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Your article about a woman who is allegedly being driven out of town due to gossips and biases in Plympton ("Trouble rears up on ranch", September 26) may have inadvertently reinforced the negative perception of her when it labeled her a "hermaphrodite." While that may have been a label given to Ms. Pina at her birth almost half a century ago, it is now considered derogatory and inaccurate. We now use the term "intersex."
Contrary to the common misperception, individuals born with intersex conditions are not both male and female, but are born with "ambiguous" or otherwise differently shaped reproductive organs. Vast majority of intersex people, like Ms. Pina, live and identify as an ordinary man or an ordinary woman. To call her a "hermaphrodite" gives the false impression that she was born with both male and female sex organs, or that she is not truly a female. Misperceptions such as these could lead to prejudice and discrimination that she does not deserve, as they seem to have happened in Plympton.
Emi Koyama
Director, Intersex Initiative
http://www.intersexinitiative.org/