Public Campaign!

We finally did it! Our group managed to set up a booth at our university to campaign for intersex awareness, which ended up being pretty successful. It was a lot of work, but here are some pictures of the end result. The actual tabling event was on Monday, March 10th, and we were there for about four hours. Thank you to everyone who stopped by! We printed some out for the purposes of our table, as you can see in the picture.

Although our project is coming to an end, our blog will not. We want to thank everyone for their insight, opinions, support and time. We apologize for not replying to every post, but it was interesting to see how the discussion unfolded, particularly in "The Great Debate". More to come soon, but this was just an important update that I could not let slide :).

Genital Surgery on Infants

I found this video to be very interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PUyyGI8r4w
Doctors get away with performing infant genital surgeries because it is part of the accepted "medical standards" when in fact, there really is no medical reason.
Therapeutic privilege, which is an exception to informed consent, is currently part of Canadian law. Doctors can decide not to disclose health information to the parent and/or child to avoid "confusing them" or causing "psychological harm". There's no evidence that children growing up with intersex genitals are worse off psychologically than those who are altered. It is also believed that informing the parent/child may cause them to make the "wrong" decision. What about the child's right to informed consent? Should the parent be informed without the child's consent? Is counseling, peer suport groups and available research about their condition even an option?

The Great Debate

The constant labeling of 'male' or 'female' exists everywhere around us. We encounter it as a box you must check off on virtually every single job application, medical form, survey, email account...the list goes on. Exclamations of "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" pronounce one's gender from the very beginning. If someone is born with ambiguous genitalia, these 'norms' in society do not apply, making the whole labeling ideology a crock to begin with. It is a very serious flaw for us to naively categorize our gender into one of two boxes. That being said, however, there are those who do think that one must fit into a gender category in order to lead a normal lifestyle. Many doctors believe in performing "corrective surgery" on individuals who are born with ambiguous genitalia. Is this the 'right' thing to do? While this is not a new topic, it is quite controversial because it is not only a question of medical ethics, but of the individual's own rights, the involvement of family members, as well as the ongoing nature versus nurture debate. What is your opinion? Should gender be assigned at birth, or should it be up to the individual to decide later on in life?

Welcome!

Hello everybody!

In case you stumbled onto this site and are wondering what it is all about, let us explain. The purpose of this blog is to provide a community for those who either identify as intersexual, or are just curious about learning more on this topic. It is a work in progress, but we hope to establish a positive space for you to voice your questions and comments/concerns. We will provide links to other sites, as well as additional articles and information about intersexuality. We do not claim to be experts on this topic, as we are currently learning more as we develop this project, so bear with us as this blog unfolds.

This site is also TBLGAY-friendly.

Looking forward to starting up this project!

~Ladies of WMST 3503