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Today, Intersex Initiative launches "Intersex Initiative Japan," a comprehensive Japanese web site about intersexuality and intersex activism. Intersex Initiative Japan is maintained by a special project team made up of five Japanese scholars and activists in addition to the Intersex Initiative director, who lives in Portland, Oregon. The site currently contains materials translated from the English site, but the project team hopes to develop Japanese-specific contents in the future.
Japan has a history of intersex activism almost as old as the American intersex movement. In 1995, Hideo Hashimoto, a.k.a. "Hasshi," founded the organization that is known today as PESFIS, or Peer Support For Intersexuals, which provides support and information for intersex people and their families in Japan. Hasshi-san has written and edited several books about intersexuality and gender/sexual diversity, and has given many lectures around the country. There is an article about Hasshi-san in the Fall 1997 issue of Hermaphrodites with Attitude, the newsletter of Intersex Society of North America. There has also been another Japanese intersex group, Intersex Collaborated (ISC), which appears to have folded.
Nonetheless, Intersex Initiative Japan is the first Japanese web site with general information about intersexuality written from the patient-centered perspective and for the lay audience. If you read Japanese, visit the site at http://www.intersexinitiative.org/japan/.
Want to start an intersex site in another language? Email us to find out how we launched the Japanese site so you can go and start a page in your language.
Posted by Emi on Sep 19, 2003