Main Menu
Projects
Resources
© 2003-2005 Intersex Initiative
Unless otherwise indicated, you may copy, reprint, distribute, and even modify contents of this web site under the Creative Commons license.
Note: Information contained in the back issue of newsletter may be outdated.
INTERSEX BOOKLETS AVAILABLE FROM INTERSEX INITIATIVE
Intersex Initiative Portland (ipdx) announces the availability of educational booklets designed for activists, allies, college instructors, and others. These booklets have been distributed at Creating Change conference earlier this month, and are now available for download or purchase online (the download version comes in PDF, which can be viewed in its entirety--but cannot be printed) from Confluere Store at: <http://www.confluere.com/store/zine-intersex.html>
Currently available titles are:
"Introduction to Intersex Issues: A Guide for Allies" (2nd Edition) "Teaching Intersex Issues" (2nd Edition) "A Speaker's Handbook for Intersex Activists and Allies" "IntersexCritiques: Notes on Intersex, Disability and Biomedical Ethics" "IntersexCritiques Volume II: Medicine, Media and Intersex Movement"
For table of contents, visit <http://www.ipdx.org/news/000063.html>
The "2nd edition" booklets have been distributed by Intersex Society of North America since 2001, but they are both updated and expanded with a lot of new materials. Each booklet is US$5 apiece, and we welcome additional donations :-)
To order by mail (instead of online), add $1 domestic or $3 international for shipping and write check or money order to: Emi Koyama/IPDX, PO Box 40570, Portland OR 97240.
#####
Other updates from ipdxWIRE Intersex News <http://www.ipdx.org/news>:
EMI KOYAMA TO SPEAK AT BELOIT COLLEGE IN WISCONSIN
Intersex Initiative director Emi Koyama will visit Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin this week. While details are not clear, she will be speaking about intersex activism sometime on Thursday, November 20. In addition, she will speak in several classes and at the meeting of Alliance, the campus organization for sexual and/or gender minorities and their allies. For more information, you might want to try calling the Student Activities office at (608) 363-2301.
URL: <http://www.ipdx.org/news/000062.html>
REUTERS REPORT ABOUT THE UCLA "BRAIN SEX" STUDY BASELESS
In the article titled "Sexual Identity Hard-Wired by Genetics," Reuters reported on October 20 that one's sexual or gender identity is "wired into the genes," citing the new research by UCLA geneticist Eric Vilain and colleagues. According to Vilain, the findings would suggest that "sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth" and that this knowledge may be used to ensure that intersex babies are assigned the correct gender. "If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," Vilain said. However, none of this is actually established or discussed in the actual research paper this news report is based on...
READ MORE AT: <http://www.ipdx.org/news/000058.html>
CONTROVERSIAL UCLA RESEARCHER INTERVIEWED ON CBC SCIENCE PROGRAM
November 15 edition of Quirks & Quarks, the "award-winning radio science program of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, featured the UCLA researcher Eric Vilain, who made a series of questionable comments to the press about what his research on mice brains can tell us about the nature of human sexuality and gender identity. In the program, Vilain explains what his new findings suggest and its possible use in identifying potential genetic "causes" of sexual orientation or gender identity (which again proves that the earlier news report "sexual identity is genetically hard-wired" is premature)...
READ MORE AT: <http://www.ipdx.org/news/000061.html>
EMI RESPONDS TO BOURDIEUAN ANALYSIS OF INTERSEX TREATMENT
Carrie Paechter from Goldsmiths University in London published a paper in the October 2003 issue of Women's Studies International Forum which explores medical attitudes toward intersexuality and gender assignment on intersex children to illustrate societal investment in regulating the "participation in communities of masculinity and femininity practice" (if you don't understand what this means, don't worry; the paper is theoretically based on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of pratique)...
READ MORE AT: <http://www.ipdx.org/news/000060.html>
#####
That's it! Thanks for your support--we're planning to hold a one-year anniversary party for Intersex Initiative in January, so stay tuned for that info...
Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative
http://www.ipdx.org/
To subscribe to ipdxWIRE Digest, the newsletter of Intersex Initiative, enter your email address in the field below and click "Subscribe." Our newsletter is low-volume (1-2 times a month) and we will not sell or give away your email address to anyone else, so it won't clog your mailbox. In addition, each message sent to ipdxWIRE Digest will have a link you can use to quickly unsubscribe if you choose to do so.