Hermaphrodites of North America with Fall 1999 Attitude

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Hermaphrodites of North America with Fall 1999 Attitude The publication of the Intersex Society Hermaphrodites of North America with Fall 1999 www.isna.org Attitude Focus on local activism Volunteers are working at the local level local Metropolitan Community Church. to make the world a safer place for inter- Contact [email protected]. sexed people and their families. You can help! To start a local group, contact Marge Witty, a professional psycholo- [email protected]. gist and instructor at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology, sponsored In San Francisco, Sam Ferguson, Kristi and organized an ISNA workshop in Bruce and Howard Devore started a Chicago. Therapists, activists, a Chicago speaker’s bureau. They have presented to Tribune reporter and others attended the medical students at Stanford, University showing of ISNA’s video Hermaphro- of California at San Francisco, and twice dites Speak! and discussion with David at Berkeley, and will soon present to the Vandertie and Angela Moreno. This laid the groundwork for the formation of Environmental Protection Agency attor- ney Hale Hawbecker lauded by employer an Illinois chapter of ISNA. Contact [email protected]. When Hale Hawbecker, an attorney with the Environmental Protection Agency, was preparing his talk on the applicability of the federal Female Geni- tal Mutilation Act to intersex surgeries for the 5th Annual Sexual Orientation and the Law Conference at Vermont Law School, he worried about how coming out as intersexed would affect his col- leagues’ opinions of him. The answer came last May, when the EPA awarded photo: Phyllis Christopher photo: Phyllis him an Employee Recognition Award for Howard Devore Ph.D., Cheryl Chase, Kristi Bruce, and Sam Ferguson speak to UC outstanding community service in recog- Berkeley medical students about their lived experiences of intersexuality. nition of his work with ISNA. Martha Coventry contributed an inter- Speaking to medical students around the sex perspective to a panel headed by psy- Bay Area wasn’t enough for Kristi chologist Walter Bockting with a Bruce. Kristi, who works at Borders mandate to improve the medical curricu- Books, knew that important new publica- lum at University of Minnesota in Min- tions about intersexuality weren’t easy to neapolis. Martha also addressed the find. They might be shelved in the medi- entire first year medical student class (of cal, psychology, gay/lesbian, feminist, or over a hundred) in June. “Afterwards the sociology sections. So Kristi took the ini- students came up to me, one after The past meets the future: intersex activ- tiative to organize a special display of another, to tell me how grateful they ist Mani Mitchell (right) is introduced to Kessler’s and Dreger’s books on inter- were for my talk. They were visibly John Money (left) in New Zealand. sexuality “Sales increased noticeably moved by the injection of such human- with the display,” says Kristi. ness into the curriculum. Physicians need Africa, and is in the process of forming to know the lived experience of their an Intersex Society of South Africa. ISNA Michigan, headed by Robin patients.” Mathias, participated in three Pride Mani Bruce Mitchell, the founder and events this summer, producing 100 addi- director of the Intersex Trust Aotearoa tions to ISNA’s mailing list. Parents are New Zealand, reports that the organiza- organizing, too. The Support Group for tion this year won NZ$15,000 of federal Parents of Intersexed Children had its funding. Like more than one other inter- first meeting in Detroit in July. Contact sexed person, Mani has chosen to change [email protected] for information careers—as a therapist she will be able to about either group. provide the kind of help for intersexed families that would have made her own life so much easier. Mani will obtain reg- istered counselor credentials this year, and continues her work toward the status of psychotherapist. Like Mani, Michael Walker is in the process of becoming a therapist. Michael Martha Coventry, a Minneapolis jour- completed his Ph.D. in 1998, and is now nalist, is writing a personal memoir. accumulating the supervised clinical experience that will earn him status as a Sally Gross co-authored “Lifting the therapist in California. His thesis is Volunteers prepare for ISNA’s participa- Veil on Intersexuality,” an article in based upon open-ended, face to face tion in Michigan Pride 1999. South Africa’s Weekly Mail & Guardian interviews with five adults born with in August. Sally, whose work in the anti- hypospadias, and includes an introduc- apartheid movement had kept her in exile tory chapter on his own experience. Until Would a group or church you belong to for many years, has now teamed up with such time as Michael refashions his the- benefit from learning about intersex? You a national organization which campaigns sis into a book, photocopies can be and your group can help ISNA reach new on gay and lesbian issues in South obtained from ISNA. people. Here's how: ✔ Include a brochure about intersex in a mailing to the group’s members. Often, Hermaphrodites with Attitude is published by the Intersex Society of North Amer- this can be done without increasing the ica. ISSN 1084-5771. Copyright. Entire contents © 1999 by Intersex Society of cost of postage and handling—the most North America. All rights reserved. You may reproduce and distribute this newslet- costly part of a mailing. ter in small quantities (under 50) at no charge, so long as you make no changes. ✔ Subscriptions HWA is distributed as a benefit to contributors to ISNA’s fundraising Write an article about intersex for efforts. For others, a one year subscription is $35. your group’s newsletter. We can provide samples for you. Address letters, submissions, and other correspondence to: ISNA, PO Box 3070, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Email <[email protected]>. ✔ Talk about intersex and show Her- maphrodites Speak! at a meeting or event Letters are published only with the permission of the author. When you write, sponsored by the group. I please let us know if we may publish your letter. HWA 2 Ethics makes inroads; media take note Heralding the changes taking place in the zling thing that was wrong with their tucky” gave him some insight into what medical establishment of Chicago, on children. it is like to grow up different. In spite of June 20, 1999, the Chicago Tribune ran being trained to think otherwise, Dr. intersex at the top of its front page. “Daaboul would draw a pair of X’s. This, Daaboul now realizes the solution is not he would say, was what a normal to pretend that difference can be erased. The paper devoted over 2,000 words and female’s sex chromosomes looked like: Instead, children who are “different” the front page lead to Louise Kiernan’s XX. must be fostered and supported, their discussion of intersex and recent chal- experiences taken seriously. lenges to harmful medical treatments of “Then, with the heel intersexed people. The article featured of his hand, he would Dr. Daaboul has just our own Angela Moreno, as well as two erase the leg of one X. “We have relocated to the Pediat- physicians at Children’s Memorial Hos- That, he would say, ric Endocrinology pital of Chicago, the very hospital where was what had hap- been deceptive.” Department of Chil- in 1985 Angela’s clitoris was cut without pened to one of their dren’s Hospital of her consent. daughter’s X chromosomes. It was Oakland, California. He will carry to the incomplete, unfinished... west coast the message of reform. We are After participating in a course on medi- sure Dr. Daaboul’s big heart, sharp mind, cal ethics with Tod Chambers of North- “What he did not say is that the ‘incom- and lively spirit will help win more con- western University, pediatric endocrin- plete’ X was not an X chromosome at all. verts among his colleagues. I ologist Jorge Daaboul and medical ethi- It was a Y chromosome, the genetic cist Joel Frader, began to doubt the “stan- marker for a male.” dard of care” protocols which called for Make a wake-up call misleading patients and performing risky The article goes on to quote Dr. Daaboul: surgeries without the patient’s direct “Many of my colleagues do not believe The words of Drs. Hatch (next page) and consent. The Tribune article begins with we have been deceptive, and they would Daaboul (this page) make clear that one Dr. Daaboul’s recollection: resent my saying we have been decep- of the best ways to change medical prac- tive... But we have been deceptive.” tice is for former patients to contact their “With a Magic Marker and the swipe of physicians and tell them their experi- a hand, Dr. Jorge Daaboul can demon- When Cheryl Chase and Alice Dreger ences of their treatment. We realize this strate how he and other doctors used to met Dr. Daaboul and his team at Chil- can be a frightening and frustrating expe- lie to the families who anxiously awaited dren’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, he rience, especially when your doctor may some explanation for the terrible, puz- told them how his own experience of write you off as a “bad outcome,” an being “the only Hispanic kid in Ken- “unstable personality,” or, worse yet, may not bother to answer you at all. But if you have the courage and the capacity to do so, consider contacting the medical professionals who treated you as a child. The best way to do this is to con- firm your doctor’s address and send them a letter. You might wish to enclose a copy of this newsletter. Tell your doctor exactly what worked and what didn’t work for you, how you would like to see practice improved.
Recommended publications
  • MIAMI UNIVERSITY the Graduate School Certificate for Approving The
    MIAMI UNIVERSITY The Graduate School Certificate for Approving the Dissertation We hereby approve the Dissertation of Susan Pelle Candidate for the Degree: Doctor of Philosophy _____________________________________ Director Dr. Stefanie Kyle Dunning _____________________________________ Reader Dr. Madelyn M. Detloff _____________________________________ Reader Dr. Kathleen N. Johnson _____________________________________ Graduate School Representative Dr. Emily A. Zakin ABSTRACT (DIS)ARTICULATING BODIES AND GENDERS: PUSSY POLITICS AND PERFORMING VAGINAS by Susan Pelle The vagina has metaphorically and metonymically been the body part that stands in for the category “woman” and it is this emphatic and fabricated link that imposes itself on bodies, psyches, and lives with often horrifying consequences. My goals in exploring performative and performing vaginas are many. I not only lay out how, why, and in what ways the “normal” and “abled” female body established in both dominant and mainstream discourses is, simply put, one with a specific type of vagina, but I also confront the “truth” that vaginas purport to tell about women and femininity. Ultimately, I maintain that representations of vaginas and the debates and discourses that surround them tell us something about our culture’s fears, anxieties, and hopes. Living life as abject can be painful, even unbearable, yet as individuals negotiate this life they can experience pleasure, assert agency, and express ethical and just visions of the world. The artists, writers, and performers explored in this dissertation strategically perform vaginas in multiple and disparate ways. As they trouble, resist, and negotiate “normative” understandings of vaginas, they simultaneously declare that the “problem” is not about bodies at all. The problem is not the vagina.
    [Show full text]
  • Handbook for Parents
    Contributors Cassandra L. Aspinall, MSW, LICSW Christine Feick, MSW Craniofacial Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital; Ann Arbor, MI University of Washington School of Social Work, Seattle, WA Sallie Foley, LMSW Certified Sex Therapist, AASECT; Dept. Social Arlene B. Baratz, MD Work/Sexual Health, University of Michigan Medical Advisor, Androgen Insensitivity Health Systems, Ann Arbor, MI Syndrome Support Group, Pittsburgh, PA Joel Frader, MD, MA Max & Tamara Beck General Academic Pediatrics, Children’s Atlanta, GA Memorial Hospital; Dept. Pediatrics and Program in Medical Humanities & Bioethics, William Byne, MD Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New University, Chicago, IL York, NY Jane Goto David Cameron Board of Directors, Intersex Society of North Intersex Society of North America, San America; Board of Directors, Androgen Francisco, CA Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, Seattle, Anita J. Catlin, DSNc, FNP, FAAN WA Nursing and Ethics, Sonoma State University, Michael Grant Sonoma, CA Lansing, MI Cheryl Chase Janet Green Founder and Executive Director, Intersex Society Co-Founder, Bodies Like Ours; Board of of North America, Rohnert Park, CA Directors, CARES Foundation; Board of Kimberly Chu, LCSW, DCSW Overseers, Beth Israel Hospital; Board of Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Trustees, Continuum Healthcare, New York, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY NY Howard Devore Philip A. Gruppuso, MD San Francisco, CA Associate Dean of Medical Education, Brown University; Pediatric Endocrinology, Rhode Alice Dreger, Ph.D. (Project Coordinator and Island Hospital, Providence, RI Editor) Program in Medical Humanities and Bioethics, William G. Hanley, BPS Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Memphis, TN University, Chicago, IL iii iv Debora Rode Hartman Charmian A.
    [Show full text]
  • Hermafroditas Con Actitud: Cartografiando La Emergencia Del Activismo Político Intersexual1
    48 intersexualidad Hermafroditas con actitud: cartografiando la emergencia del activismo político intersexual1 Cheryl Chase2 La insistencia en dos sexos claramente discernibles tiene desastrosas conse- cuencias personales para los muchos individuos que llegan al mundo con una anatomía sexual que no puede ser fácilmente identificada como de va- rón o de mujer. Tales individuos son etiquetados por los discursos médicos modernos (Migeon, Berkovitz y Brown 1994: 573-715) como intersexuales o hermafroditas. Alrededor de uno de cada 100 nacimientos exhibe alguna anomalía en la diferenciación sexual (Raman-Wilms et al. 1995: 141-148), y alrededor de uno de cada 2 000 es suficientemente diferente como para convertir en problemática la pregunta "¿es un niño o una niña?" (Fausto- Sterling 2000). Desde comienzos de la década de los 60, prácticamente cada gran ciudad de Estados Unidos ha tenido un hospital con un equipo permanente de expertos médicos que intervienen en estos casos para asig- nar —a través de drásticos medios quirúrgicos— un estatus de varón o de mujer a bebés intersexuales. El hecho de que este sistema que preserva las fronteras de las categorías de varón y de mujer haya existido durante tanto tiempo sin despertar críticas ni escrutinio desde ningún flanco indica la incomodidad extrema que despierta la ambigüedad sexual en nuestra cul- tura. Las cirugías genitales pediátricas convierten en literal lo que de otra forma podría ser considerado un ejercicio teórico: el intento de producción 1 Tomado de El eje del mal es heterosexual / Figuraciones, movimientos y prácticas feministas queer, compilado por Carmen Romero Bachiller, Silvia García Dauder y Carlos Bargueiras Martínez (Grupo de Trabajo Queer), Madrid, 2005.
    [Show full text]
  • Ending the Intersex Exception People Born with Atypical Sex Characteristics Battle for Informed Consent
    Ending the Intersex Exception People Born with Atypical Sex Characteristics Battle For Informed Consent By Kyle Knight, Researcher, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Program It wasn’t until the 1980s, after a series of nervous breakdowns, that Bo Laurent—then in her 30s—set out to investigate the source of her deep distress. The truth, when it finally came, was both liberating and traumatizing: Bo discovered she had been born with atypical genitalia, which surgeons had operated on to make her look— arbitrarily—more typically female, inflicting irreversible harm on her in the process, and telling her parents that they should never reveal to Bo the surgery she had undergone as an infant. Doctors had told Bo’s parents, and Bo herself once she found out, that her condition was so rare there was no one else like her. But after learning the truth from her medical records, and as she traveled the country telling her story, she found this was untrue. Her California mailbox began to fill with letters from people describing similar experiences. In 1993, Bo, using the name Cheryl Chase, founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) to meet and help people who, like her, were born with biological sex characteristics that fall outside typical definitions—that is, their chromosomes, gonads, or internal and external sex organs differ in some way from what science and society have long deemed to be “male” or “female.” ISNA became an eddy of activists, a support group for traumatized people who had more questions than answers, and the birthplace of momentous historical agitations such as “Hermaphrodites with Attitude.” Their mission was to convince the medical establishment to respect intersex people’s rights to health and bodily autonomy by stopping “normalizing” surgeries on children before they were old enough to understand the procedures and consent to them.
    [Show full text]
  • What If It's (Sort
    What if It’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl? - New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24intersexkids.html?ei=... September 24, 2006 What if It’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl? By ELIZABETH WEIL When Brian Sullivan — the baby who would before age 2 become Bonnie Sullivan and 36 years later become Cheryl Chase — was born in New Jersey on Aug. 14, 1956, doctors kept his mother, a Catholic housewife, sedated for three days until they could decide what to tell her. Sullivan was born with ambiguous genitals, or as Chase now describes them, with genitals that looked “like a little parkerhouse roll with a cleft in the middle and a little nubbin forward.” Sullivan lived as a boy for 18 months, until doctors at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan performed exploratory surgery, found a uterus and ovotestes (gonads containing both ovarian and testicular tissue) and told the Sullivans they’d made a mistake: Brian, a true hermaphrodite in the medical terminology of the day, was actually a girl. Brian was renamed Bonnie, her “nubbin” (which was either a small penis or a large clitoris) was entirely removed and doctors counseled the family to throw away all pictures of Brian, move to a new town and get on with their lives. The Sullivans did that as best they could. They eventually relocated, had three more children and didn’t speak of the circumstances around their eldest child’s birth for many years. As Chase told me recently, “The doctors promised my parents if they did that” — shielded her from her medical history — “that I’d grow up normal, happy, heterosexual and give them grandchildren.” Sullivan spent most of her childhood and young-adult life extremely unhappy, feeling different from her peers though unsure how.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction 1
    Notes Introduction 1. John Money and Anke Ehrhardt, Man and Woman Boy and Girl: The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972), 9. 2. Rosie Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Differ- ence in Contemporary Feminist Theory (New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, 1994); Georges Canguilhem, On the Normal and the Pathological, trans. Carolyn Fawcett (Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing, 1978). 3. I refer here to the late David Reimer, whom Money recommended be reassigned and reared as a girl following the loss of his penis after a botched circumcision when he was an infant. See Bernice Hausman, “Do Boys Have to Be Boys? Gender, Narrativity, and the John/Joan Case,” NWSA Journal 12, no. 3 (2000): 114–138. 4. Perhaps the most public of those attacks was that of Rolling Stone jour- nalist John Colapinto. See John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2000). 5. Refer to “Notes on terminology and definitions” for an explanation of this hyphenation. 6. Money on the other hand has acknowledged—however disapprovingly—the ways in which feminism impacted on his theories of gender. 7. This is not to suggest that gender ceased to be a language tool but rather that its conceptual load increased exponentially when it became the signifier of characters, behaviors, and identities as masculine or feminine. 8. Natural gender, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a feature of modern English where “nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter according as the objects they denote are male, female, or of neither sex; and the gender of a noun has no other syntactical effect than that of determining the pronoun that must be used in referring to it” http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50093521?query_type=word& queryword=gender, s.v.
    [Show full text]
  • Contesting Intersex the Dubious Diagnosis
    Contesting Intersex The Dubious Diagnosis INSTRUCTOR’S GUIDE Why Consider this Book for Your Class? • Author is herself intersex, and the book is a very personal campaign for author to avoid surgical “solutions” • Includes multiple perspectives from the intersex community including intersex people, parents, and medical experts • Presents the shifting, fluid, and even contradictory definitions of bodies that exist outside the sex binary 240 PAGES CLOTH 978-1-4798-1415-2 PAPER 978-1-4798-8704-0 NYU PRESS WWW . NYUPRESS . ORG 1916 • Champion of great ideas for 100 years • 2016 Table of Contents Table of Contents Overview of Supplemental Teaching Guide 3 Georgiann Davis Biography 4 Resources for Ch. 1: Introduction: “You’re in the Monkey Cage with Me” 5-7 Resources for Ch. 2: The Transformation of Intersex Advocacy 8-9 Resources for Ch. 3: Medical Jurisdiction and the Intersex Body 10-11 Resources for Ch. 4: The Power in a Name 12-13 Resources for Ch. 5: A Different Kind of Information 14-15 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE Resources for Ch. 6: Conclusion: The Dubious Diagnosis 16-17 2 NYU PRESS INSTRUCTOR’S GUIDE OVERVIEW Overview of Supplemental Teaching Guide I created this guide, geared to the undergraduate classroom, to supplement my book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. While it was written for those who teach undergraduate students, it might also be useful in the graduate seminar. It contains chapter-by-chapter summaries, discussion questions, links to popular press pieces, blogs, op-eds, etc. on intersex, ideas for small group exercises, and recommended films, documentaries, and You Tube videos—many of these recommendations are available online.
    [Show full text]
  • A FEMINIST SCIENCE STUDIES CRITIQUE of ANTI-FGM DISCOURSE Wairimé Ngaréiya Njambi Dissertation Submitted To
    COLONIZING BODIES: A FEMINIST SCIENCE STUDIES CRITIQUE OF ANTI-FGM DISCOURSE Wairimé Ngaréiya Njambi Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY STUDIES APPROVED: Gary Downey, Chair Charles M. Good Ann Kilkelly Ann La Berge Timothy Luke September 8, 2000 Blacksburg, Virginia Copyright 2001, Wairimé Ngaréiya Njambi COLONIZING BODIES: A FEMINIST SCIENCE STUDIES CRITIQUE OF ANTI-FGM DISCOURSE by Wairimé Ngaréiya Njambi Gary Downey, Chair Science and Technology Studies (ABSTRACT) The contentious topic of female circumcision brings together medical science, women’s health activism, and national and international policy-making in pursuit of the common goal of protecting female bodies from harm. To date, most criticisms of female circumcision, practiced mainly in parts of Africa and Southwest Asia, have revolved around the dual issues of control of female bodies by a male-dominated social order and the health impacts surrounding the psychology of female sexuality and the functioning of female sex organs. As such, the recently-evolved campaign to eradicate female circumcision, alternatively termed “Female Genital Mutilation” (FGM), has formed into a discourse intertwining the politics of feminist activism with scientific knowledge and medical knowledge of the female body and sexuality. This project focuses on the ways in which this discourse constructs particular definitions of bodies and sexuality in a quest to generalize the practices of female circumcision as “harmful” and therefore dangerous. Given that the discourse aimed at eradicating practices of female circumcision, referred to in this study as “anti-FGM discourse,” focuses mostly on harm done to women’s bodies, this project critiques the assumption of universalism regarding female bodies and sexuality that is explicitly/implicitly embedded in such discourse.
    [Show full text]
  • Clinical Guidelines
    Contributors Erin Anthony Kimberly Chu, LCSW, DCSW CARES Foundation, Millburn, NJ Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY Cassandra L. Aspinall MSW, LICSW Craniofacial Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital; Sarah Creighton, MD, FRCOG University of Washington, School of Social Gynecology, University College London Work, Seattle, WA Hospitals, London, UK Arlene B. Baratz, MD Jorge J. Daaboul, MD Medical Advisor, Androgen Insensitivity Pediatric Endocrinology, The Nemours Syndrome Support Group, Pittsburgh, PA Children’s Clinic, Orlando, FL Charlotte Boney, MD Alice Domurat Dreger, PhD (Project Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, Rhode Coordinator and Editor) Island Hospital, Providence, RI Medical Humanities and Bioethics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, David R. Brown, MD, FACE Chicago, IL Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism; Staff Physician, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Christine Feick, MSW Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN Ann Arbor, MI William Byne, MD Kaye Fichman, MD Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New Pediatric Endocrinology, Kaiser Permanente York, NY Medical Group, San Rafael, CA David Cameron Sallie Foley, MSW Board of Directors, Intersex Society of North Certified Sex Therapist, AASECT; Dept. Social America, San Francisco, CA Work/Sexual Health, University of Michigan Health Systems, Ann Arbor, MI Monica Casper, PhD Medical Sociology, Vanderbilt University, Joel Frader, MD, MA Nashville, TN General Academic Pediatrics, Children’s Memorial Hospital;
    [Show full text]
  • Intersex Genital Mutilations Human Rights Violations of Children with Variations of Sex Anatomy
    v 2.0 Intersex Genital Mutilations Human Rights Violations Of Children With Variations Of Sex Anatomy NGO Report to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Periodic Report of Switzerland on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) + Supplement “Background Information on IGMs” Compiled by: Zwischengeschlecht.org (Human Rights NGO) Markus Bauer Daniela Truffer Zwischengeschlecht.org P.O.Box 2122 8031 Zurich info_at_zwischengeschlecht.org http://Zwischengeschlecht.org/ http://StopIGM.org/ Intersex.ch (Peer Support Group) Daniela Truffer kontakt_at_intersex.ch http://intersex.ch/ Verein SI Selbsthilfe Intersexualität (Parents Peer Support Group) Karin Plattner Selbsthilfe Intersexualität P.O.Box 4066 4002 Basel info_at_si-global.ch http://si-global.ch/ March 2014 v2.0: Internal links added, some errors and typos corrected. This NGO Report online: http://intersex.shadowreport.org/public/2014-CRC-Swiss-NGO-Zwischengeschlecht-Intersex-IGM_v2.pdf Front Cover Photo: UPR #14, 20.10.2012 Back Cover Photo: CEDAW #43, 25.01.2009 2 Executive Summary Intersex children are born with variations of sex anatomy, including atypical genetic make- up, atypical sex hormone producing organs, atypical response to sex hormones, atypical geni- tals, atypical secondary sex markers. While intersex children may face several problems, in the “developed world” the most pressing are the ongoing Intersex Genital Mutilations, which present a distinct and unique issue constituting significant human rights violations (A). IGMs include non-consensual, medically unnecessary, irreversible, cosmetic genital sur- geries, and/or other harmful medical treatments that would not be considered for “normal” children, without evidence of benefit for the children concerned, but justified by societal and cultural norms and beliefs.
    [Show full text]
  • Handbook for Parents
    Contributors Cassandra L. Aspinall, MSW, LICSW Christine Feick, MSW Craniofacial Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital; Ann Arbor, MI University of Washington School of Social Work, Seattle, WA Sallie Foley, LMSW Certified Sex Therapist, AASECT; Dept. Social Arlene B. Baratz, MD Work/Sexual Health, University of Michigan Medical Advisor, Androgen Insensitivity Health Systems, Ann Arbor, MI Syndrome Support Group, Pittsburgh, PA Joel Frader, MD, MA Max & Tamara Beck General Academic Pediatrics, Children’s Atlanta, GA Memorial Hospital; Dept. Pediatrics and Program in Medical Humanities & Bioethics, William Byne, MD Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Psychiatry, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New University, Chicago, IL York, NY Jane Goto David Cameron Board of Directors, Intersex Society of North Intersex Society of North America, San America; Board of Directors, Androgen Francisco, CA Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group, Seattle, Anita J. Catlin, DSNc, FNP, FAAN WA Nursing and Ethics, Sonoma State University, Michael Grant Sonoma, CA Lansing, MI Cheryl Chase Janet Green Founder and Executive Director, Intersex Society Co-Founder, Bodies Like Ours; Board of of North America, Rohnert Park, CA Directors, CARES Foundation; Board of Kimberly Chu, LCSW, DCSW Overseers, Beth Israel Hospital; Board of Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Trustees, Continuum Healthcare, New York, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY NY Howard Devore Philip A. Gruppuso, MD San Francisco, CA Associate Dean of Medical Education, Brown University; Pediatric Endocrinology, Rhode Alice Dreger, Ph.D. (Project Coordinator and Island Hospital, Providence, RI Editor) Program in Medical Humanities and Bioethics, William G. Hanley, BPS Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern Memphis, TN University, Chicago, IL iii iv Debora Rode Hartman Charmian A.
    [Show full text]
  • SUPPORTING INTERSEX INCLUSION in the WORKPLACE About out & Equal About Interact
    SUPPORTING INTERSEX INCLUSION IN THE WORKPLACE About Out & Equal About interACT Out & Equal is the premier organization working exclusively on LGBTQ interACT is an intersex-led national U.S.- based advocacy organization workplace equality. Through our worldwide programs, Fortune 500 founded in 2006 to advocate for the human rights of intersex youth partnerships and our annual Workplace Summit conference, we help while raising awareness and promoting intersex inclusion. LGBTQ people thrive and support organizations creating a culture of We partner with various LGBTQ+, legal, and human rights belonging for all. organizations in efforts to change laws and policies to protect intersex We partner with Fortune 1000 companies, government agencies, bodily autonomy. and organizations across industries and diverse missions to provide interACT’s goal is to promote intersex wellbeing with a focus on ending LGBTQ executive leadership development, comprehensive D&I training harmful, medically unnecessary, and non-consensual surgeries on and consultation, and professional networking opportunities that build children born with intersex traits. inclusive and welcoming work environments. Out and Equal works with executives, HR and D&I professionals, and LGBTQ+ employee resource group (ERG) leaders to strengthen their role as internal change agents, bolstering their effectiveness and helping them incorporate and advance best practices in Diversity & Inclusion work. We believe equality is about more than checking off boxes. And we know inclusion requires more than a set of directions. It’s about creating spaces that celebrate and foster growth for every kind of employee, where leadership is made up of different people with diverse perspectives. Our goal is to challenge organizations to live into their values every day and transform workplaces.
    [Show full text]