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On June 17, Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch ran a story about transgender people's health-care needs that mentioned intersex in the passing. While the article was basically sympathetic toward the people interviewed, its lack of basic research became apparent when it reported: "Some advocates believe there is actually a 'third sex' like that which has been written about in some mythological literature. Those people have both male and female sex traits. Traditionally labeled hermaphrodites, more recently they have been referred to as intersexuals." Below is a response we sent to the Times-Dispatch:
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June 23, 2004
Editor,
Contrary to a statement in "Tough transitions" (June 17, 2004), intersex people are not members of the "third sex," and there is nothing mythological about their existence. It is estimated that one in 2000 people are born with internal and/or external reproductive organ that is not clearly male or female (remember, males and females are identical at earliest stage of fetal development--when a fetus does not fully differentiate into one sex or the other like others, the child is born intersexed).
Today, intersex babies are surgically "normalized" into male or female, and raised accordingly. Most intersex individuals live as ordinary men and women that they were raised as, while some feel that they were assigned the "wrong" gender by doctors. Regardless of gender issues, many feel that cosmetic surgeries performed on their genitals without consent violate their right to physical integrity and are unnecessary.
For more information about intersex, please visit any of the following websites:
http://www.intersexinitiative.org/
http://www.bodieslikeours.org/
http://www.isna.org/
Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative
http://www.intersexinitiative.org/
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Feel free to write them a letter or otherwise humiliate their journalistic standard (or lack thereof).
Posted by Emi on Jun 26, 2004