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Understanding Intersexuality via Personal Experience. Intersex Narratives: Gender, Medicine, and Identity Sharon E. Preves What Is The Agenda of The Intersex Patient Advocacy Movement? Cheryl Chase All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM Riki Wilchins. Amy J. Woeste.
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Understanding Intersexuality via Personal Experience Intersex Narratives: Gender, Medicine, and Identity Sharon E. Preves What Is The Agenda of The Intersex Patient Advocacy Movement? Cheryl Chase All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM Riki Wilchins Amy J. Woeste
Intersex NarrativesGender, Medicine, and Identity • Preves was prompted to write the article because she recognized that intersex support groups were being organized, and decided it would be helpful to share their personal stories with people outside the intersex community. • This article was specifically written for Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics. • Target Audience: Academia, Gender Courses.
Introduction: AuthorsSharon E. Preves • Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Hamline University. • Education: • B.A. 1991, Hamline University • Ph.D. 1999, University of Minnesota • Author of Intersex and Identity: The Contested Selfand Intersexuality in Families: Beyond Pink and Blue.
What is the agenda of the intersex patient advocacy movement? • Chase was prompted to write the article because intersexuals face unfair and traumatizing medical action due to outdated standard medical practices. • She provides information to help medical professionals better understand intersexuality, and specific recommendations for patient-centered care. • This article was presented orally at First World Congress: Hormonal and Genetic Basis of Sexual Differentiation Disorders, a conference held in May 2002. • Target Audience: Conference attendees, specifically standard medical practitioners.
Introduction: AuthorsCheryl chase • Co-founder of Hermaphrodites With Attitude with Riki Wilchins • Education: • B.A. in Mathematics from MIT, 1983 • M.A. in Organization Development from Sonoma State University, 2008 • ISNA’s Mission: The ISNA is devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female. Founder of the Intersex Society of North America
All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM • Wilchins was prompted to write the article because every single day, five infants are victims of IGM. • She explains and gains support against IGM and GID through the personal experiences of Cheryl Chase. • Target Audience: Academia, Queer Theory and Gender Theory Courses
Riki Wilchins • Co-founder of Hermaphrodites With Attitude with Cheryl Chase • Education: • B.A. 1982, Cleveland State University • M.A. in Clinical Psychology at the New School for Social Research, 1983 • GenderPAC’s Mission: To create "classrooms, communities, and workplaces [that] are safe for everyone to learn, grow, and succeed - whether or not they meet expectations for masculinity and femininity.” Founder of GenderPAC
Introduction: Summary of Presentation These articles explore “what happens to people who, from the time of their birth or early adolescence, inhabit bodies that do not afford them an easy choice between the gender lines” (2). By Using first-person experiences and scientific background to describe intersexuals’ lives and challenges they overcome.
Intersexuality • Intersexuals are people whose bodies are “in between” the two sexes. • In other words, their bodies show signs of both female and male. • Terminology • Hermaphrodite is an offensive and outdated term. • The correct term is intersex.
Intersexuality: Biological sex Biological Sex is Based on Biological Factors Such As: • Genitalia: External sexual organs; penis and vagina. • Hormones: Substances transported via the bloodstream. • Chromosomes: Tiny genetic strands that determine sex. • Gonads: Sex glands; ovaries and testes. • Internal Reproductive Organs • Overall Body Structure or Physical Characteristics
Intersexuality: sex-based identity Generally, biological factors like those lead to an established sex of female or male. But what if someone possesses female and male biological factors?
The Science of Intersexuality • Prior to the eighth week of pregnancy, whether the fetus is male and female cannot be determined. • Around the eighth week of pregnancy, the gonads of an XY embryo begin to form testes. • Around the twelfth week of pregnancy, the gonads of an XX embryo begin to form ovaries. This is why intersexuals are born with signs of being both female and male. Their gonads do not form only testes or only ovaries.
Types of intersexuality • True Hermaphroditism • Someone with both female gonadal (ovarian) tissue and male gonadal (testicular) tissue. • Cheryl Chase is a “true hermaphrodite” (3). • Pseudo-Hermaphroditism • Someone that has only male gonadal tissue or only female gonadal tissue, and whose external genitalia combines features of both sexes.
Intersexuality: igm and gid • IGM: Intersex Genital Mutilation • “Cosmetic genital cutting that is performed solely to make intersex infants resemble normal males and females” (3). • GID: Gender Identity Disorder – The Psychiatric Counterpart • “Children as young as 3 and as old as 18 are made to undergo treatment that includes behavioral modification, confinement to psychiatric wards, and psychotropic medication, all because they transcend binary gender norms and/or cross-gender identity” (3).
Estimates • Within 2000births,1 or 2 babies are born with sexually ambiguous anatomy. • Sexually Ambiguous Anatomy • Genitals that can be surgically altered to create a more distinct female or male genitalia. • Large clitoris or small penis can be surgically altered. “The criteria for what counts as female or male, or sexually ambiguous for that matter, are human standards” (2).
Sex vs. Gender • Sex: Determined by sexual organs. • Gender: Chosen sexual identity in relation to society or culture. • This means: Someone’s sex can differ from their chosen gender.
Beyond Pink and Blue Are you a girl or a boy? Does your sex differ from your gender? Who decides? Have you ever felt like an outsider? How do you know which sex you are? How did you acquire your gender? Can you be both a girl and a boy?
Preves’ Research Methods: Interviews • March 1997 to September 1998 • 37 Intersexed Adults • Ages 20 to 65 - Average Age of 40 • 24% lived as a gender different from their sex • 6 Transitioning from Female to Male • 3 Transitioning from Male to Female • 51%with sexually ambiguous anatomy at birth • 49% intersexuality was not apparent until puberty
Intersex is a Social, Not a Medical, Problem “Medical treatments to create genetically unambiguous children are not performed entirely or even predominately for the sake of preventing stigmatization and trauma to the children. Rather, these elaborate, expensive, and risky procedures are performed to maintain the social order for the institutions and adults that surround these children” (2).
Case Study: Claire • Prior to surgery, all of Claire’s biological factors were female, except her larger clitoris. • “‘I don’t feel that my sex was ambiguous at all. There was never that question. But I’m sure that [clitorec-tomies] have been done forever because parents just [do not] like big clitorises because they look too much like a penis.’” • After Claire’s surgery, she “‘was in agony trying to figure out who I was…what sex I was. And feeling like a freak.’” • Critical Thinking Question: Was it permissible that Claire’s parents forced her to clitorectomy when she was six years old?
Birth sex is like a menu: Clitorectomy If your organ is less than 3/8” long, it’s a clitoris and you’re a baby girl. If it’s longer than 1”, it’s a penis and you’re a baby boy. But if it’s in between, you’re a baby herm: The organ is an enlarged clit, and it gets cut off.
Birth sex is like a menu: Clitorectomy “The pediatrician will apologetically explain to your parents that you were born genetically “deformed,” but through the miracle of modern Science they can make you into a “normal little girl” (3).
Birth sex is like a menu:Penectomy “Of course, this never happens in reverse. No pediatrician will ever apologetically explain to your parents that, “I’m afraid you son’s penis is going to be too big, maybe eight or nine inches long. No one will ever be attracted to him but homosexuals and oversexed women. If we operate quickly, we can save him.”(3).
Birth sex is like a menu: standard deviations Currently, the rule is 2 standard deviations from the mean. If pediatricians agreed to increase this rule to, say, 3 standard deviations from the mean, thousands of intersex infants would be instantly “cured.” On the other hand, if they decided to decrease it to 1½ standard deviations, 1/3 to ½ of the female readers of this book would suddenly find themselves intersexed, and therefore candidates for genital surgery.
Medicalization, Stigma, Secrecy, and Shame “The participants’ experiences with medical attempts to “normalize” their bodies were amazingly consistent, despite the widespread variation of intersex diagnoses.”
Medical sex assignment Three Messages Doctors Gave Participants • They were objects of medical interest and treatment. • They were not to know what was wrong with them or why they were receiving medical treatment. • These procedures were in their best interest and should be accepted and kept secret.
Being an Object of Study How would you feel being studied like you’re an object without even knowing why? And if you asked, they would only tell you, “Don’t worry, it’s for your own good.”
Seeds of Change – Seeking Comprehensive Information and Similar Others • Carol had to lie
Hermaphrodites with Attitude: Evidence of Intersex Pride Intersex Society of North America • Chose to embrace the alienating and shameful word hermaphrodite
Implications • Intersex Society of North America • Intersex Patient Advocacy Movement • Cheryl Chase • Intersex patient advocacy and medical reform movement
Intersex society of north America • Cheryl Chase • Executive Director of Intersex Society of North America
Intersex Patient Advocacy Movement • Cheryl Chase • Executive Director of Intersex Society of North America • Began in 1990s
Bibliography • Chase, Cheryl. “What is the agenda of the intersex patient advocacy movement?”First World Congress: Hormonal and Genetic Basis of Sexual Differentiation Disorders, 17-18 May 2002, Tempe, Arizona. Ed. Maria New and Jean Wilson. Chevy Chase, Maryland: The Endocrine Society, 2002. Print. • Preves, Sharon E. “Intersex Narratives.” Sex, Gender, and Sexuality: The New Basics. Ed. Abby L. Ferber, Kimberly Holcomb, and TreWentling. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 32-43. Print. • Wilchins, Riki. “Chapter 7: All Together Now: Intersex Infants and IGM.” Queer Theory, Gender Theory. Los Angeles: Alyson, 2004. Print. wilchins-qt-ch7-igm.pdf
