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My name is Emi Koyama and I am the director of Intersex Initiative, a Portland, Oregon based organization working to end the medical abuse of children born with intersex conditions. I am also a former staffer for Intersex Society of North America, the largest intersex activist group in the world.
I'm writing in response to the article from your Philadelphia bureau titled "Pennsylvania governor makes transgendered aprotected class" in which it states: "It generally affects people who are transgendered -- a broad term referring to cross-dressers, hermaphrodites, transsexuals or those who have surgically changed their sex."
Several points:
1) The word "hermaphrodite" is both inaccurate and offensive. Literally, it means someone or something that has both male and female reproductive organs (like snails and earthworms), which never happens to people. The appropriate, non-deragatory term to refer to humans with mixed or incomplete reproductive anatomies is "intersex."
2) Despite what transgender activists have written in the past, intersex activists do not see themselves as part of "transgender." We are one of the three major intersex activist groups in this country (others being Intersex Society of North America from Seattle and Bodies Like Ours from New Jersey), and I am sure that this view is shared among all of us.
3) Intersex people are not targeted for discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodation. The violation of civil and human rights for intersex people often takes place in medical and family settings, where medically unnecessary surgeries and other invasive treatments are performed without proper informed consent. The Pennsylvania governor's executive order will not provide any protection for intersex people, although it is a welcome policy decision for transgender people.
For more information about intersexuality and intersex activism, please see:
http://www.ipdx.org/articles/hermaphrodites.html
http://www.ipdx.org/articles/intersex-faq.html
Thank you,
Emi Koyama
Intersex Initiative Portland
http://www.ipdx.org/