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Below is a (slightly modified) letter sent to Outside In, an organization providing services to low-income people and homeless youth.
Hello Outside In,
My name is Emi Koyama and I am the director of Intersex Initiative, a Portland-based activist group working to end the medical abuse of children born with intersex conditions. I also came in the Outside In clinic as a client on June 23, which led me to write this letter to you.
On the first intake sheet I was made to fill out when I first came into the clinic, I noticed a curious "inclusion" of "intersex" and "transgender" categories along with "male" and "female" sexes. I realize that this reflects the agency's eagerness to acknowledge the diverse population that visit its clinic, but it is wrong to list "intersex" as a sex. Here are some reasons:
- Vast majority of people born with intersex conditions live normally as a woman or a man, and do not view themselves as a member of a different gender/sex category. Most people born with intersex conditions do not think "intersex" to be who they are; it is simply a medical condition, or a lived history of medicalization. Most people with intersex conditions would answer "no" if they are asked "are you intersex?"
- Most people who would check "intersex" are probably not intersex, but non-intersex individuals who do not know what intersex is. These are the people who feel that they do not belong to "norms" of being either male or female who mistakenly think "intersex" describes who they are. This is a very common misperception among some people, which basically renders this portion of the intake form useless.
- To list "intersex" along with "male" and "female" gives the false impression that one cannot be male or female if she or he has an intersex condition. This hurts people with intersex conditions who identify as male or female, and mis-educates the general public.
- In the standard medical treatment, physicians view intersexuality primarily as a problem of gender, which is why they narrowly define successful intervention as the surgical construction of "normal" appearing genitalia and the development of "normal" gender identity. Intersex activists oppose this point of view, arguing that the patient's own perception of quality of life--which, by the way, is severely damaged by invasive surgical interventions--as the ultimate measurement of a successful treatment. To put down "intersex" as a gender or sex category negates intersex activists' effort to question the view that intersexuality is primarily a problem of gender.
- Using "intersex" as a gender or sex category is not simply incorrect--it is hurtful because it makes intersex seem like a neutral, stigma-free category. Intersex activists feel that using "intersex" as a neutral gender or sex category trivializes the actual pain of medical abuse that people go through when they are labeled "intersex."
I'm sure that you have heard conflicting information about intersex before, which is understandable because intersex activists have not had our own media to spread our message. In the past, a lot of information about intersex have been spread by people who are not intersex: first doctors, then gender theorists, transgender activists, and the media. Please see the additional information found below, and let me know if there is anything else I can do to help Outside In a safe clinic for people born with intersex conditions.
http://www.ipdx.org/articles/sexualtrauma.html
http://www.ipdx.org/articles/intersex-faq.html
http://www.ipdx.org/articles/hermaphrodites.html
By the way, the rest of my visit to the clinic went really well and I appreciate it a lot, since I had learned to fear medical settings from many years of exposure to abusive medical attention. Thank you.
Emi Koyama
Intersex Initiative Portland
http://www.ipdx.org/