Media for social change

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When medics use the best possible techniques for determining “real” sex, they get it wrong 1 time in 10.

The average is 1 time in 3.

When they do get it wrong, the patient is diagnosed as mentally ill for stubbornly insisting that the sex they were surgically re-assigned to is incorrect.

There are several competing priorities: the first is to not upset society by having a child look different. This can lead to the child being persecuted when young. The second is to not upset the parents, who may reject and maltreat a child who looks different. The third is to end up with a child whose body is functional.

In order to reliably achieve the third aim, there must be a period of 3-7 years wait until the child can tell us what sex they are. Some children are bigendered, able to function in either gender role. Most are not, and so if you arbitrarily assign a sex at random, you end up with a bad result slightly less than 50% of the time. About 1 in 3.

However, without immediate surgery, the child may suffer rejection and abuse from the parents and society at large.

The obvious therapy is to change societal attitudes and provide therapy for the parents rather than surgically mutilate infants. This however has been deemed too hard, or would take too long. It’s easier to just castrate the kids, and after all, most turn out OK. The rest you can just label insane, and disregard them.

Doctors have seen far too many abused and rejected children, and wish to prevent that. They’re not monsters, they’re trying to do what they think is best… except that they have visceral revulsion of children who look different too, so are not objective.

Having been a child whose ambiguous genitalia was ‘changed’ to suit others I am deeply offended that our condition should be listed as a disorder rather than as a not so rare sexual medical condition we accept as ‘Intersex’.
But then I find the reasoning for the disorder imposition as a continuing advancement of cruelties from those like Zucker and others who see everything in sexual perspectives even when foisted upon the intersex and the transsex as well.
We all seem to be freaks whom he seems to see as but stage characters.

Medicalisation of the Intersex person serves very little purpose other than create stereotypes however well meaning a given individual medical doctor and allied worker may be. The end result of which is often highly questionable.
Where the intersex person becomes the object for rearrangement built on old paradigms that a human being is either purely ‘male’ or ‘female’ is flawed, even the definitions of what a ‘male’ or ‘female’, ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, ‘man’ or ‘woman’ are not conclusive. At best they are but a generic term with various meanings depending upon those who perceive them and from the angle that they are coming from.

If a female for an example, is only a person who can give birth to a child in utero , what happens if a person who is unable to give birth to a child with uterus. It is possible that in the future a human uterus may not be required as such; thus the whole process be attained external to the human body but at present this is certainly not the norm though research undoubtedly is going on. What then will be the definitions of any given person being able or otherwise to have a child or not and what degree is a person a person who is able to give birth to a child external or internal to their own bodied landscape.

The sad aspect to all is that the person who is intersex is subjected to make overs that are not often congruent to the person within the framework of their reality. Instead they are expected to conform to stereotypical versions of what an ideal human being is supposed be or to look like regardless of karyotype. It appears that looks are more important than the person within when we are all different to one another whosoever we are. However there appears to be a set of rules not unlike that which has been attributed to the Nazis, where others before and since who require a certain configuration that is in accord to the wishes of controlling forces, if we(the intersex) are to be an acceptable part of the human race. Whereas this is a very tough analogy, it is said for the simple reason that making a person fit stereotypes is not a good idea however well intentioned or otherwise a primary health care provider may be. It actually defeats the objective of those who are doing what they say is for the good of the child. In actuality, it is not just the medical fraternity but also much is to do with societal expectations and whether or not the parents have been led to believe is the correct way to go. That is, it is also to do with ‘societal norms’ whereby the fear of looking beyond the horizon of an accepted concept cannot be challenged to reveal new ways of perceiving what any given individual may be… with or without their differences and whether they are allowed to remain with their variations where it does not affect their well being and overall health with informed choice to do so.

Whereas no-one is denying that any person should receive medical and any other help that is required where it is life threatening rather than that which is based on social mores or that which is considered the norm. What is normal for one may not be considered normal or acceptable by another depending upon anyone’s given perspective. The essence lies in the person whose future one is supposed to be helping and offering an opportunity if they wish it, to go ahead without being subjected to surgeries and or hormonal replacement therapies without due consent. That is where they are in cognizance of the facts that will ultimately change their lives forever or if not likely severely transform aspects of them from which there is little or no escape. For otherwise it is undertaken without due consent and thus may well be a decision that will adversely affect the lives of those who are subjected to the norms of another, not necessarily that which they actually would have wished for.

An assumption is only an assumption and to presume that a given individual will be happy with the outcome is the height of naiveté and if not, it is akin to social conformity to fit an outdated paradigm without looking at the whole picture and the changing landscape of life.

It would be far wiser to educate the whole of society that there are people who are not so rare as one assumed was the case before who are intersex; that they are here amongst all in far greater numbers that one thought previously. That they are as normal as most people are with some or more differences where most are not life threatening nor bizarre – just different or what could be termed biosex variations rather than disorders which are disparaging terms. Not unlike those which were attributed to many who suffered before and during the Second World War and others since for no good reason. It is a needless exercise for a number of medicos to continue to advocate for an alliance that is built on a very shaky accord. That is a pact set up by what in the end appears to be self serving group of experts and thus silence any opposition to the facts and reality of those in the lived experience of being intersex or similarly predisposed or who have offered other points of views. Silencing any given individual is akin to a camouflaging the intent to help or disavowing of other points of view in fear of being found inconclusive and lacking in substance. The intent to help being subverted by the very people who are advocating it, instead of listening to those who are in the lived reality and who are offering their experiences to attain better outcomes for all who are both intersex and their fellow humans in society overall.

Intersex is nothing to be feared by anyone anymore than the whole of humankind in its plethora of differences. Those of us who are intersex are as normal as any other might be with or without our differences or variations just as everyone is in one way or another. We who are intersex are as much a part of the human race as everyone else with what should be equal choices in our destinies and not subjected to treatment where we have little or no say within.

© Chris S xxy - email letter – October 2009

When I teach Gender Identity workshops the crowd always asks me, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a test to determine Girl or Boy at birth”. My question back is, “Wouldn’t it be great if it didn’t matter!”

Hi Michelle,

I love your attitude. I agree. A society which was not truly sexist would not be so concerned about this, often to the point of totally altering children with the idea they are helping them.

Kind regards,
Curtis

I’m deeply offended as an intersex person when groups like OII who sexualize the intersex people and turn intersex conditions from a pure medical to something of sex and gender in nature. What I am offended of is when people like OII who make intersex people look like their a sexual group and a sexual identity instead of a medical condition. So frankly, OII dose not speak for every intersex person.

I disagree with Nicky. His accusations are totally baseless. Anyone can search the OII website, and find out what OII stands for, and see how untrue his claims are.

As for the III World Congress Hypospadias and Disorders of Sex Development, I am disappointed at Toronto and the Sick Kids hospital for sponsoring this travesty.

I am writing this on behalf of all the intersex children who have been mutilated by non-consensual cosmetic “normalization” surgeries. This is a gross violation of these children’s rights to self determination, the right to determine the direction of their lives for themselves. The secrecy with which these surgeries are done, and the hiding of the fact that these children are born intersexed is extremely damaging to these children. Do the doctors think we won’t notice the scars? Do they think we will forgive the lies when we eventually find out what was done to us?

These children are operated on, and their sex is assigned by doctors who have no idea of what sex is the child’s true identity. The parents are told to raise the child in the assigned sex and never tell the child they are intersexed.

I was one of these children. My life was made miserable by this, and I have much anger and resentment over the mutilation I suffered, and the secrecy by which my being intersexed was kept from me. I am not alone in this either. There are many intersex people who feel the same way as I. I was raised as a male, but my identity is female.

The current faulty mindset in the medical community is that the decision of the surgeons is always the correct one. We, the victims, are blamed for not accepting our assigned sex. Well, I was too young to be asked who I was at the time, and that is a tragedy. The children never get the chance to have any say in what is done to them for purely cosmetic reasons. The devastating effects of these surgeries can never be undone.

As you can see from the number of comments, we’re not talking about a mere handful of people whose lives were blighted by the non-consensual surgery performed on them when they were infants. It’s one in 3.

Please stop it.

This has to stop. Medics must be made aware of the harm they’re doing. The hypothesis - for there was never any evidence - that children are all psych-sexually neutral at birth - has been comprehensively disproven - both by autopsies, MRI scans, and the narratives of those whose assignment was incorrect.

You see, someone has to help pick up the pieces. I’m Intersexed, but wasn’t surgically altered. I know far, far, far too many who were though.

That’s why OII has no standing with intersex medical condition groups in America. OII is purely a sex and gender based intersex group. Their main focus is sex and gender side of being born intersex and not the medical side of the intersex. OII doesn’t speak for every intersex in America because most intersex groups in America regard OII as a sexual and gender based intersex group and as such, they treat OII as one of those groups like the LGBT.

Also, if you want to see where OII wants to take intersex, look to the UK and see what AISSGUK is up against when you you have people who want to sexualize and make an intersex condition look like another sexual identity and sexual label.

Hi Nicky,

Nicky, I am old enough to be your grandpa. Sexualize people? I don’t think so. I feel that you and your friends, Cantor and Zucker, are probably projecting your own sexualized ideas onto OII and me.

OII is diverse, international and anyone who wants to see what our official position are can read them.

http://www.intersexualite.org/English-Offical-Position.html

Curtis,
Oh please, OII is nothing more than a Sex and gender intersex group, plain and simple. Their is nothing medical about sex and gender which you and your OII gang seem to perpetuate around the intersex community. You and your kind seem to peddle the idea that intersex is a sex and gender issue rather than a pure medical issue.

That’s why no intersex group in America takes OII seriously because OII is a JOKE in America. The fact is, you and your OII gang are projecting your own views of what it means to be intersex and it sure ain’t medical.

Oh really, your so called diversity. More like PC crap and more like the fact that you can’t take dissenting views and those you don’t like or agree with. Your Groups diversity means crap because the way you treat intersex people, is hardly diversity in itself. It’s more like dissing and pissing on those who don’t agree with your crap.

http://kallmannssyndrome.wordpress.com/2009/09/30/is-organisation-intersex-international-relevant-in-america/

Who ever you are Nicky and whom ever you represent your protest against OII is plain crazy. Doctors creating vaginas in infants to make a female that must then be dilated daily for years, or removing a micro-penis, or sewing up a possible vagina, are sexualizing their patients far more than leaving well enough alone. Further, these surgeries invariably reduce sensation where they occur and these babies grow into adults who often cannot have a sex life.

Sexulized children are those who are photographed by doctors annually, (until they refuse at age 14 or older),talked about by groups of doctors and residents as though they were not present, and put on so-called “private” forums for other doctors to study. This sort of “research” beggars belief. It suggests to me a form of pedophilia sanctioned by society because it is conducted by people with degrees in medicine or psychiatry.

Furthermore these same doctors instill great fear in intersex children’s parents suggesting that these children will be “gay” or “trans”. Intersex is not a disorder and it is not an orientation, it is a variation in human possibilities. All species are varied it is their ticket to evolutionary adaptability, to deny humanity the same adaptive possibilities is at best short-sighted if not plain dangerous.

Tom/Ms.G xxy plus des

I am an intersex person and I am not fond of OII plain and simple. OII to me is just a sex and gender org and they are primarily a sex and gender based intersex group unlike AISSGUK which is a medical based intersex. I see OII treat people who are intersex as if they are a sexual group and a sexual identity.

The fact is OII mistreats intersex people and makes intersex people within OII feel like their a sexual gender, a sexual minority and makes their intersex condition feel as if its a sexual label rather than a medical condition. OII plainly sexualizes being intersex and reduces intersex people to a sexual fetish and a sexual label that anyone can lay claim without ever being intersex born intersex and intersex at birth.

The fact is that OII is making intersex people’s lives very hard because of their inclusion of people who aren’t intersex born intersex and intersex at birth. They make their lives so bad that parents of intersex babies and kids are shoved and forced into the operating table. All because their parents are afraid that their intersex baby and intersex kid will grow up to be either gay or trans.

You can thank OII for scaring parents of Intersex kids and babies because OII included people who are not intersex and as a result, they are scaring parents into shoving their kids into the operating room and forcing surgery on these intersex kids and babies. All because people who are not intersex are scaring parents of intersex kids and babies.

I am someone who has gone through transsexual treatments late in life. I was diagnosed with a mysterious genital condition in adolescence that my primary care physician told my mother would require surgery. I have listened to Nicky’s hate speak for a couple of years. I have watched him attack other people with transsexual backgrounds many times. You are referring to people like me, Nicky. It is people like you who are responsible for me having my past completely obscured.

There are people who are transsexual, Nicky. Some of us don’t know why. We know it isn’t a choice. Some of them, like me, have biological features that may involve secondary sex characteristics and genital characteristics that cause us to develop in an atypical way. Once we enter an abusive medical program and seek the hormone treatments and the surgery we do, are we supposed to give up all right to know about our medical history and our rights to have questions about our bodies answered?

I blame people like you, Ken Zucker, Ray Blanchard, Alice Dreger, et al for the fact that my medical treatment has been so poor. My estradiol levels are now three times the high end of the reference ranges for a menstruating woman. No one gives a flying care if I throw a clot and have a stroke. Doctors don’t have time for people like me. I started my treatment program with a doctor who was only interested in suppressing my testosterone, as if I were someone in a prison program. I wonder what would have happened to me in adolescence if I had the surgery I was diagnosed as needing then, without ever knowing what was going on with my body or what the implications would be for me later in life. I wonder if I would have been the kind of disposable guinea pig I am now if my parents had the insurance to afford the treatment my primary care doctor recommended I have.

You are not transsexual, Nicky. No one who knows anything about people who are transsexual would ever mistake you for someone who is. I am not exactly sure that is what I am but I do know I have a better life thanks to my surgeon only because I had an opportunity to sort out what my true feelings are without having someone decide for themselves what they should be. Transsexualism is just a word invented by someone not very long ago. If you are so concerned about parents throwing their babies on operating tables why don’t you denounce what is going on at this conference? If people like me don’t have anything related to an intersex variation then no one has to worry about people growing up to be like me, now, do they?

Oh please….That’s the biggest cop out that I have ever heard of. I have watched so many people like you who think they know better about intersex people and claim to know so much, that they know jack. It’s people like Edith and Curtis who make intersex people’s lives so rough.

The fact is transsexual is not biological and stop peddling that dogma of yours because it gets old pretty quick and no one ever believes your so called dogma. Oh and let’s not forget how many times transsexual people think they are hollier than thou and claim to think they know better about intersex people. When in reality they know crap and all their claims are crap.

Their are people who are intersex born intersex and intersex at birth. Their are people who are intersex and the fact is intersex is not something they choose. They are born intersex and intersex people didn’t have a choice in being born intersex when they in the womb for 9months. The fact is intersex is a medical condition, not some sexual or gender identity that some people can take and use.

I blame transsexuals like you for co-opting, invading and claiming to speak up for intersex people, when you are not intersex to begin with. That’s because intersex people have it so rough because so many transsexuals like you who claim to speak for intersex and claim to be intersex when your not proven intersex and don’t have the shared history, upbringing and experience as an intersex person. It’s also because transsexuals have put the fear into parents of intersex kids and babies so badly, that your kind have scared them into the operating room and forcing needless and very traumatic surgeries on intersex kids and babies. Ruining the lives of intersex kids, babies and possibly causing psychological and physical harm for life. All because you transsexuals have put the fear and scare into the parents of intersex kids and babies.

You Edith are not a transsexual. You do not know jack on what it means to be born intersex from birth. You do not know what it means to live, grow up and go through life as an intersex born intersex person.

No Nicky,

I said I am transsexual. What does any of this have to do with Curtis? I have a right to speak for myself. You don’t know what I am talking about. Do you? I don’t have any idea what it is like to be you. I have a right to be me, however.

I have waited all my life to understand what my mother and aunt were talking about within earshot of me when I was twelve years old. You were not there. I still don’t know what they were talking about. That is what makes me transsexual.

This has nothing to do with Curtis or anyone from OII. I am not part of that organization. I am very upset about the misinformation you have spread about people like me. We should not be treated like animals. I wouldn’t have come near this thread if it weren’t for you.

As usual, we are followed by the Zucker-Cantor Komododragon, Nicky, to show the real face of free speech, diversity and tolerance.

Thanks for the lessons you teach us, Nicky.

Kind regards,
Curtis

The fact is Edith, you don’t have any right to speak on behalf of intersex people because your not an intersex born intersex and an intersex at birth person. You don’t share any experience, upbringing and history as an intersex person.

As for Curtis, You can only dream all the freedoms that I as an American have that you don’t. I have freedom of Speech and freedom of Press. I have life liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the United states of America that everyone around the world envies so much.

That’s why your OII gang in America is treated like any other LGBT group and not a medical group because of your inclusion of people who are born intersex and intersex people at birth.

For all those who are not aware of history, Nick was kick-banned from OII because of his hate-speech. He was removed from GendersNX (GNX) for the same reason. He has been banned from posting on Bodies Like Ours (BLO), again for the same reason.

Most recently he was directly responsible for having another OII board member’s blog shut down - solely due to complaints over his hate speech in her comments section.

He will now launch into a hate attack on me. Frankly I couldn’t care less. He is predictable, repetitive, inarticulate. Other people work hard for universal rights. Nick (Komododragon) is dedicated to the prevention and denial of such rights.

However, He needs to consider his freedom of speech argument. Speech has never been totally free. There are, for example proscriptions enshrined in the common law tort of defamation and Libel. Nick has already far overreached himself apropos those proscriptions. He lives in a very litigious nation. He is not beyond the reach of the common law

I sort of wonder about conferences where they do “Live interactive surgery on children with DSD.” almost as a sort of entertainment for surgeons. Can any society rightly claim to be progressive or humane with that sort of thing going on? When you consider the consequences of such surgery in terms of medical complications and in terms of how the individual may feel about it as they grow.
It is not really appropriate for the organizers of the conference to approach the issues in such a cavalier manner.

My view is that some of these surgeons are wilfully causing harm under the pretense of “Doing good”. Many intersex groups, like the AISSG and OII have objected to the use of non consenting children in textbooks (Photos with only the eyes blanked out etc). So what do we find? In Toronto they take it to ever more disgusting levels of clinical depravity, by having “Live interactive surgical videos”. IHSID have crossed the ethical line by doing controversial and potentially harmful surgeries, on non consenting children to pretty much entertain a cabal of doctors who in many respects can appear to be little more than glorified child abusers. I think a number of practicing surgeons and doctors should be scratched off the medical register in Canada. It is as simple as that. The city of Toronto should feel ashamed.

” Nicky said:The fact is that OII is making intersex people’s lives very hard because of their inclusion of people who aren’t intersex born intersex and intersex at birth. ”

I am someone who was directly helped by OII being there and specifically Curtis. My life got better, i was able to understand what had always been hidden from me thanks to the support and caring of Curtis so you Nicky, with your hatred of everything good and honest, with your vile attitude, go away, no one likes you and no one ( except your cronies ) listen to your illogical and repetitive rants.

What will happen in Toronto is an act of savagery against intersex bodies and should not be allowed to occur. I’m wondering if notifying the police about these goings on would at least promote and investigation that could shine more light of these projected mutilations. This sort of thing happened to me as a child and even my parents were basically unaware of the reasons why. I would like to see this not happen because i still remember the pain it caused me all throughout my life.

Good people do good deeds and are loved by those who know them; Curtis my dear friend, you are indeed loved by so many.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for this great discussion. Obviously this is an issue that touches everyone and has been shamefully under-represented in the media. I hope that this comment section will give people the opportunity to share information and insights with each other.

However, if comments become in anyway personal attacks or border on hate speech (which is a crime in Canada) we will be forced to delete them–this is not something we want to resort to.

Sincerely yours,
Laura

Nicky wrote:

“The fact is that OII is making intersex people’s lives very hard because of their inclusion of people who aren’t intersex born intersex and intersex at birth. They make their lives so bad that parents of intersex babies and kids are shoved and forced into the operating table. All because their parents are afraid that their intersex baby and intersex kid will grow up to be either gay or trans.”

This statement has so many false assumptions, that it is difficult to know where to begin. One assumption is that OII makes the lives of intersex children difficult. I seriously doubt that a significant number of intersex children have mastered the art of reading, or have read the OII website before being subjected to non-consensual infant genital surgery. This claim shouId be empirically documented. I suggest that Nicky ask the organizers of the Toronto conference if the conference surgeries will be performed with the full informed consent of the intersex children. While Nicky is at it, he can ask if any of the intersex children scheduled for surgery have had a chance to read the OII website, and what they thought about it.

Another false assumption is that OII makes intersex people’s lives very hard, and as a result, “intersex babies and bids are shoved and forced into the operating table”. The massive surgical project of normalizing the appearance of intersex children started shortly after the Second World War. This was about 50 years before the creation of OII. To my knowledge, there is no empirical evidence that surgeons have increased the rate of infant genital surgeries because of the human rights message of OII that is opposed tonon-consensual genital surgeries. Even if there was a documented increase, it would be more akin to people increasing the rate of genocide because they fear that the United Nations might put a stop to the killing. I do believe that people should be careful about assuming an intimate knowledge of infant genital surgery, when they have not had it.This applies to anyone who did not have infant genital surgery, It applies to Nicky, as well as anyone else. I believe that Nicky is claiming a personal exemption from this principle. As a person who underwent infant genital surgery, I resent Nicky butting in on the issue of infant genital surgery.

Another false assumption is that OII reinforces the message that intersex children will become transsexual if they are not subject to infant genital surgery. I am not sure where Nicky came up with this one.
My parents never once mentioned that they performed the infant genital surgery on me to prevent me from becoming transsexual. My parents performed infant genital surgery on me because I had ambiguous genitals, and that they wanted them to appear like the genitals of other children. It was about normalizing my bodily appearance. Later in life, my father did express extreme anger that I was an intersex activist, and wondered if being an intersex activist meant that I was a transsexual. He apparently had a fear that I had come to believe that my sex assignment was the wrong one. There is a rational seed to this fear, and it is best not to perform non-consensual infant genital surgery on intersex children, but rather let the intersex child grow up, and make their own decisions about normalizing surgery. Nicky has this all backwards. Its not the fear of having a transsexual child that drives parents to seek normalizing surgeries. Rather any such fears seem to be based on the lifelong lingering doubt, that once a child has been surgically assigned a sex, that the sex assignment might have for the wrong sex. If this troubles parents, it should.

Peter Trinkl

Unfortunately in America and as an American Citizen, I am protected by the first Amendment rights, The US Constitution and that includes freedom of Speech. So I can say what I want as long I don’t cross that line. So I can say what I want as an American and my speech is protected in the USA.

So for Joanne and the Gang, Don’t make me drag in Kailana S. Alaniz and browbeat you down with factual and scientific information. I know for a fact that Joanne is claiming intersex by way of HBS, which is not recognized as and intersex condition in America and most intersex groups I know if in America do not recognize HBS as an intersex condition. Which OII recognizes. That’s why Like Joanne and Zoe Brain, I seriously have to question their so called intersex condition and the fact that they are claiming intersex. I high suspect that they are transgender people who are claiming intersex without any history or proof of claim. So I would actually Question Zoe and Joanne their so called intersex condition and call into question their intersex status.

As for intersex conditions in America, they are quite different from others around the world. For example, in America, intersex groups are not united like OII and they are for the most part segregated based on their condition and not on the commonality of being born intersex. That’s why in America, no intersex group in America recognizes OII because OII is plainly thought of as a sex and gender group and not a medical condition group. Oh and also in America, OII has no Standing with intersex groups within America. They have absolutely Zero standing.

That’s why people like you who shun radical people with radical thoughts are losing the fight. People like me who think outside of the box and think beyond the hill are what is happening right now. The fact that people like you who shun radical people like me are why we are fighting against each other and are not moving forward.

…”If a female for an example, is only a person who can give birth to a child in utero,”…

First, it is simply wrong to identify an xy karyotype or so-called sex chromosomes as 100% always male. There are species, including mammals, in which the females have xy chromosomes. One small mammal species has both xy and xx females, and the xy females out-breed the xx females. There are even HUMAN xy women who DO “… give birth to a child in utero,”… even using their own eggs, and conceiving ‘naturally’ without any fertility clinic involvement. This form of intersex or natural sex-reversal may be called Pure Gonadal Dysgenesis or Swyer’s Syndrome. So, if the objection to any person being an xy woman, is that it is “unnatural”, that God or Nature does not make xy females, then that argument is invalidated by the existence of the many reproductively successful xy females in nature, as well as the rare but real reproductively successful xy women in the human species.

There is scientific method, biology, zoology, veterinary medicine and human medicine. People like Nicky like to speak/write about intersex or “DSD” as an issue of human medicine, but show an utter void of knowledge when it comes to the natural, normal, healthy and pervasive occurance of intersex states and natural sex reversal in the rest of the biological realm. The current efforts of the Toronto group and their allies to abandon the long-in-use scientific, biological, and animal-husbandry medicine terms ‘intersex’ and ’sex-reversal’ when it comes to humans, in favor of THEIR new term “Disorders of Sex Development”, is an effort to disassociate human intersex and natural sex-reversal from the greater context of the biology of sex in the rest of life on Earth.

Apparently, by controlling the language and therefore the discourse, the “DSD” people want to hide the fact that humans, like countless other species, naturally occur in a very complex variety of intersexed and naturally xy or xx sex-reversed states. In fact, humans are not only xx or xy, but, again like other creatures, they come in an amazing variety of other genetic combinations.

Other than chromosomal intersex and sex-reversal caused variations, even more, many many more forms of intersex, phenotypical and behavioral sex reversal are caused by hormonal influences in both other species and in the human species. This is not some wild claim. It is a fact. But the Toronto group and their allies apparently want the lay masses to think that there is NO connection between the vast number of animal studies that have been done on hormones and sex-signaling and responding and sex-linked behavior, and the issue of gender identity in humans. They want people to think that their psychological counseling can ‘cure’ or prevent human conditions like transsexualism or same-sex attraction/homosexuality.

Thus the strange bed-fellows of right wing religious conservatives and extreme left wing radical feminists have joined forces in this monstrous conspiracy, because they both believe and teach that gender-identity or sexual-object attraction is a psychological condition or social construct that can be taught, caught or cured by adopting their radical feminist doctrine or their radical right-wing ‘conservative’ religious doctrine. In either case it is these people who are doctrinalizing, sexualizing and politicizing the natural, normal and harmless bodies of intersex people.

One further point…

As a young adult late-virilizing xx (presumed) intersex person I was personally subjected to horrendously insulting, humiliating and abusive examinations and demands made by members of the some of the very elitist university medical groups that I sought help from. If I had been a minor at the time, these same exams and demands would clearly have been forms of prosecutable sexual harassment and abuse! So I think that someone SHOULD call the Toronto Police when this ‘live interactive surgery’ is about to take place, and report it as a planned live broadcast of child abuse, sexual mutilation and pornography about to take place, even if the parents have given consent.

Can a parent consent to their child being photographed by a child pornographer, or molested or sexually mutilated? Will their consent make it OK ? This should not be done to traumatise the families of these infants, but to save the INFANTS from BEING physically traumatised.

If my genitals had looked at birth the way that they looked when I was 21 years old, the Toronto group would have no-doubt castrated me. Since I have a male gender identity, this would have been tragic for me. What gives these doctors the right to play God with the lives of these infants, cutting-off, cutting-out or otherwise mutilating and rendering insensate or painful their sexual parts, as if these children were dolls/objects and not people with their own unique sense of self/identity and worth?

Call the police! Let the children decide who and what they are. This is a matter of the most basic of our human rights…the right just to be who and what we are.

A call-in campaign should begin to report this planned child abuse to the police. Then let some objective medical group….NOT the Toronto group, review each of the children’s cases, to see if there is any MEDICAL necessity for these surgeries! Genital surgery that is medically necessary SHOULD be done, but if it is not medically necessary, it should be done later with the consent of the child only.

Life changing sex-reassignment genital surgery should never be done on someone without their own consent.

PS please do not post comments misrepresenting who you are. One of the contributors to this dialogue posed as another writer named Marcus and proceeded to defend the arguments of his original persona. We can tell this because Wordpress offers an automatic IP address locator.

Here at CitizenShift we are trying to facilitate an honest conversation and comments that include accusations, name calling, or (mis)information that is not verifiable will be deleted.

Hello Laura

“Thank you for this great discussion. Obviously this is an issue that touches everyone and has been shamefully under-represented in the media.”

I think you may find a lot of the anger and resentment towards the media and IHSID at least has a lot to do with the hate filled “coverage” of Caster Semenya followed very quicky by the IHSID announcements obout “The intersex question”. We are people who feel that society deems us to be sub human, using things like chromosomes as a stick to beat us with, and then discussing what can only be described a human vivisection (if not elimination) in Toronto based conferences. As an intersex person myself (5 alpha reductase-2 deficiency) I am sick to death of reading endless discussions about how “different” or “challenging” I am or how I am an “Issue”, or the usual handrwinging claptrap about chromosomes. (As a geneticist I consider that to be utter tripe most of the time) Especially from people who are not acting out of ignorance but predatory malice. (Thinking of IHSID here).

In the media all the discussion about who is a man and who is a woman is sadistic It seems to me that if you are born intersexed, whatever sex you end up as, they will call you the opposite just for kicks. If you don’t play ball and become a sex (So they can say you are not that sex) they just hammer you anyway purely for sadistic entertainment. I want to be proven wrong about my current percption of humanity, but I doubt that will happen soon.

I can see why grouping the topics we are discussing together into the loaded term “issue” might be problematic. Please do not understand that when I say issue, I do not mean to refer to people or even a medical condition but rather I am referring to the systems in our society and medical practices that need to be watched, criticized, and discussed by the public.
I criticized the media for doing a poor job because intelligent, educated people I talked to recently about the story I posted had very limited knowledge on it, many had never even heard the term intersex before. As a journalist I have an impulse to cover stories that people don’t already know about.
I also agree that the media spends far too much time with before and after shots and stories that titillate rather than inform. Perhaps it is not so much sadism though but ignorance and an unthinking journalist that is responsible for it.

I applaud Laura for her professionalism and willingness to listen.

Thanks very much,m Laura.
Curtis

Hi Laura.

Well the Australian media released private medical information about Caster Semenya before even she was aware of it. The resulting “Controversy” (Where predictably because she was called a man because she was a woman, says it all really!) Was little more than a hate filled feeding frenzy. I am not saying all the media is bad, some like yourself do try to research the situation a bit more. But the Tabloid Press and Murdoch media are, well what they are sadistic.

The “Before and after” style of journalism does operate to a script, discussing chromosomes, toy guns and dolls, It is often a carbon copy of the stories told by transsexual folks in the 1970’s. Of course with intersex people such narratives don’t always apply.

I will admit my deep distrust of society as a whole is down to the fact that good or bad, for the past 16 or so years there has been information about intersex out there. but you only have to look at the media last month or see Toronto hospitals, doing the very thing intersex people object to, wirth the assistance of playstation consoles in hotel rooms. It does get a bit frustrating. It is as if the whole exercise in educating people was ignored.

I really think it is time that the media got a grip on things like this Last month I felt like i was being stripped of my humanity because of the way the media were treating an intersex athlete. I have found out since that a lot of people who were not all that aware of all this objected to the way the media covered the athletics story. As for the doctors, particularly those in Toronto doing this Videodrome style presentation of surgery, i have nothing but distrust, resentment and contempt for them. Well all know what they are doing is wrong.

Having said that, thanks for making some effort in discussing all this more sensibly.

Kiaora Laura, Sophia, & et. al.

Chris S xxy wrote It would be far wiser to educate the whole of society that there are people who are not so rare as one assumed was the case before who are intersex; that they are here amongst all in far greater numbers that one thought previously. That they are as normal as most people are with some or more differences where most are not life threatening nor bizarre – just different or what could be termed biosex variations rather than disorders which are disparaging terms.

This lies at the very heart of the problem: that western medical and psychological practice colludes with a history of cultural denial to erase biological diversity in physiological sex.

Instead of an enlightened process of clarification and education aimed at illumination and informed understanding, biological diversity remains a hidden and largely taboo subject. The longer these conference attendees and their ilk continue in this vein, the longer illumination and knowledge are denied.

Individuals with a myriad of biological variations in sex formation seem set to continue being regarded as medicalized specimens, in need of medical intervention, so they can be fashioned into socially acceptable human beings!

I would also like to say thanks for allowing this discussion to develop. Hopefully it will be read by a lot of people who were unaware of the surgical practices. (Otherwise known as paediatric gender assignments)

Maybe we can all contribute just a little to shedding some light on a topic that the medical profession has so shamefully and consistently helped pathologize and stigmatize.

Just recently, the United States media reported that a Judge in the state of Louisiana refused to marry a mixed race couple. His justification for this was their mixed race kids would have too hard a time.

If I’m not mistaken the U.S.A. WHOLLY laughed him out of his Louisiana Parish!

If there’s ANY concern for the kids here born “different” from anyone else, I beg you, Toronto, keep that in mind!

Fertility Clinics really helped a lot in getting my wife to conceive a child. Just make sure you get a reliable one.;;;

fertility clinics are on the rise these days because people still want to have kids even if they are already old::`

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