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Prompted by the widely read intersex article in TIME magazine (March 1, 2004 issue), the right-wing Traditional Values Coalition issued a news alert attacking intersex activists. Strangely, though, TVC seems to have no clue as to what intersex activists are actually working toward, despite the fact they have browsed the web long and hard enough to find and criticize a report co-authored by Intersex Initiative director Emi three years ago.
Titled "Intersex Activists Push Multiple Gender Theory," the alert states: "The gender confusion movement is now openly promoting the idea that there are more than two sexes. The Intersex Society of North America is leading this effort... ISNA has produced a curriculum for college courses that describes the objective of 'deconstructing' what it means to be male or female."
The curriculum TVC is referring to is part of "Teaching Intersex Issues," a booklet produced by Emi and a Portland State University biologist. Contrary to TVC's claim, however, the main report from the booklet criticizes feminist and gender theorists for exploiting intersex existence as a theoretical device to "deconstruct" binary gender categories, arguing that the focus should be on the real-life experiences of people born with intersex conditions and social and medical issues they face.
TVC is also wrong in that intersex activists are advocating for more than two genders. We oppose cosmetic surgeries on intersex children because they are medically unnecessary and harmful to their physical, emotional and sexual functioning; however we are not advocating that intersex children be raised without a gender or as a member of the third gender, at least as long as our society operates under the two-gender system. As ISNA and others have repeatedly stated, we are recommending that an intersex child be raised either as a boy or as a girl, depending on what specific condition the child has and what gender the child is most likely to function well.
In addition, TVC produces a document titled Exposed: The Claim That Hermaphrodism Is A Separate Sex on its website, again also rife with similar misinformation (and not mere differences in opinion). Stay tuned for a point-by-point review of the "Exposed."
We do not frankly care that the Traditional Values Coalition has chosen to expand the targets of their hate beyond LGBT people and women seeking abortion (among others) to include intersex. We also feel that it is TVC's prerogative to oppose our goal of ending the medical abuse of intersex children, if so they choose (but I bet they'd be demanding that it be stopped if surgeries were being performed in utero).
We do wish, however, TVC would stop misrepresenting facts about intersex conditions and about our movement, because there could be many supporters of TVC who have an intersex condition or a child with one, who could use some accurate information. Conservative Christians or not, nobody deserves to have their genitals mutilated against their will.
Posted by Emi on Mar 28, 2004