Intersex Initiative: News - Send Intersex Initiative to NGLTF's Creating Change 2003

Send Intersex Initiative to NGLTF's Creating Change 2003

ipdxWIRE Intersex News
Oct 5, 2003

In order to promote our visibility in the national LGBTI politics and to stay current with it, we are planning to participate in the upcoming Creating Change 2003, the largest annual conference of the LGBTI movement this November. We have two workshops planned: first one is titled "Before Adding the 'I': Where the Intersex Fits into the LGBT Movement," which our own Tara Medve will co-present with representatives of Bodies Like Ours and Intersex Society of North America; the second is titled "Medical Regulation of Queer Bodies: Intersex, Disability, and 'Gender Dysphoria'," and will be presented by J Sevelius and myself from Intersex Initiative.

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Sent to ipdxWIRE Digest subscribers:

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Hello friends of Intersex Initiative,

Last week, I did an interview with The Oregonian, which went really well. Sure, some reporters would say anything to get a good soundbite, but this particular journalist seemed genuinely interested in telling the truth about the experiences of people born with intersex conditions. She is still interviewing other people (we provided some additional names) so it hasn't made it to the print yet, but we will let you know when the article comes out.

Intersex Initiative has been doing a lot since its re-activation this January. From January to February, we coordinated the national campaign to present intersex issues in college V-DAY anti-violence events. In March, we did our first training for the Speaker's Bureau, for which we developed a handout and a curriculum. We began posting timely news and commentary about intersex in April, which to this date is the largest archive of such content on the net. We presented at various universities in the months of May and June in celebration of campus queer awareness weeks. I taught a course at Portland State University on intersex this summer, and keynoted the Seattle Dyke March. Last month, we made both international and national impact by first launching Intersex Initiative Japan, the first comprehensive web site about intersex in Japanese language, then providing the educational materials used in the recent intersex action in Hartford, CT. And there are many more exciting projects to come, which you will be hearing about soon. If you haven't done so recently, please visit our web site at http://www.ipdx.org/ and see for yourself how much work we have been doing.

It costs a lot of money to send three people to a conference, as you can imagine, but we are doing our best to minimize the expenses. For example, I am personally donating enough frequent flier miles to get two roundtrip tickets so that we only need to purchase one more. In addition, J has made arrangements with hir friends and relatives living near the conference site so that we can stay there for free. We will also have a car there, which will bring down the cost of ground transportation and food (instead of dining at the hotel, we can go to the grocery store). After all this, we will probably need another $600-800 or so to pay for the one roundtrip ticket, registration fee, and other expenses. Which is what I am asking our supporters to help us with today.

Is it worth sending all three of us? We think so. We will make important contacts with grass-roots activists and national leaders at the conference, which will help us to raise the awareness of intersex issues everywhere at grass-roots level. It is very important to us to increase the visibility of our group and that of intersex activism in the national LGBTI scene and to begin to build grass-roots support for the intersex activism across the country (more on this soon--it's a new innovative project we're working with other intersex groups right now).

In addition, it will be a great experience for our key volunteers. Tara joined Intersex Initiative in February after her graduation from college and internship with GenderPAC, and has been coming in to volunteer with us every week. She has worked on the V-DAY campaign, Speaker's Bureau, and pretty much everything else we have done in the past nine months. J initially joined us in March as a member of the Speaker's Bureau and gave several presentations, and is also about to receive a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology; we think that hir expertise and credentials will be a great help for our future projects. Since they have proven to be two of our most active and helpful volunteers, I believe it is wise for us to invest in opportunities for them to learn and connect as much as they can. Besides, quite frankly I think they deserve a nice trip after all they have done for us. Without these and other volunteers, we could not be where we are after only ten months.

So, will you help us? Please make your check or money order to: Emi Koyama/IPDX, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240 or send donation via Paypal to donate@ipdx.org. Your contribution of any amount will be deeply appreciated. Please note that your donation is NOT tax-deductible, as we are a private entity and not a 501(c)(3). Yes, it would be nice if we were a 501(c)(3), but we simply don't have the capacity to process all the paperworks (unless there's some lawyer or accountant reading this willing to do pro-bono--if so, let's talk).

Thanks a lot! If you wish to speak with me about our future projects or how your donation will be spent, please feel free to email me at emi@ipdx.org and we'll talk.

Best,

Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative
http://www.ipdx.org/

Posted by Emi on Oct 5, 2003