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Hello friends of ipdx,
Here's the latest news from Intersex Initiative...
Wow, two emails in the same week!
1) Jeffrey Eugenides wins Pulitzer for "Middlesex"
Jeffrey Eugenides won this year's Pulitzer prize in fiction for his novel "Middlesex," whose protagonist is an intersex person. While we find some of the things the author has said in interviews and at book readings problematic, we do nonetheless feel that the book raises public awareness of intersex issues in a way that hasn't been possible in the past.
Gay newsmagazine "The Advocate" posted an article about the Pulitzers on its online edition, but its title stated "Transgender novel Middlesex wins Pulitzer." So Emi wrote them an email--and within five hours, their web site is changed! The title was changed to "Intersex novel, gay playwright win Pulitzers," and the paragraph was re-written. Below is BEFORE and AFTER of the key paragraph:
BEFORE: "The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by a hermaphrodite, loosely defined as someone with both male and female sexual organs. Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century hermaphrodite. 'She could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
AFTER: The fiction prize for Middlesex almost surely marks a milestone in Pulitzer history: the first book so honored to be narrated by an intersexed protagonist, a person whose reproductive organs and other physical characteristics are of indeterminate sex. In the novel, Calliope Helen Stephanides is born a girl. As a teenager she begins growing a mustache and otherwise turning more than 'a little bit freakish.' Eugenides got the idea for Middlesex after reading a book by French philosopher Michel Foucault that contained a memoir by a 19th-century 'hermaphrodite,' as the intersexed were then called. '[The intersexed person] could hardly describe the experience. She wrote around it,' he told the Associated Press in an interview last fall."
The changes seem somewhat awkward, but we're glad that they are making an effort to get the story right.
You can read the letter to the editor we sent at:
http://www.ipdx.org/media/20030408-theadvocate.html
and the revised article at:
http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=8288&sd=04/08/03
2) "Mani's Story" aired in NZ; U.S. Premiere at Intersex Film Fest
"Mani's Story," a documentary film that traces the life the intersex activist Mani Mitchel (from "Hermaphrodites Speak!"), was aired in New Zealand this past Monday. We have not actually seen the film, but it sounds quite good. Frances Grant wrote in The New Zealand Herald: "The documentary's strength comes from the fact that it is nearly all told in Mani's own words. Strong and articulate, she traces the momentous changes in her life which led to self-acceptance and lack of fear in drawing attention to her ambiguous appearance... [It] is a courageous and unsentimental account of a person who has confronted and overcome extraordinary pressures and exclusion."
Mani herself says about the film: "I was asked to make this documentary after a TV researcher learned of my proposed trip to America to attend the annual GLBT Creating Change Conference in Milwaukee 2001... I agreed to do this as a queer identified intersex person who believes with passion about creating change. Creating a world where it will be safe, a world that respects and enjoys ALL who are different. I thought the documentary would be an easy process.... It was not. It became probably the most challenging, powerful, unusual and creative task I have ever done outside of a theraputic setting."
Intersex Initiative Portland is obtaining copies of the film, and have obtained the permission to show it our upcoming Intersex Film Festival, which has been re-scheduled to late May (exact location and date TBA). Unless someone else beats us to it, that will probably be the U.S. premiere. Stay tuned for more information...
3) Emi to Keynote Seattle Dyke March
Yes, the director of Intersex Initiative Portland has been invited to give a keynote address at Seattle Dyke March this June. I guess that means I'll get to speak into a poorly amplified microphone while everyone else flirt with each other. Oh well. (Thanks to Thea Hillman of ISNA for recommending me to Seattlites!)
Other upcoming presentations by Intersex Initiative Portland:
04/17/03 - Take Back the Night, Western Washington University
04/22/03 - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
04/24/03 - Reed College (Portland, OR)
05/12/03 - Queer Pride Week, Oregon State University
05/17/03 - Sex Conference, Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA)
Visit http://www.ipdx.org/events/ for more details.
Emi Koyama
Intersex Initiative Portland
http://www.ipdx.org/
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