Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2005 was the 2nd Annual Intersex Awareness Day.
What do you know about intersex?
Intersex is a letter in Wesleyan’s “endless acronym” of queer life and identities but is often considered more of a condition and less of an identity and is very different than being either queer or transgender.
Intersex refers to a series of medical conditions in which a child’s genetic sex (chromosomes) and phenotypic sex (genital appearance) do not match, or are somehow different from the “standard” male or female.
About one in 2,000 babies are born visibly intersexed, while some others are detected later. The current medical protocol calls for the surgical “reconstruction” of these different but healthy bodies to make them “normal,” but this practice has become increasingly controversial as adults who went through the treatment report being physically, emotionally, and sexually harmed by such procedures.
Intersex Awareness Day is an international day of grass-roots action to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital cosmetic surgeries on intersex children. Surgery is just part of a larger pattern of how intersex children are treated. It is also important to stop the shame, secrecy, and isolation that are socially and medically imposed on children born with intersex conditions under the theory that the child is better off it they didn’t hear anything about it. The surgery needs to be replaced with social and psychological support as well as open and honest communication.
Intersex activists want to replace the current model of intersex treatment based on concealment with a patient-centered alternative. Intersex activists are not saying that intersex babies are better off left alone; they want there to be social and psychological support for both the parents and intersex children so that they can deal with social difficulties resulting from being different than others.
Intersex is not the same as transgender. While some people with intersex conditions also identify as transgender, intersex people as a group have a unique set of needs and priorities beyond those shared with trans people.
Too often, these unique needs are made invisible or secondary when “intersex” becomes a subcategory of “transgender.” For example, people who discuss intersex in the context of transgender often stress the risk of assigning a “wrong” gender as an argument against intersex genital mutilation, which overlooks the fact that intersex medical treatment is painful and traumatic whether or not one’s gender identity happens to match her or his assigned gender.
Show your support by talking to your friends and family members about the intersex movement (after learning more yourself, of course!). The more people are aware, the less likely they will accept surgery as the only option when they or someone they know have an intersex baby. It is also important to acknowledge intersex people as more than bodies to learn off of, whether viewing them in medical textbooks or in social science classes as “Nature’s challenge” to the gender binary. Intersex people are people, and deserve to be recognized for their full humanity and on their terms.
For more information, check out www.intersex-awareness-day.org.
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