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Intersex--Medical Authority, Parents, and Individual Rights

Hello all,

I thought I would provide a bit of vocabulary:

intersex- a broad term that can refer to several disorders related to ambiguous sexual identification. Two of the most common are Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) and Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)

DSD- Disorders of Sex Development is an alternate term for intersex which has been promoted by intersex activists because of the confusion that the term "intersex" introduces with respect to gender identity.

sex assignment- surgery commonly performed on intersex infants to distinguish them as male or female

gonads- sex cell-producing organs, testes or ovaries

androgyny- refers to those without gender-specific sexual characteristics, or sexual
preferences, or gender identity, or a combination of these

ISNA- Intersex Society of North America

karyotype- having to do with the number and type of chromosomes

etiology- causes of a disorder or disease

virilization- the biological development of sex majorly determined by androgens

phenotype- physical manifestation of the genes



Readings:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/magazine/24intersexkids.html
http://www.intersexinitiative.org/articles/letter-outsidein.html

Excerpts from "Fixing Sex" by Katrina Karkazis. The last two scans are from another section of the book:

Optional:


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Comments

  1. Jo2/3/11, 8:29 AM

    Actually this is one of the most appalling appellations of misinformation I have read in a very long while.

    The term Intersex was adopted by science in the 20th century, and applied to human beings
    whose biological sex cannot be classified as clearly male or female. An intersex person may
    have the biological attributes of both sexes or lack some of the biological attributes
    considered necessary to be defined as one or other sex.

    Ergo Intersex has little to do with identities and everything to do with biological diversity.

    You write: DSD- Disorders of Sex Development is an alternate term for intersex which has been promoted by intersex activists because of the confusion that the term "intersex" introduces with respect to gender identity.

    DSD is rejected by almost every Intersex Rights Lobby going. It was promoted by the now defunct Intersex Society of North America (ISNA)aroud the same time it morphed itself into the Accord Alliance and betrayed every principle it purported to stand for by negotiating the infamous Chicago Consensus. (You can look that up for yourself)

    The promotion of DSD had nothing to do with so-called gender identity and everything to with a philosophical dispute within ISNA over what constituted 'Intersex'.

    A example of that dispute was ISNA's declaration that CAH was not an Intersex condition - this despite the fact that at Prader stage 4 and 5 CAH presents as complete sex reversal!

    The Organisation Intersex International (OII) is far and away the world's largest Intersex lobby group. It is global, speaking to its members in 13 different languages including Mandarin and Arabic.

    http://www.intersexualite.org/anglophone.html
    http://www.intersexualite.org/usa.html

    You would have been better advised had you turned there for information.

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