871594984113662008-04-25T06:47:00.000-07:002008-04-25T06:48:36.183-07:00OII Investigation: Introduction and Part 1<div><span class="size18 Helvetica18" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Deconstructing the Feminine Essence Narrative</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Ongoing investigation by OII</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">by Curtis E. Hinkle<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Posted April 20, 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Introduction</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">In the coming weeks, OII will be working with an informant who has primary sources and e-mails from the individuals involved in an attempt to deconstruct the “feminine essence narrative”, especially those associated with the Clark/Northwestern Clique. Why is OII interested in collaborating with this informant about an issue that at first may seem tangential to intersex? OII is convinced that this issue which at first seems unrelated to intersex really has serious consequences for intersex adults and children. Current protocols for the management of intersex children require a GENDER assignment as soon as possible and the same protocols prevent the child from having any input into the ARBITRARY decision. A gender assignment is not the SEX assignment. In other words, intersex children are assigned a GENDER, which is expected to reflect their gender identity, and many are assigned a "FEMALE GENDER", which is nothing more than an expectation that their lives will reflect a "feminine essence narrative".<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">However, the very people who are ardent defenders of the imposition of a female gender on many intersex infants, (with the expectation that their lives will be in accord with a feminine essence narrative), are insisting that no such concept really exists, despite evidence to the contrary. The problem is, that some intersex children, may very well have a firm female gender identity (or feminine essence narrative), but others will not, despite the fact that the expectation is IMPOSED on them without consent. If the child later insists, that the imposed female gender assignment is incorrect, as it does not match their true gender identity (or feminine essence narrative), the child risks being told that there is no such thing, (and that "it is not about gender"), despite the fact that justification for the gender assignment was the belief that "gender identity" does exist.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">This is strengthened by the numerous investigations of gender outcomes in various intersexed conditions (e.g., virtually the entire August 2005 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior is devoted to gender outcomes in intersex persons with various types of intersex variations), as well as the NICHD task force on psychosexual development, and the addition of an intersex (now DSD) committee, as part of the HBIGDA/WPATH.<br /><br /></span><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Part 1</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">In Alice Dreger’s article in defense of J. Michael Bailey, “The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen”, (1) she devoted many pages to dismissing the so-called “feminine essence narrative”. After this article was published on the internet, she acted as associate editor of the Johns Hopkins publication, </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>Perspectives in Biology and Medicine</i></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> in which J Michael Bailey and Kiira Triea published another article against the feminine essence narrative. (2) Many in the intersexed community were somewhat surprised that an intersexed person, Kiira Triea, who is a “genetic female”, was speaking as if she were a homosexual transsexual. Whatever. We were confused enough trying to figure out what a homosexual transsexual was, only to find out it was a woman who is attracted to men, who was once a man. Confused? Oh, well. C’est la vie. <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">On a more serious note, when reading Bailey and Triea’s article in the journal with Dreger as associate editor, we noticed some serious flaws. However, there was an expert who knows much more about this than we do, Dr. Dick Swaab, who noticed some serious errors in Bailey and Triea’s article also, and tried to correct them by writing to the editor. Did Alice Dreger, the associate editor, once again protect Bailey (and this time also Triea), by using her (Dreger’s) influence in suppressing any accurate discussion of brain sex (something she has done for years now) to shield Bailey and Triea from criticism? The letter was never published.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">OII has a letter that Dr. Swaab wrote to the editor of </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>Perspectives in Biology and Medicine</i></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">, in which he indicated that hypothalamus VOLUME only changed 6% in m to f's and not at all in f to m's, in a study by Hulshoff Pol et al., (3) and that such, discounts Bailey and Triea's use of the findings of this report, which they used for their assertion, that the most likely reason for the finding of a female BSTc in m to f transsexuals, was hormones which the transsexuals took.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Bailey and Triea also claimed that hormones influenced the BSTc neuron NUMBER in transsexuals. But, as Dr. Swaab’s letter pointed out, this is totally wrong, since it is basic morphometric knowledge that total neuron number in a structure of the brain is independent of either pre or post mortem changes in the structure's volume. Thus, Dr. Swaab felt that Bailey and Triea's discussion on the BSTc results in relation to hormones the transsexuals took, should receive out of hand dismissal. Dr. Swaab wondered if it was<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Bailey and Triea who just didn’t want to know. Certainly that should leave us all wondering.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(1) Dreger, A. The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen. 2007. Published on the internet at<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf">http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(2) Bailey, J. M. & Triea, K. What many transgender activists don't want you to know: and why you should know it anyway. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2007, Vol. 50, Issue 4, 521-535.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(3) Hulshoff Pol, H. E. et al. Changing your sex changes your brain: influences of testosterone and estrogen on adult human brain structure. European Journal of Endocrinology, 2006, Vol. 155, Issue suppl_1, 107-114.<br /><br /></span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-55396564085274955742008-04-25T06:45:00.000-07:002008-04-25T06:46:41.603-07:00OII Investigation: Part 2<div><span class="size18 Helvetica18" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Deconstructing the Feminine Essence Narrative</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Ongoing investigation by OII</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Part 2</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">by Curtis E. hinkle<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Posted April 21, 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Anne Lawrence was already posting to Sexnet, an internet based sexuality forum, about her vast knowledge on autogynephilia as far back as mid-2000. In one of those e-mails which she forwarded to OII's informant, she wrote:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">"I believe that androphilic MtF transsexuals are really a SUBSET of gay men - very FEMININE GAY MEN, who are sufficiently "SOMATICALLY COMPLIANT" that they simply do better in the world as women. They typically feel ENTITLED TO AVIDLY SEEK OUT MALE PARTNERS, and do not necessarily display a great deal of urgency about changing their bodies(especially obtaining SRS), except as NECESSARY TO ATTRACT MALE PARTNERS." <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>(Capitols are added here for emphasis only and for comparing these Lawrence statements with Bailey's statements in the "Queen" book, such as Bailey's statement that "homosexual transsexuals" are "especially well suited" for prostitution).</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Now, consider how Lawrence on SEXNET, around mid-2000 or so, further attempted to deconstruct the "feminine essence narrative", by suggesting that all of the 6 patients in Swaab's BSTc studies were autogynephillic, and that the BSTc is a marker for autogynephilia.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> "I interpret the Kruijver et al paper a bit differently than Bradley Cooke. My guess is that all six MtF TS subjects in the Kruijver et al paper, T1-T6, were *autogynephillic* transsexuals....<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">If the findings of Zhou et al and Kruijver et al are replicated...., then my tentative hypothesis is: small BSTc size/cell count is not a marker for feminine behavior in some global sense, or for feminine *gender* identity (WHATEVER THAT WIDELY-USED BUT POORLY DEFINED TERM MIGHT MEAN)."<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>(Again capitols are added for emphasis, to compare with Bailey's statement in the "Queen" book his comment: "gender identity… what the hell does that mean?" p 50.)</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">On SEXNET, Lawrence continued her assault on the feminine essence narrative/brain sex, to write:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">"Rather, small BSTc size/cell count is a marker for either:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">a. female *sex* identity -- one's sense that one's appropriate or ideal sexed body is female; OR<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">b. lack of a sense of "allophillic sexual entitlement" -- lack of genuine comfort with sexual behavior involving the aggressive seeking-out of partners with the body features to which one is sexually attracted (leading in some gynephillic males to displacement of "erotic target location" to one's feminized self...).... I believe that gynephilic (autogynephilic) MtF transsexuals are not-especially-feminine men who nonetheless can't quite see themselves as male, even though they often *act* like men in most ways. Perhaps they can't accept the bodies they were born with (more likely); or perhaps they can't quite accept the idea of aggressively pursuing females, and therefore tend to eroticize in themselves the femininity that most gynephilic men eroticize in female others (less likely)".<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Over a year later after Anne Lawrence's post to Sexnet, OII's contact, wrote directly to Anne Lawrence and asked three short questions.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">E-mail sent November 06, 2001<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">...I have 3 quick questions I hope you can answer.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">1) Does autogynephilia occur in non-gender dysphorics?<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">2) Can autogynephilia cause sexual dysfunctions, e.g. inability to perform unless the fantasy is "right"?<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">3) How does it manifest differently after SRS?<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">***********<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Here was the response dated November 7, 2001 from Anne Lawrence:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">I'm sorry I don't have time to reply to your questions at present. You'll just have to wait for my book.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">************<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">To this day there has never been a book written by Anne Lawrence on this topic. However, the language used by Anne Lawrence as far back as around mid-2000 and her writing style, are especially similar to the style used in J. Michael Bailey's book, The Man Who Would be Queen. (1) Bailey had not really done much in the field of transsexualism before this book. He had focused on homosexuality, not transsexual issues. However, it was around this time, which Bailey had ties with Lawrence, since he was one of her PhD supervisors at The Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. We wonder, who was "educating" whom, in regards to autogynephilia. Was there a ghost-writer for this book, who did the parts dealing with autogynephilia? All of OII's informant's questions are dealt with in the book in question, although not answered scientifically.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Who really wrote this book? Anne Lawrence was intent on deconstructing the feminine essence narrative as far back as mid- 2000 and yet, the book which put those ideas forward in a popular setting, was the "Queen" book, attributed to J. Michael Bailey. Furthermore, Dreger stated in her 60p. + monograph 2007 internet publication (2) defending Bailey, that Randi Ettner's 1999 book Gender Loving Care, (3) was his impetus for writing the "Queen" book. We wonder, and encourage readers to as well, if it was Lawrence who orchestrated the parts on the "Queen" book on autogynephilia, and desconstructed the feminine essence narrative. Perhaps, she could not identify with what was written by Ettner. In any case, transgender people were cautioned against seeking her as a gender therapist in an issue of Transgender Tapestry.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">And many intersexed folks started asking: “Do we need a ‘hackademic’ who compares SRS with an amputee fetish to be speaking for intersex?" With Zucker and others, she has indeed co-authored an APA bulletin on intersex. This should be an outrage and a call to action. In the next installment, we shall examine how the deconstruction of the feminine essence narrative, and surgical fetishism may seek to damage intersexed persons lives, while at the same time, seek to offer virtually unlimited immunity to intersex surgeons.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(1) Bailey, J. Michael. The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. 2003, Joesph Henry Press.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(2) Dreger, A. The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen. 2007. Published on the internet at<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf">http://www.bioethics.northwestern.edu/faculty/work/dreger/controversy_tmwwbq.pdf</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(3) Ettner, R. Gender Loving Care: A Guide to Counseling Gender-Variant Clients. 1999, W W Norton & Co., Inc.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Response and comments on the first two parts of this investigation received from Sophia Siedlberg:</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Posted April 22, 2008</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size9 Helvetica9" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>After I wrote the first two parts of this investigation, I received the following commentary from</i></span><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b><i> </i></b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><i>Sophie Siedlberg and Prof. M. Italiano. After reading them, I decided that it would be better to post them before continuing with the subsequent installments. - Curtis E. Hinkle</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Why do they hate the "Feminine Essence Narrative"</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">When in 1995 Zhou and Swaab published their studies on the Bed Nucleii of the Stria Terminalis (BSTc) which gave some clue as to the possibility of how hormones can affect brain sex, one of the most severe critics of this theory was Anne Lawrence. What I found curious was, that while no one would deny her right to disagree, she seemed to have thought that she and others (Kiira Treia, J Michael Bailey, the usual suspects) have a right to silence Swaab in particular, and over the years it has been the case that Swaab has faced some opposition to his work from, let's face it, especially from the Clarke Northwestern clique. The main criticism they had was based on a valid question. Basically they were interested to know whether the observed size of the BSTc in transsexual women (Being consistent with that of other women) was a result of the hormone therapy that transsexual women had been using.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">The one problem with this criticism is that Swaab was describing Steroid Regulated Apoptosis which is often a developmental process that occurs before birth and probably continues soon after for a short period of time. I can say this with some confidence because it was paradoxically Eric Vilain who, when discussing the "Genetics of Brain sex", added a gene (p53) to his list of genes involved and hinted at the mechanism Swaab was describing. P53 is a gene that is involved in regulating apoptosis (Cell death) and is the "Suicide gene" most oncologists would tell you often stops working when someone has cancer. What the precise involvement of this gene is in Vilain's model remains to be seen but it is evident that Vilain did focus on apoptosis in his model. Cell death involves a pathway of events that can be regulated by the non presence of androgens (Not the introduction of 3 hydroxy steroids). Basically the process of cell death involving a peptide called NAIP (Neural Apoptosis Inhibitory Peptide) which seems to be active when androgens are present. So if NAIP is present along with a 3-oxy steroid, then the growth of the BSTc would continue, with the absence of certain 3-oxy steroids and the non activity of NAIP the BSTc shrinks. That process is more typical of pre natal cell differentiation.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">The difficult part is working out why NAIP appears to be active when certain 3-oxy steroids are present. My interest in all this is that when you get steroid dependant tumors, you could look at how steroids are involved with these small apoptosis regulating peptides. In the case of NAIP it stops the caspase pathway at a given point. Could this mean that the precise form of certain steroids has an effect of the production or activity of these small peptides? That would be worthy of some research surely.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">This is the essential difference between Swaab and the Clarke Northwestern Clique. Swaab has for years studied things that are generally understood to have wider implications. His interest in neuro degenerative disorders would illustrate this quite adequately. The Clarke Northwestern are interested in wobbly bits and sex. Even if their research did offer insights into brain sex and transsexualism, it would have little value outside that area; Swaab's work on the other hand does have a wider audience, among oncologists for example.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">The real difference lies in the fact that up until the Clarke Northwestern had the likes of Hamer and Vilain come on board (Whose research often seems to confirm the findings of people like Swaab, albeit backhandedly), their only frames of reference were the less scientific rationalizations of psychology. Or the science of fiddling with the wobbly bits.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">This is the point. Swaab got his hands dirty with the actual science. Yes, there are other criticisms such as the sample size Swaab used in his original study, but the Clarke Northwestern can hardly cry foul when at the same time another researcher looking into "Brain sex" (Imperatio Mc Ginley, in the Dominican Republic studies of 5 alpha also in 1995) not only had an equally small sample size but openly excluded people from her study that did not fit what she wanted to say. It seems odd how the Clarke Northwestern would have the implication of her "Masculine essence narrative" as being ultra valid and Swaab's similarly but better formulated "Feminine Essence Narrative" as wrong.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">And yet Swaab's research methods were actually much more precise. Perhaps it is fair to say that science according to the Clarke Northwestern has to work in a given way (Promote the masculine perhaps?) in order for them to consider it valid. Which brings me back to Anne Lawrence. Given that her objections to Swaab's work are not quite as valid as she would have you believe, we have to look elsewhere to explain her objections and those of others in the Clarke Northwestern clique. The answer is perfectly simple, they are control freaks interested in wobbly bits. Hamer and Vilan are often to be found trying to spin other people's work to fit the Clarke Northwestern edict of "Only masculine counts" (Which means that surgeons with a habit of masculinizing intersex children get let of the hook of litigation and it also gives the Clarke Northwestern license to give transsexual folks a hard time etc).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Anne Lawrence herself has a fetishistic interest in genital surgery and she is trying to impose that on transsexual folks in general using this "Autogynephilia" model. You only have to stand back and think for a moment one thing that the Clarke Northwestern are noted for is complaining that any theory that competed with their "Homosexual Transsexual/Autogynephilia" model of transsexualism (And anything else they wish to apply it to, like intersex people when it is convenient for getting unethical surgeons off the hook after ripping a few children's uteruses out) is a politically correct plot to silence their sacred "Truth", a sacred "truth" which is literally a load of bollocks (I may as well say it: the HSTS/AGP theory is a load of pseudoscientific bollocks designed to serve andro-centric fetish quackery).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">The problem for the Clarke Northwestern clique is simple. Swaab's work is simply more credible and more scientifically researched. Peter-meters and leading questions in surveys with pre-conceived assumptions do not come close scientifically to someone actually getting down to the nuts and bolts of the biology involved. The Clarke Northwestern may as well face the fact that what they preach is pseudoscientific claptrap and what Swaab has found is a scientific truth that does not correspond with said pseudo-science. No amount of whining about political correctness is going to change that. The truth is that it is the other way round. It has been noted that the Clarke Northwestern have actively sought to silence Swaab. From the time when Vilain made his demeaning remarks about "Hormone theories" to Anne Lawrence crying that transsexuals are "Men trapped in men's bodies and science had better agree with that or else". The whole Clarke Northwestern edifice has been responsible for stifling academic freedom, and what makes their behavior most reprehensible if the fact that Swaab's model of brain sex can offer insights into other areas of medicine such as cancer research. What does the Clarke Northwestern offer the world? Bailey in high heels doing a bit of tranny bashing. Enough said really.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Response and comments on the first two parts of this investigation received from</b></span><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b> </b></span><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Prof. M. Italiano:</b></span><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b> </b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Posted April 22, 2008</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">*****<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Dear Mr. Hinkle, <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">I am writing from the U.S., am a researcher, and will become officially registered (licensed) with the Medical Board of India, in June, as well as receive a Ph.D. in physiology. I have read, with interest, your ongoing discussion on the erosion of brain sex and its relevance, for gender essence narratives by certain individuals. I have tried to post on a forum, findings of relevance on another paper of Lawrence, on autogynephilia and romantic love. However, my post did not get on this forum. However, I have significantly expanded it, to include topics which you have been recently discussing on OII. I present it to you here. I applaud you, for bringing attention to the dangers and inaccuracies of brain sex criticism. My article shall provide further relevant discourse on the matter.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Kind Regards,<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">M. Italiano<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">GENDER IDENTITY, THE BRAIN, GENDER ESSENCE NARRATIVES AND ATTEMPTED ERASURE - A CRITIQUE OF THE ANNE LAWRENCE AUTOGYNEPHILIC/ROMANTIC LOVE-"LINE" ARTICLE<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> The purpose of this critique, is to point out some inconsistencies, omissions, and errors, in the ongoing relegation of the theory, that transsexualism is a result of basal brain sex reversal, to that which denies this female essence, as was recently published in an article by Lawrence (1). It is ongoing relegation since an article related to this, by Ray Blanchard, is due to appear in the June 2008 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> Although some individuals might attribute transsexual-like feelings, behaviors, or beliefs, to autogynephilia, romantic love, pathological narcissism and even to homosexuality, and although this may apply in persons seeking and obtaining transsexual treatment, it does NOT at all justify, the relegation of m to f transsexuality, in general, to that which would exclude those "m" to f transsexuals, who have a female gender identity, a basal brain sex reversal, and/or a gender identity specific reason for seeking sex reassignment. <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> The Lawrence article (1) is severely flawed. There are four studies on the brain in those classified as m to f transsexuals, which indicate a reversal of some basal brain structure or function. There are two * from Swaab's group on the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) (2, 3), one from Berglund's group (with Savic) on the hypothalamus using PET (4), and one in German from Gizewski's group, on the hypothalamus, amygdala and insular cortex, using fMRT(5).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> However, when we look at the research of Helen Fisher (with Art Aron) on romantic love/attraction (6), they found that people madly in love, when shown pictures of the person they had fallen madly in love with, "didn't show activity in either" (7) the hypothalamus or amygdala. Instead, the ventral tegmental area and caudate nucleus were activated (6). Furthermore, activity in the insular cortex was shown only after having been rejected (described as the "flip side" of romantic love) (6). We can thus be quite certain that what is described as neural correlates of transsexuality, is not what may be reduced to romantic love/attraction.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> There is also a 3rd "mating system", which is found to be distinct from romantic love, and is known as attachment, also with separate brain areas from those involved in romantic love (6). Significantly, attachment (or pair-bonding) is facilitated largely through oxytocin (6), which gets us back to the hypothalamus again, and suggests that transsexuality is related to basal brain sex reversal.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> The recent paper by Veale et al. (8), and the thesis by Veale (9), are both impressive, for their study of autogynephilia and romantic love in relation to transsexualism. In particular, their finding that none of the individuals with autogynephilia even reported asexuality (8), is highly significant, and provides empirical evidence, that just two classifications of transsexuality, as proposed by Blanchard (10) and Bailey (11), is not correct. Of course, this has been noted from clinical findings, such as those by Benjamin (12)#, who described his transsexual patients, who were almost universally androphillic, as often undersexed, and sometimes hyposexual. On this score, neither Blanchard's view (10) that asexual transsexuality is a type of so-called non-homosexual transsexuality, Bailey's finding of androphillic transsexuals being especially well suited for prostitution (11), Blanchard's or Lawrence's claim (1) that even decreased sexual activity is symptomatic of autogynephilia as being a representation of romantic love, deserves merit. In fact, Blanchard (10) had very little evidence to claim that asexual transsexuality, was a form of so-called non-homosexual transsexuality. In fact, he had little more than a "forcing of the data" of Bentler (13) and Person & Ovesey (14), to try to fit his theory. For instance, in the study by Bentler (13), 100% of transsexuals identified as heterosexual type, were found to be married as a male to a female, whereas 0 % of transsexuals identified as the homosexual type, were married as a male to a female, AND 0% of transsexuals identified as asexual type, were married as a male to a female (13) (Table 1, pg. 570). Another example, from Bentler (13), the number of women with whom the transsexuals had intercourse as a male, was M= 0.3 and M= 0.2, respectively, for those typed as homosexual and asexual, whereas, for those typed as heterosexual, the M= 3.3. Thus, on these two indices, the asexual transsexuals were significantly more like the homosexual type than the heterosexual type, and thus these variables do not warrant the asexual group for being categorized as so-called non-homosexual. +<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> Several lines of evidence, including the roughly 40% of hypogonadism found by Benjamin, of his patients (sample total= 152) (12)#, its replication (41%) by Walser (sample total= 17) (15), and comparable findings by Walinder (16), strongly suggest, that asexual transsexualism, represents a distinct type of transsexuality (seperate from androphillic, autogynephillic, erotic or romantic motives), and perhaps, represents a type of atypical sex variation or VSD (17), which is hypogonadism. It also suggests that their reasons for seeking gender reassignment are those of a reversed gender identity (and related to a feminine essence narrative), neuroendocrinological, and directly related to basal brain sex reversal (2-5).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">*It has been sometimes stated that the BSTc is in or part of the hypothalamus. This is correct, to the degree that "hypo", means underneath or below, and the BSTc is certainlty part of the area which is BELOW the THALAMUS. However, the BSTc, is technically the extended amygdala, in that it is a connection which is between, and goes to and from the amygdala and hypothalamus in reciprocal fashion.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(See also the following for further reading)-<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.genderhealth.net/library/italiano1.htm">www.genderhealth.net/library/italiano1.htm </a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">+ Non-homosexual transsexuality (10) is typically used as synonymous with Autotogynephilia (see references 10 and 11).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"># In Harry Benjamin’s first transsexual patient, known as Barry, noted by Schaefer and Wheeler (Arch. Sexual Behav., Vol. 24, No. 1, 1995, page 79). It was found, that this person, denied “ever having an erection (nocturnal or otherwise) and of ever masturbating.” This is significant, as this case was seen 60 years ago, before it could be reasonably stated that patients would lie to better their chances of seeking sex reassignment surgery. <br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">See also the following for further reading-<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.genderhealth.net/library/italiano1.htm">www.genderhealth.net/library/italiano1.htm</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"> M. Italiano<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(1) Lawrence, A.A. (2007) Becoming what we love: autogynephillic transsexualism conceptualized as an expression of romantic love. Perspectives in Biology & Medicine, 50(4):506-520.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(2) Zhou, J.N., et al. (1995) A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature, 378:68-70.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(3) Kruijver, F.P., et al. (2000) Male-to-Female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 85(5):2034-2041.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(4) Berglund, H., et al. (2007) Male-to-female Transsexuals Show Sex-Atypical Hypothalamus Activation When Smelling Odorous Steroids. Cerebral Cortex. (published online December 3, 2007).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(5) Gizewski, E (2006) fMRT zur Diagnose bei Transsexualitat gepruft. (An Examination of the use of fMRT for diagnosing Transsexuality. English title transl. from German). ArzteZeitung, May 30, 2006.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(6) Fisher, H.E. et al. (2006) Romantic love: a mammalian brain system for mate choice. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. Biol. Sci. 29361(1476):2173-2176.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(7) Fisher, H.E. (2005) Posted Interview of Helen Fisher by Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Medical Correspondent, CNN.com, May 2005.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(8) Veale, J.F., et al. (2008) An investigation in to the sexuality of Transsexuals. Archives of Sexual Behavior. (In press) (available on epub Feb. 26, 2008)<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(9) Veale, J.F. (2005) Love of oneself as a woman: An investigation into the sexuality of transsexual and other women. Unpublished Master's thesis, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. (available at jaimieveale.com)<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(10) Blanchard, R. (1989) The Classification and Labelling of Nonhomosexual Gender Dysphorias. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 18(4);315-334.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(11) Bailey, J.M. (2003) The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. Joseph Henry Press.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(12) Benjamin, H. (1966) The Transsexual Phenomenon. Julian Press, New York.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(13) Bentler, P. (1976) A Typology of Transsexualism: Gender Identity Theory and Data. Archives of Sexual Behavior. 5(6):567-584.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(14) Person, E. & Ovesey L. (1974) The Transsexual Syndrome in Males 1. Primary Transsexualism. American Journal of Psychotherapy. 28(1):4-20.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(15) Walser, P. (1968) Verlauf und Endzustandebe: Transvestiten und Transsexuellen. Schweiz. Arch. Neurol. Neurochir. Psychiatr. 101:417-433.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(16) Walinder, J (1967) Transsexualism: A Study of Forty Three Cases. (Doctoral Dissertation), Akademiforlaget-Gumperts, Goteborg.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">(17) Diamond, M. & Beh, H.G. (2006) Variations of sex development instead of disorders of sex development. (eletter to the editor of BMJ at http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/91/7/554#2460)</span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-68708194439285161672008-04-25T06:42:00.000-07:002008-04-25T11:18:23.139-07:00DSD Guidelines: A bridge to mental disorders<div><span class="size18 Helvetica18" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Deconstructing the Feminine Essence Narrative</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size16 Helvetica16" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Ongoing investigation by OII</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Part 3 </b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >by Curtis E. Hinkle<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Posted April 22, 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>DSD Guidelines: A bridge to mental disorders </b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size14 Helvetica14" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >It is urgent that people who are currently diagnosed as having what is now unfortunately known as a DSD (Disorder of Sex Development) be prepared for what is one of the cruelest hoaxes that people with intersex variations have ever been subjected to.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>Consider the following hypothetical case which is sure to happen:</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >A child subjected to surgery without consent grows up and rejects the sex assigned only to find that they are diagnosed as having a paraphilia known as autogynephilia. This is one of the cruelest forms of medical abuse because the very person who has been surgically altered without consent is diagnosed as having a sexual fetish for rejecting and denouncing the very medical procedures which caused the suffering to begin with – surgery and other non-consensual normalization procedures used to assign a gender to the child.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Currently, people with intersex variations who reject their gender assignment fall under the diagnosis of GIDNOS. In reading the following from the DSM-IV, please note that intersex will be replaced by DSD (which is a much larger group of “disorders”). This will be important in understanding why the term” intersex” was changed to DSD in the first place despite an overwhelming rejection from the intersex community and the sinister motivations behind this change will become more apparent later in this analysis.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The DSM-IV provides a code for gender disorders that did not fall into these criteria. This diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (GIDNOS, 302.6) is similar to other "NOS" diagnoses, and can be given for, for example:[3]<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><div><ul><li><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >1. Intersex conditions (e.g., androgen insensitivity syndrome or congenital adrenal hyperplasia) and accompanying gender dysphoria<br /></span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >2. Transient, stress-related cross-dressing behavior<br /></span></li></ul></div><ul><li><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >3. Persistent preoccupation with castration or penectomy without a desire to acquire the sex characteristics of the other sex, which is known as skoptic syndrome</span></li></ul></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Intersex (which will be replaced by DSD, a much larger group of “disorders”) is the only non-paraphilia currently listed under the diagnosis for GIDNOS. Several years ago, ISNA and Dreger called for mental health professionals to be involved in the evaluation and care for intersexed folks and shortly thereafter the NICHD committee was started.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The objectives of the DSD research that is being conducted by the NICHD committee, the Network on Psychosexual Differentiation at Penn State which resurrected the Disorder terminology in a psychosexual context include:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>“Develop or refine animal paradigms that model and help to explain the genetic, neuroendocrine, and social processes underlying both normal sex-typed behaviors and </i></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b><i>pathological behaviors observed in individuals with intersex conditions or gender-atypical behavior.</i></b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>”</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/aims.html">http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/aims.html</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/members.html">http://nichdnet.psych.psu.edu/members.html</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Let’s consider the implications of this NICHD research at Penn State and in so doing, let’s analyze how the use of the new term “DSD” which is a larger class of “disorders” instead of the term “intersex” will broaden the scope of the GIDNOS diagnosis listed above.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>The main objective is to link intersex with autogynephilia</b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" > (often described as a fetish or paraphilia in which the person is sexually excited by the feminization process itself. In other words, some autogynephiles are sexually excited by the same procedures currently used to feminize intersex children because it is the process of becoming a “woman” that sexually excites some of them – sometimes called “forced feminization”).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Just recently the Johns Hopkins publication, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, which was edited by Alice Dreger, included an article by J. Michael Bailey and Kiira Triea which deconstructed the feminine essence narrative with inaccurate information about Dr. Swaab’s research and he was not permitted to point out the flaws in their article. In that same publication, Anne Lawrence wrote an article which compared autogynephilia to romantic love. Was this more of a response to the upcoming assault on DSD which the NICHD is studying as a group of “psychopathologies”? That is, is there an attempt to soften the impact that autogynephilia could have on people with a DSD who reject their assigned gender, by changing the focus away from the feminization surgical process itself (the idea of sexual arousal to the surgical feminization process itself is very disturbing to many intersexed people) so as to invite less criticism about the motivations often given previously in Anne Lawrence’s writings about autogynephilia? In a previous publication, she had compared autogynephilia to an amputation fetish, a very jarring idea to many in the intersexed community, which made many of us wonder why she was so interested in intersex issues.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Presently, people with transsexualism are often said to self diagnose themselves. Many will state that they are transsexual and are gender dysphoric, that they are trapped in the wrong body and have a feminine essence. Clinicians are seen as gatekeepers and clinicians and health providers may disagree on the legitimacy of their condition. Intersexed people, in many cases, will tell the gatekeepers that they got the gender assignment wrong, that they are the other gender, neither gender, or both genders (Two Spirits) or that they are intergender. Without official recognition of this self-defining process which empowers the intersexed person to articulate their own gender identity, they will be stifled and will not feel free to do so because the only “officially recognized” diagnosis will be a paraphilia – homosexual attraction as the motivation for rejecting one’s assignment or autogynephilia, the sexual arousal associated with viewing oneself as the target of one’s sexual attraction.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >It is also important to point out that the request for surgery without hormones or other treatment is becoming popular in trans circles. Requesting surgery in a vacuum makes it seem like the GIDNOS disorder of requesting penectomy or “castration” only.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >I am convinced that one of the main reasons for changing intersex to DSD is because DSD will create a much larger class of people to pathologize as paraphilic (or suffering from a fetish). The researchers and other medical specialists involved will probably try to start with conditions which previously would NOT have been considered as intersex at all but which are now DSD’s, such as cloacal exstrophy, penile ablations (such as the Reimer case) and penile agenesis, cases which include children which have been forcefully assigned as female. Some will be “satisfied” with their forced assignment but others will have serious objections. However, if the objections to forced gender assignments are diagnosed as a sexual fetish or paraphilia, intersex surgeons can never be held responsible for making a wrong assignment based on the argument that the gender did not match that of the child who insists that their "gender" assignment is wrong because there will be NO diagnosis for GENDER identity as the cause. Instead, the experts will say that the person later developed a paraphilia. More so, since they will point to others who didn't have a problem with their assignment.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Next, I would think that they would classify the syndromes which they have been studying and have been frustrated about the most lately, and those are the 3 in which patients are MOST likely (more than surgeons) to request a reassignment. These categories are 5 alpha reductase 2 deficiency, NC-CAH, and 17 Beta HSD 3. There have already been studies on 5 alpha in transsexuals which found that M to F's don't have 5 alpha. Thus, those who wish to reject a male assignment will be labeled as paraphilic, and those who want to live as males will make this appear more justifiable, plus this will fuel their desire against feminizing surgeries Those who virilize at puberty and insist on masculinizing surgeries will be those whom they will seek to find grant money for in order to investigate if autoandrophilia (the counterpart in “females” of autogynephilia) exists. Then, because they have found such a high incidence of NC-CAH in F to M transsexuals, they will likely claim that CAH is similar to F to M transsexualism. Those who wish to live as males will continue to pull in more grant money because they will be more than tomboys: they will be autoandrophilics. Homosexuals would be the only other category.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Here is the progression I see in how DSD is important in reframing intersex as a sexual fetish (or paraphilia).<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >A) M to F TRANSSEXUALS will be the first to be classified as paraphilic. Then-<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >B) "DSD persons" who would not have been called intersex under the LESS inclusive category of intersex, if they reject their gender assignment, will be labeled as paraphilic. Then-<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >C) the conditions which PATIENT initiated gender re-assignment is requested (most common in 5 alpha, CAH, and 17 Beta) will be classified as paraphilic. Then-<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >D) Autoandrophilia will be created for female to male transsexuals.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >E) people who were always considered intersexed, who reject their assignment, will be labeled as paraphilic.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >As a conclusion, consider the fact that Anne Lawrence is on the APA committee which is responsible for gender variance and intersex (DSD) issues. Anne Lawrence is known for her writings which compare transsexualism to an amputee fetish. I personally do not dispute Anne Lawrence’s theory of autogynephilia because there most likely are people who do have a fetish for surgical feminization.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Then consider the fact that Alice Dreger, one of the architects of the new DSD terminology, recommends Anne Lawrence as a speaker on transsexualism and that she is also supporting one of the main proponents of autogynephilia, J. Michael Bailey.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The problem is not autogynephilia per se. It is the conflation of intersex issues (or people with DSD’s) with something unrelated to why many people with intersex variations reject their gender assignment which is problematic.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We in the intersexed and trans community risk ending up in a situation where:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>Surgeons who perform intersex normalization surgeries without the consent of the child will always be right.</i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>Surgeons who offer sex reassignment surgeries to adults with informed consent will always be wrong. </i><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Many stakeholders involved in intersex treatment benefit from this, especially the surgeons and pediatric endocrinologists. Unfortunately, the main victims are the intersexed children themselves.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>A call for a person-centered approach</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >There is a recent surge of surveying reports to find out the probability with which a person with a PARTICULAR DSD will reject their assignment. If they find in their literature searches, for example, that 94% "accept" their assignment and 6% request re-assignment, the probability is used to create a majority/minority balance, where they (the DSD proponents) then create a UNIFORM standard, which discriminates against the minority. The assignment "rejecters" then have a mental disorder, and the majority "rule" actually "rules". It is an artificial paradigm. It reduces people to mathematical formulas<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Probability always involves a gamble. It occurs in medicine all the time. If you are 1 of 20 who has a side effect (a pharmacologically INDUCED illness), then you don't matter. You can't sue, and you are accused of making these side effects up, because they are "insignificant" in the population. This is what can eventually happen to the "insignificant" numbers who reject their assignment. In an era, where there is mounting discussion of pharmacology being tailored to the individual, do we really need to REGRESS with intersex treatment, and play a check/balances, game of probability (Russian roulette)? Such a bullet killed Reimer. Have the medical specialists learned anything from this?. For all of the studies in the literature of outcomes in gender assignment according to specific conditions, they have tried to guess at hormonal exposure to the brain, Prader scales, family approval ratings, timing of surgeries, amount of information given to patient/family, cultural differences in outcomes, but they have failed.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We need to have a new paradigm. Treatment needs to be PERSON centered first, and CONDITION centered, second. At present the DSD paradigm is CONDITION focused – not PERSON focused. Information about conditions are helpful, but can never be made universal. People cannot be fit into cookie cutter categories, based upon probabilities. There are too many variables (people who are unhappy with their assignment don't participate in studies, professionals like "cooperative" patients), etc. and this makes all these surveys suspect.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >To pathologize someone who rejects their gender assignment is no better than to claim that pharmaceuticals don’t cause other diseases or cause side effects. Even Dreger and other DSD proponents should take a lesson from pharmaceutically-induced thalidamide effects.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(185, 24, 6);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Commentary from Michelle O'Brien, OII-UK:</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Thinking about this, and the new Handbook of Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders, whilst DSD is included as background to GID rather than being a 'Sexual Disorder' itself (of the sort concerned about in the book), having DSD stand alongside GID and Sexual Disorders themselves opens up a possibility for the future re-establishment of homosexuality (& bisexuality) as a disorder, maybe a 'Disorder of Sexual Identity' (DSI). So, you would get Sexual Disorders, Disorders of Sexual Development, Gender Identity Disorders, and Disorders of Sexual Identity.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Sexual Disorders would presumably become 'Disorders of Sexual Function' (such as impotence, pain on intercourse, asexual tendencies), or DSF, and Disorders of Sexual Paraphilia (presumably including transsexual autogynephilia as distinct from homosexual transsexualism), or DSP; so, MtF GID would disappear, because HSTS, as a form of homosexuality, would become a type of DSI, and AGP-TS a form of DSP; no doubt FtM GID would become incorporated into either DSI (as an FtM HSTS) or DSF (based on whether there was sexual attraction to women or men - in the latter case this would be a dysfunction rather than a problematic autoandrophilia to match autogynephilia). This then would make GID a redundant category, as all instances of transsexualism would be caught within one or other form of the sexual disorders. This then would leave a neat new taxonomy of all sexual disorders, incorporating intersex and transsexuality, including homosexuality, alongside paraphilia and sexual dysfunction:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >DSD (Disorders of Sexual Development) - the conditions formerly known as intersex<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >DSI (Disorders of Sexual Identity) - the identities formerly known as homosexuality<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >DSF (Disorders of Sexual Function) - problems formerly known as sexual dysfunction<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >DSP (Disorders of Sexual Paraphilia) - perversions formerly known as paraphilias<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Nobody wins in this game, apart from those who make the rules; this scenario is partially hypothetical, although between DSD and Bailey a substantial part of this has begun to be achieved. Maybe I am being a bit paranoid, but to the man-in-the-street, they will all mean one thing - sexual disorders. What such a taxonomy would be based upon is deviation from male-female sexual reproductive norms.<br /><br /></span><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>Why the silence about </b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Christiane.html#anchor_11">Christiane Völling’s case in Germany</a></b></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><b>?</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Her lawsuit is an anti-surgery case that was widely publicized in Europe with articles appearing in many languages throughout the world. There was almost nothing in English except what I translated.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">The reason for the silence among English-speaking experts is very simple. This is about a "</span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/investigation.html">feminine essence narrative.</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">" Christiane Völling was assigned MALE and her female reproductive anatomy was removed without her consent. She has proof of this and presented it in court. She won, but the surgeon is now appealing and the letters from the court still address her as "Herr Völling".<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;"><br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="font-family:Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;color:#000000;">Christiane knows that she is a woman despite her assignment as male. That is the reason there is NO support from Dreger and other DSD activists of this intersex woman who has been subjected to a life of suffering.</span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-36771288744692321582008-03-09T15:19:00.000-07:002008-03-09T17:28:58.122-07:00DSD: Sexism, Classism and Eugenics<div><span class="size12 Helvetica12" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>DSD (Disorders of sex development): a sexist, classist ideology based on eugenics</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >A brief exposé by </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.blogger.com/besos_hermafroditas.html" target="_self">Curtis E. Hinkle</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size8 Helvetica8" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>March 9, 2008</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size8 Helvetica8" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >© 2008<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>1) What is sexism?</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>2) What is eugenics?</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>3) Who controls the definitions?</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>4) Who is fit to be born?</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><i>5) Is our sex a disorder?</i><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>1) What is sexism?</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Sexism can be considered from different perspectives, both intricately related one to the other, one based on discrimination itself and the other on the division of all humans into legal sex categories which is the fundamental tool used to perpetuate and justify the discrimination.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Discrimination against people which is based on their sex assignment as male or female, instead of their individual merits, is sexist. This discrimination is so prevalent in our societies that it appears natural because we assume that the underlying binary division of all people into male and female is also natural, but it is not. Intersex people prove that it is not and it can be argued rather convincingly that the erasure of intersex as a natural sex variation is a result of the basic sexism which is considered normal in our society. Unfortunately, sexism is "normal" because there are medical and legal norms which justify this sexism. However, the fact that it is "normal" does not mean it is natural.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >The most basic form of sexism is the biological essentialism (1) </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >which is used to divide all humanity into just two legal categories - male and female with all deviations defined as pathological and in need of medical intervention to "correct" their sex. There would be no reason to justify this division of all humanity legally and medically into just two categories (2) </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >if we felt there were no fundamental differences between these two categories and there would be no need to pathologize all intersex people as disorders of sex development if this unnatural division of all humanity as male or female were not politically motivated. (3)</span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>2) What is eugenics?</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >"Eugenics is the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)."<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, (c) Random House, Inc. 2006.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics">http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics</a><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Eugenics has a very tragic, racist, classist history. (4)</span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" > The nature of eugenics makes it a political ideology based on definitions of people which divide humanity into those who are fit and those who are unfit. The basic problem is that those who control the definitions are those who have political supremacy over disenfranchised populations. Denying the racist, sexist and classist history of eugenics is dangerous if one honestly wants to understand the political motivations behind eugenic movements.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >In the 20th Century, abortion has been introduced as a tool for eugenic movements. This is very problematic because the conflation of women's rights with eugenics often obscures the underlying racism, sexism and classism involved in the justification of abortion as a eugenic tool. Both sides of this debate overlook the serious dangers and inequalities of women as a class. The pro-choice debate does not emphasize the lack of most women in the world to make a real choice because they are deprived of that power even when abortion is provided and this can often lead to the elimination of female fetuses. The pro-life debate fails to recognize the need for women to control their own bodies and have the right over reproductive decisions concerning their bodies.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Instead of dealing with the serious oppression of people based on race, sex and class, upper middle-class pro-choice models of abortion as the model for feminism assumes that women who are lacking almost all control of their reproductive rights can benefit from such a model. What can often happen is the choice to eliminate females and all deviations from male and female with only male births being favored. (5)</span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>3) Who controls the definitions?</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Those in charge of the definitions which determine who are male and female and whose sex is a genetic defect is a group of predominantly, Euro-centric male medical experts: the </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.lwpes.org/" target="_self">Lawson Wilkins Pediatrics Endocrine Society</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" > along with </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.isna.org/about/vilain" target="_self">Eric Vilain</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" > and </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.isna.org/about/dreger" target="_self">Alice Dreger </a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >both associated with the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). This is the group which is responsible for the </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.gghjournal.com/volume22/4/ab13.cfm" target="_self">Chicago Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" > which redefined intersex as a genetic defect and recommended the new "disorder" terminology with "intersex" being replaced by </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Alice_Dreger_ethics.html#anchor_9" target="_self">"disorders of sex development"</a></span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >. (6)</span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >This same group published the following consensus statement on CAH which recommends surgery on intersex infants between 2 and 6 months of age:<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Consensus Statement on 21-Hydroxylase Deficiency from The Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (Joint LWPES/ESPE CAH Working Group)<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/87/9/4048" target="_self">http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/87/9/4048</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>4) Who is fit to be born?</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Those who are closest to the ones who control the definitions. Let's be honest and stop trying to justify racism, sexism and this abuse of power over us just because those in charge of the definitions are powerful and have great influence around the world. We are not fit to be born because we do not look like them; we do not act like them and we are a threat to their two-sex system which keeps them in a privileged position. They are "fit" simply because they control the definitions of who is fit.<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>5) Is our sex, that is intersex, a disorder?</b><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We in OII firmly reject the idea that our sex is a disorder and we therefore reject the pathological definition of our sex as a "disorder of sex development" or DSD. The real danger and disorders are the racism and sexism which are developing eugenic ideologies and technologies to deal with what are social problems. Instead of empowering and valuing sex variations, the solution is to eliminate us.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Open discussions about the abuse of power by those who control the definitions is one important way to confront the real problem - eugenics, Euro-centric racism and male patriarchal models of power which are at risk of collapse if the current binary male/female dichotomies are not firmly held as sacrosanct.<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We in OII do not accept the current male/female binary categories imposed on all people in most countries as sacrosanct and hope that others will help us confront the political agenda of those who would eliminate us.<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Footnotes:</b><br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(1) "Biological Essentialism: Biological essentialism refers to the idea that men and women are intrinsically different due to some internal essence. Biological essentialists argue that men and women are distinct from one another and that they are opposites. They claim that gender differences aren’t really differences in gender but that they reflect a biologically based difference that is consistent across cultures. Furthermore, biological essentialists stipulate that there is no variation in the expression of biologically essential characteristics."<br /></span></div> <div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Bookstore/2603/NEW261Y_Definitions.html" target="_self">http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Bookstore/2603/NEW261Y_Definitions.html</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(2) Project 1-0-1 intersex<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.101intersex.de/index.php?=SID&sprache=En" target="_self">http://www.101intersex.de/index.php?=SID&sprache=En</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(3) RACISM and SEXISM: A COLLECTIVE STRUGGLE: A MINORITY WOMAN'S POINT OF VIEW By Valerie Russell<br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/racesex/" target="_self">http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/racesex/</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(4) Brief history of eugenics: </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#History" target="_self">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#History</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(5) What Is Gendercide? </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.gendercide.org/" target="_self">http://www.gendercide.org/</a><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div> <div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(6) Alice Dreger and some other women who have great privilege within the two-sex system have played a prominent role in pathologizing sex variations. For more information: </span><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Alice_Dreger_ethics.html" target="_self">click here</a></span></div>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-22446798494584748772008-02-29T04:14:00.000-08:002008-02-29T04:24:54.018-08:00Alice Dreger: The unethical ethicist?<div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >By Curtis E. Hinkle<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >© 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >February 29, 2008<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Alice Dreger, the DSD activist, who bills herself as a bioethicist has over the past few years become mired by one ethical scandal after another. Just to mention a few of her scandals, let me start with what will be one of the major setbacks in intersex history. It was Alice Dreger who was one of the prime movers of the shift from “intersex” to DSD, “disorders of sex development”. She did this by consulting with doctors and determining what worked for them and consulted the intersex community after the change had been made. Quite unethical for an ethicist because there is practically no support for this replacement of the term “intersex” with “disorders of sex development” and the ensuing Consensus Statement (1) which approved this change of terminology which elaborated a set of protocols that are a major setback for intersex people with surgery being recommended between two and six months of age. (2) This was a scandal of historical proportions.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >After controlling intersex activism for over a decade and leaving it in shambles, she decided to move on to transgender activism. And already she is becoming the same divisive “activist” in the transgender movement that she was in the intersex movement. She has begun by taking sides with the gatekeepers of the trans movement, just as she placed herself with the gatekeepers of the intersex community and then left us with a more pathological terminology and set of protocols based on intersex being a genetic defect. (3)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >As she started her trans activism, many of us in the intersex movement saw the same pattern slowly emerge that had been her hallmark within the intersex movement – siding with proponents of a highly problematic, pathological definition of transsexualism and attacking any opponents who resisted the academic and discursive control she was usurping over their own right to self definition and in determining their own sociopolitical agenda without having to contend with another interloper who had no experiential understanding of trans issues.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >All of a sudden she picked a fight with Andrea James and tried to prevent Ms. James from being allowed to speak at the university where Alice Dreger works and alleged she was afraid of Andrea James. It was quite odd that the organization which invited Ms. James to speak at Northwestern University where Dreger works was evidently not frightened by Andrea James. Dreger decided to use the Bush foreign policy model of a pre-emptive strike against anyone who might possibly be viewed as a threat and published “The blog I write in fear” (4) in which she brought up an unfortunate event that had happened a few years ago between her colleague J Michael Bailey and Andrea James. She alleged she was frightened of Andrea and that she should not be allowed to speak at the University. This is the strawman that has been used for years now to silence any discussion of the unethical behavior that Bailey and Dreger have been involved in. Instead of dealing with the facts of their own behavior, anyone who dares discuss the facts is automatically smeared with ad hominem attacks linking them to the serious mistake that Andrea James made a few years ago. Dreger even did this to me when I openly questioned her DSD model as a replacement for intersex. (5) Instead of dealing with what she was doing, Dreger sent out an e-mail alleging that I had teamed up with Andrea James, someone I didn’t know at the time, and warned intersex people that if they were not vigilant, the intersex movement would be destroyed. Well, that was already a fait accompli and it was Dreger who was instrumental in its destruction. Many of us are trying to rebuild and move on.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >We later found out why Dreger was alleging she was so afraid of Andrea James. She was working at the same University as J Michael Bailey and she was writing an article in defense of his unethical behavior and she was going to include Andrea James in that article. It certainly would be good fodder for the article if she could have provoked Andrea to get more dirt on her to include in her upcoming “exposé” of the “facts” to suit her employer, Northwestern University.<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Dreger then published a 60-page tome in defense of her colleague, J Michael Bailey and in that article she once again threw ethics out the window and simply gives Bailey another platform to justify having sex with research subjects: “there is nothing intrinsically wrong or forbidden about having sex with a research subject[….] Some of my colleagues have had sex with their research subjects, because it is not unusual to ask one’s romantic partner to be a subject” (Bailey, 2005).” Rather disturbing ethical standards that Dreger is disseminating in this tome in defense of her colleague. (6)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Finally, someone is challenging Dreger on her ethics and many of us in the intersex community feel it is high time. Robin Mathy has filed ethics complaints with the American Psychological Association against Dreger and Bailey. One of the allegations in the complaint centers on Dreger and Bailey having both expressed that having sex with a research subject is not inherently wrong. Robin Mathy has also filed a complaint with the Illinois Board of Examiners of Psychology against Bailey for allegedly misrepresenting himself as a psychologist. (7)<br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div align="justify"><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >It does appear that Robin Mathy has a lot of facts to substantiate these allegations along with many others. Ethics? Alice Dreger’s ethics seem to be focused on what is best for her career and gaining access to more power, not helping the powerless which she now has a history of dismissing, silencing and abusing.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><b>Notes:</b><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(1) Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/118/2/e488">http://www.pediatrics.org/cgi/content/full/118/2/e488</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(2) This is a quote from the Same group that gave us the Consensus Statement on DSD's.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Consensus Statement on 21-Hydroxylase Deficiency from The Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society and The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Joint LWPES/ESPE CAH Working Group<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Surgery is recommended at age 2-6 months:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >----------------------------------------------------------------------<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >"Once a decision has been made to raise a newborn as female, surgery for those with virilized genitalia caused by CAH is recommended when the patient has a high proximal junction between the vagina and urethra (12, 13). Surgery on infants with ambiguous genitalia requires a high degree of expertise and should only be performed in centers with significant experience. Based on recent clinical experience, the recommended time for surgery is at age 2–6 months; although, at present, this is not universal practice. It is important to note that surgery at this stage is technically easier than at later stages."<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >You can download the complete Consensus Statement on CAH at:<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/reprint/87/9/4048">http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/reprint/87/9/4048</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(3) Alice Dreger: Disorders of Sex Development<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/AliceDreger.html">http://www.intersexualite.org/AliceDreger.html</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(4) “The Blog I Write in Fear”. May 13, 2006.<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://www.alicedreger.com/in_fear.html">http://www.alicedreger.com/in_fear.html</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(5) Email from Alice Dreger to some intersex activists<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://www.intersexualite.org/AliceDreger.html#anchor_26">http://www.intersexualite.org/AliceDreger.html#anchor_26</a><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(6) “In his online self-defense piece, “Academic McCarthyism,” published in October 2005, Bailey countered with this: “her ‘complaint’ is not true. The alleged event never happened. If I ever needed to do so, I could prove this, but there is no reason why I should” (Bailey, 2005). Bailey’s reasoning for why he should not have to prove he didn’t have sex with Juanita was twofold: first, he “insist[ed] that Juanita was not a research subject” when she claimed they had sex; second, “there is nothing intrinsically wrong or forbidden about having sex with a research subject[….] Some of my colleagues have had sex with their research subjects, because it is not unusual to ask one’s romantic partner to be a subject” (Bailey, 2005).”<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Dreger, Alice. 2007. The Controversy Surrounding The Man Who Would Be Queen: A<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Case History of the Politics of Science, Identity, and Sex in the Internet Age. p. 43<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >(7) Debate resumes on methods of psych professor's research by Michael Gsovski<br /></span></div><div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" >Issue date: 2/27/08<br /></span></div><span class="size10 Helvetica10" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-family:Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;" ><a target="_self" href="http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=c6222fa5-96dd-47ee-b912-c58a9874fbdf">http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=c6222fa5-96dd-47ee-b912-c58a9874fbdf</a></span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-76504685448224857632008-01-17T13:22:00.000-08:002008-01-17T13:25:16.534-08:00Against sexists in “Blackface”<span class="postbody">by Curtis E. Hinkle<br />© 2008<br />Translated and adapted from the French<br />French available at:<br /><a href="http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_27" target="_blank">http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_27</a><br /><br />Video depicting blackface performances and iconography and the implications of the commercialization of such stereotypes<br /><object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1kc4EwD5hoA&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1kc4EwD5hoA&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kc4EwD5hoA<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="postbody">Changing one’s body does not necessarily change the identity of the individual in the body. This concept is essential to intersex activism. Otherwise, early surgical interventions on intersex infants would be easier to justify and rationalize.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">Studying intersex in an academic setting does not change one’s identity either.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">I would like to briefly discuss certain sexist tendencies that I do not personally like and I see a lot of commonalities between these particular sexist tendencies and certain elements from the racist history of the United States involving the tradition of performing in blackface.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">I often see intersections between the struggles against racism and sexism. Those who are intersexed, victims of a brutal sexist system which often robs us of both our body and our identity, often need to be aware of the risks of sexist movements and their appropriation of our own visibility because there are many risks involved in our struggle for visibility in a world where we are not allowed to exist as human beings with full human rights.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">This was true of African American slaves also. There were people who felt they had only the best of intentions who ultimately ended up creating some of the most damaging racist elements of American culture which did not help end racism despite all their good intentions. They actually reinforced the very slavery of the individuals they were trying to help by elaborating an artistic representation of stereotypes which are still very deeply rooted in the American consciousness. Images, theatrical performances, and music are extremely effective forms of communication and almost all propaganda is reinforced by an arsenal of iconographic representations which serve to embed the message more concretely than words alone can.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">It is important to point out that I am specifically referring to artistic, academic and exhibitionistic iconographies which are focused on the “freak” body of intersex people and not the personal choices of intersex people themselves concerning their own clothing, what aspects of their own appearance they which to emphasize in a more positive manner or their own conceptualization of the intersexuality. I am specifically limiting this comparison to performances and other iconographic representations, both artistic and academic, which are intended to help those concerned, the intersexed.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">“Performers with their faces blackened with burnt cork or blackface started appearing on the American stage towards the end of the 17th Century; they usually represented servants whose role was only to provide a brief moment of comic relief [1] with the intention nevertheless to make people laugh by mimicking the “Blacks of the Plantation”. It is important to note that the birthplace of the blackface minstrels was not the Deep South but the abolitionist North.” [2]</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">People often mistakenly believe that blackface performances have their roots in the Deep South of the United States. “In 1922 there were still serious debates in the pages of the New York Herald about who were the best actors depicting Black people, Whites or Blacks themselves. And we must remember that the minstrel was born in the anti-slavery environment of the North in the most sophisticated and most cosmopolitan city of America.” [3]</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">Those who started doing these performances were White people who wanted to help slaves and their ideas about Blacks were that they were content, obliging and musical, etc. They started performing in blackface but what they actually ended up doing was the commercialization and marketing of stereotypes intended primarily for the White public who were the consumers of the productions and it was the White public which controlled the market. Ultimately, African Americans themselves started performing in blackface in order to present their own talent to a public which was overwhelmingly White: a reinforcement of their own invisibility.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">In my opinion, the same mechanisms are in play when a person enlarges their clitoris and becomes exhibitionistic and starts talking about intersex issues as if their choice for clitoral enlargement somehow helps them understand intersex issues. The same mechanisms are in play when an academic feels she has the right to help us without even consulting us and who writes protocols full of demeaning terms with an abject focus on genetic defects. These are all stereotypes, whether artistic or academically generated. The important point is that they are NOT generated for and by the people most directly affected, the intersexed themselves.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span><br /><span class="postbody">No matter how much the Whites wanted to help, putting on blackface and speaking for Blacks did not make them Black. It was racist. The same applies to certain help from non-intersexed people. No matter what they do, they are not intersexed and their help often ends up simply reinforcing the iconography of stereotypes already prevalent for intersexed people. Sexism sells just as racism does because the consumers who control the market and the production of stereotypical images, pathological diagnoses, etc. are not us. It is them.</span><br /><span class="postbody"></span></div><span class="postbody"><br />[1] <a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Shakki/Traduc" target="_blank">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilisateur:Shakki/Traduc</a><br /><br />[2] D'Emett Miller à Eminem : Chanteurs blancs, coeurs noirs ?<br /><a href="http://orta.dynalias.org/archivesrouge/article-rouge?id=4460" target="_blank">http://orta.dynalias.org/archivesrouge/article-rouge?id=4460</a><br /><br />[3] Blackface :au confluent des voix mortes par Nick Tosches p. 19<br />Éditions Allia, Paris, 2003.</span><br /><span class="postbody"><br /></span>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-66333839319371894272007-02-19T12:17:00.000-08:002007-02-19T13:12:28.901-08:00Gina Wilson<a href="http://bp3.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RdoHUoIpDkI/AAAAAAAAAAk/gzTvEBGC1pg/s1600-h/Gina.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5033343584492392002" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp3.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RdoHUoIpDkI/AAAAAAAAAAk/gzTvEBGC1pg/s320/Gina.jpg" border="0" /></a> <strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Gina Wilson - OII Support and Outreach Coordinator (Australia)</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br />Gina Wilson was born in rural Victoria in the early fifties with a form of salt wasting CAH and complicated X chromosomes.<br /><br />She survived significant childhood sexual abuse as a result of her (so called) "ambiguous" genital appearance. Her recovery from sex abuse is her greatest achievement.<br /><br />She lived androgynously and isolated for most of her life until she undertook a course of abuse recovery. At about that time she had the last of a series of surgeries that sought to rectify some aspects of her CAH and most of the "corrective" surgery she received as an infant. Her CAH is now mostly controlled .<br /><br />She has a degree in aeronautical engineering and another in electronics. She spent a good deal of her life restoring and flying old areoplanes and specialised in the life of type extension of ex-military jets.<br /><br />She is now retired and devotes much of my time to writing, literature and the visual arts.<br /><br />She met her life partner after she had made some progress in her abuse recovery. (She was able to touch people at last). They have been together for some years now. That would have to be the best thing in her life and has made some sense of all that went before it.<br /><br />She is the primary caregiver of a 96 year old friend and involves herself in some aged care welfare work.<br /><br />She is active with intersex groups, child abuse survivor and child abuse recovery groups, suicide and mental illness awareness and support groups.OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-88335254085327541532007-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:002007-01-25T09:09:24.148-08:00OII-USA member, David Cameron, and his partner Peter featured in film<strong>"One in 2000"</strong> is a 26-minute piece that is being sent out to several festivals. The producer and artist of this film also hopes to distribute it either through the educational circuit or perhaps PBS or cable access stations.<br /><br />See below for festival showings in your area.<br /><br />If you have any <strong>suggestions as to other venues</strong> to send it, please inform <strong>Ajae,</strong> the producer, by writing directly to her at the following address:<br /><a href="mailto:aclearway@austin.rr.com">aclearway@austin.rr.com</a><br /><br /><strong>PREVIOUS FESTIVALS:</strong><br /><br /><strong>TEXAS</strong><br />Cinematexas<br />September 20-24, 2006<br /><a href="http://www.cinematexas.org">www.cinematexas.org</a><br />Austin, TX<br /><br /><strong>AGLIFF</strong><br />Austin Gay Lesbian International Film Festival<br />September 29-October 8<br />Austin, TX<br /><a href="http://www.agliff.org">www.agliff.org</a><br />Part of "Black & White" program<br />"One in 2000" screening<br />2:40 PM, Oct 7, 2006<br />Regal Arbor Cinema<br /><br /><strong>CALIFORNIA</strong><br />Mill Valley Film Festival<br />October 5-15, 2006<br /><a href="http://www.mvff.com">www.mvff.com</a><br /><br /><br /><strong>ARKANSAS</strong><br />Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival<br />October 20-29, 2006<br /><a href="http://www.hsdfi.org">www.hsdfi.org</a><br /><br /><strong>INTERNATIONAL</strong><br />NextFrame Film Festival<br />(UFVA) University Video Association's Touring Festival of<br />International Student Film & Video<br />"One in 2000" wins 1st Place in Documentary Program<br /><a href="http://www.temple.edu/nextframe/">www.temple.edu/nextframe/</a>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-58381938513800906992007-01-24T16:38:00.000-08:002007-01-24T16:41:00.738-08:00Three intersex activists defend children against pejorative terminologyThree intersex activists who were included in the manual of the DSD guidelines have now made it clear that they do not agree with the new terminology. When they agreed to have their experiences and intersex histories included, they were not fully informed of the actual terminology nor all the implications of the publications of the Consortium for the Management of Disorders of Sex Development.<br /><br />We in OII-USA wish to express our deep gratitude to David Cameron, Peter Trinkl and Esther Morris Leidolf for their courageous stand against this pejorative terminology. What they have done is very powerful and helps all of us in our struggle to live openly and without shame. They worked to help change the current health care of intersex children but have the courage to make their feelings known about this terminology which is consistent with their reason for agreeing to participate in the first place. You can read the disclaimer which is now in the web version of the DSD guidelines.<br /><br />Excerpt from the DSD Guidelines:<br /><br /><strong><em>“We are grateful for the participation of David Cameron, Peter Trinkl, and Esther Morris Leidolf in this project. However, they would like to make it known that they do not support the term “Disorders of Sex Development.”</em></strong><br /><br />To read the excerpt in context:<br /><a href="http://www.dsdguidelines.org/htdocs/parents/acknowledgements.html">http://www.dsdguidelines.org/htdocs/parents/acknowledgements.html</a>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-7274671715720858002007-01-24T16:32:00.000-08:002007-12-07T01:52:12.486-08:00OII-USA Spokesperson for Human RightsDavid Cameron attended his first ISNA support group meeting in 1995 and within the year became ISNA’s first volunteer! He served as a board member from Dec. ’02 through Dec. ’05. As a person with XXY sex chromosomes, David has written about his experience in <a href="http://www.isna.org/library/hwa">Hermaphrodites with Attitude</a>, <a href="http://www.isna.org/books/chrysalis">Chrysalis</a>, and Alice Dreger’s book <a href="http://www.isna.org/books/ageofethics">Intersex In the Age of Ethics</a>.<br /><br />As an adult, David was hormonally masculinized by testosterone therapy without his “informed” consent.He served as an appointed member to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission LGBT Advisory Committee and was a member of their Intersex Task Force. This Task Force was the first governmental organization in the U.S. to organize a <a href="http://www.isna.org/videos/sf_hrc_hearing">public hearing</a> on intersex treatments that involve gender assignments. After the historic hearing in May 2004, the Task Force developed the <a href="http://www.isna.org/files/SFHRC_Intersex_Report.pdf">Intersex Report</a>, with findings and recommendations, and was adopted by the Human Rights Commission in May 2005.<br /><br />David lives in San Francisco with his domestic partner, Peter, whom he met in 1978.<br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b><u><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Chronology of David Cameron’s Intersex Human Rights Activism</span></u></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">1995 – Attended first ISNA emotional support group – learned that Klinefelter’s Syndrome is an intersex variation via Cheryl Chase. Wrote article for "Chrysalis"and ISNA newsletter "Hermaphrodites with Attitude." Attended KS&A Conference in <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Baltimore</st1:city></st1:place>. They refused to call Klinefelter's syndrome an intersex condition and wouldn't discuss gender variant issues.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"> </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">1996 – Joined Cheryl, Suegee and others giving a panel presentation to the Human Rights Commission’s LGBT Advisory Committee on our intersex issues. Was interviewed by Alice Dreger for a book (in my backyard).</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">1996 to 1998 – Became Cheryl’s first volunteer to create ISNA, took over and led support group, began volunteering in ISNA offices on Fulton and Mission Streets answering letters and sending out requested information, etc. Wrote Chapter 8 in <u>Intersex and the Age of Ethics.</u></span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2000-2001 – Appointed by SF Board of Supervisors to serve on Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force (TGCRITF) as an intersex person. Ms. Chase writes letter of recommendation. I’m able to educate and remove intersex from Transgender umbrella. HRC agrees that intersex is it’s own umbrella term.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2002 – Joined working group of HRC LGBTAC on “Gender Identity” issues as a community member. Present another panel to LGBTAC with Hida Viloria on intersex issues. Join ISNA Board of Directors.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2003 – Joined Ms. Chase, Thea Hillman, Ben Lunine (HRC intern) to speak at SF Human Rights Commissioners meeting on intersex. Commissioners call for hearing.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Sacramento</span></b></st1:place></st1:city><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"> Bee staff writes article announcing hearing.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Early 2004 – Appointed to HRC LGBTAC as their first intersex member. Intersex Task Force created (intersex community and transgender members volunteer to serve) with intention of creating public hearing on intersex issues with SF Human Rights Commissioners. This occurs on May 27 for 4 hours in room 416 at <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">San Francisco</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">City Hall</st1:placetype></st1:place>. My Domestic Partner, Peter Tannen, and I make donation to “Friends of the HRC” to pay SFGTV to film proceedings for visual public record. Intersex Task Force continues to work with Marcus Arana (HRC staff) to write Intersex Report with “Findings and Recommendations” to hopefully be implemented. </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">April 2005 – Intersex Report adopted by Commissioners and HRC sends out Press Release. Only one newspaper responds with brief article. SF Board of Supervisors pass resolution announcing “Intersex Awareness Day” as October 26<sup>th</sup>. Supervisor Bevan Dufty’s office sponsors.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Late 2005 –Hand deliver 3 Intersex Reports and letter requesting meeting with Assemblyman Mark Leno’s office. Phone calls/emails go unanswered. Contacted NCLR, Equality <st1:place st="on"><st1:state st="on">California</st1:state></st1:place> and Lambda Legal for support on report’s “Recommendations.” Get none. Phone requests and emails not answered. Left ISNA Board of Directors at end of year. Discovered Lambda Letters Project (LLP)on the web. Become member as they include <i><u>Intersex</u></i> in their LGBTI legislative issues section.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2006 – Contacted Supervisor Bevan Dufty’s office for assistance on implementing <u>Intersex Report’s </u>recommendations. Referred to his staff. Take administrative aide, Rachelle McManus, out to lunch and give her copy of report. Was told she would read recommendations and get back to me. Still haven't heard. Phone calls/emails go unanswered. Article (by me) published in Lambda Legal e-news as requested by former ISNA intern Mary Keiterborn. Help ISNA review Guidelines for Clinicians and Handbook for Parents. Request that they change name from Disorders of Sex Development to Variations of Sex Development. ISNA adopts DSD language. In fall, Peter Trinkl and I attend LLP Board of Directors meeting at Shriner’s Hospital in Sacramento. Wrote article for Bay Area Reporter on “Being Different and Fitting In.”</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Dec. 2, 2006 – Howard Devore, Anne Tamar-Mattis, Peter Trinkle and I meet with LLP’s chief lobbyist, Boyce Hinman in San Francisco to discuss Intersex issues and how to move them forward with state legislation. Show “XXXY” and “One in 2000” to further educate Boyce on our issues. He suggests that we start with a hearing at a State Health Committee meeting, chaired by Shiela Khuel. Can not gather enough local support for this to happen.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Dec. 5, 2006 – Peter Trinkl and I met with HR Commissioners Dunlap and Chung, and HRC staff Marcus Arana and Larry Brinkin to lobby adding intersex to the LGBTAC name (after spending two years doing everything they asked us to do). Request was denied. </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">October 2006 - Organized an intersex panel for Cancer Conference (part of the larger GLMA conference) in San Francisco. Had Milton Diamond and Max Beck flown in to participate.</span></strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">October 2006 - Hosted <u>first</u> ever "Hermaphrodites with Attitude" 10-year anniversary party in my home. Mani Bruce Mitchell (from new Zealand) helped organize the gathering. Many intersex people and their supporters attend.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Interviewed by Catherine Harper for her book, <u>Intersex.</u></span></strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Feb. 18, 2007 – meeting in SF with LLP and community members canceled because of need to interface with Intersex Roundtable outcomes. Attend 3-day roundtable, representing Organization Intersex International as their Intersex Human Rights Spokesperson. Future legislation nixed by attendees of roundtable. Feb. 20<sup>th</sup> last meeting as member of the Human Rights Commission's LGBTAC. </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2007 Joined advisory board for the Institute for Intersex Children and the Law. Name changed to Advocates for Informed Choice (Summer ’07). </span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">2007 Fall - became Intersex Outreach Director for Marriage Equality <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Will try to educate them beyond the 2 sex/2 gender system they tend to reinforce.</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;">Since starting my intersex activism 13 years ago, I have spoken to numerous pre-med students, church groups, schools, and other venues on my experience as an intersex person with a sex chromosome variation and plan to continue to do so.</span></strong><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:black;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-44212315585776608702007-01-23T08:40:00.000-08:002007-01-23T09:12:09.383-08:00Book by OII-USA board member<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RbZAbn7EwyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/oPEFjAFzgGw/s1600-h/All+Points+in+between.gif"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5023273277695771426" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RbZAbn7EwyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/oPEFjAFzgGw/s320/All+Points+in+between.gif" border="0" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div>Taylor Holder, OII-USA board member from North Carolina and founder of the non-profit organization, <a href="http://all-pointz.com/">All-Pointz.com</a>, has written a very interesting book dealing with intersex and gender. For more information, please visit <a href="http://all-pointz.com/">All-Pointz.com</a> or <a href="http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9780595399277&itm=1">Barnes and Noble</a>.</div>OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-468249580553896046.post-53473078021028312042007-01-23T08:14:00.000-08:002007-01-23T08:25:21.442-08:00Introducing Tom Odegard/Ms.G<a href="http://bp2.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RbY2pn7EwxI/AAAAAAAAAAM/_qCps6BVvRQ/s1600-h/Tom+Odegard.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5023262523097662226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_JkFVraZpQYo/RbY2pn7EwxI/AAAAAAAAAAM/_qCps6BVvRQ/s320/Tom+Odegard.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Tom and Ms. G - XXY and 65 before this was confirmed by a very expensive test. Prior to that s/he simply knew s/he was two or perhaps as the Hindus would have it, Tat tvam asi, I am that. S/he was born and raised male by parents and doctors who were unaware of hir genetic and psychic "Two Spirit" state.<br /><br />Graduated UC Davis 1963 - BA English - '65 teaching major Drama - Teaching Internship UCB 1969 - boatbuilder - handyman - jack/jill of many trades - married '63 - divorced '80 - married 83 and continuing - Holistic Health Practitioner Certificate CA in 84. Poet since1980 - writing creatively since 1952 after realizing how few "real" facts there are in the world.OII: http://www.intersexualite.org/http://www.blogger.com/profile/00154389642578705000noreply@blogger.com0