Books and selected journal articles on intersex issues, including fiction, peer-reviewed papers, and biographies.
The 2006 Yogyakarta Principles on the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity are an important development, primarily furthering the rights of LGBT people, but with a crucial principle of particular interest to intersex people. Principle 1: The Right to the Universal Enjoyment of Human Rights All human…
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Today is Intersex Solidarity Day and Herculine Barbin‘s Birthday. OII Australia and Organisation Intersex International would like to invite others to join us each year by commemorating November 8 as Intersex Solidarity Day. All human rights organizations, feminist allies, academics and gender specialists, as well as other groups and individuals interested in intersex human rights,…
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The rapid progression of intersex medicalization since the mid-1950s has directly influenced the development of intersex support and advocacy groups. These have a significant presence on the internet and many, such as OII also have a physical presence in countries that have set up affiliate organizations. Organisation Intersex International (OII) and other advocacy and support…
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This report, on the ways that intersex is used by educators, was published in June 2001. The analysis and recommendations are as valid today as they were then.
Kathleen Winter’s book is based on a short story originally intended for her collection boYs but rejected because it was too fantastic. Unfortunately, the same can be said of the novel itself. While literary and entertaining for its descriptions of Newfoundland, the lead character shows what happens when a preoccupation with gender dominates at the expense of an understanding of biology.
In 2009 Dr Reis’s book, Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, examined the cultural contexts that both inform and drive western medicine’s attitudes and responses to intersex bodies. Beginning with the profound homophobia of the 19th through to the 21st centuries, to the taboo topic of neo-vaginal dilation, Reis challenged standard medical practices…
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This report focuses on the cosmetic outcomes of non-consensual cosmetic genital surgery performed on infants. OII Australia regards such surgeries as reprehensible, and wishes to see them cease. From the abstract: Issues of childhood genital surgery in individuals with genital ambiguity remain controversial. Poor results reported in some centres triggered questioning of the appropriateness of…
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Professor Alice Dreger writes in Psychology Today’s blog, “Fetishes I Don’t Get”: In a brief article entitled “Bad Vibrations” just posted at the Hastings Center’s Bioethics Forum, my colleague Ellen Feder and I express our shock over the follow-up techniques being used by pediatric urologist Dix Poppas at Weill Medical College of Cornell University on…
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Michael Noble wrote this paper on representations of his trait, Klinefelter Syndrome (47,XXY) in 2003, and revised it in 2010. This is the revised version.
Intersex refers to atypical internal and/or external anatomical sexual characteristics, where features usually regarded as male or female may be mixed to some degree. This is a naturally occurring variation in humans.
Hilde Lindemann, Ellen Feder and Alice Dreger comment on prenatal use of dexamethasone to modify appearance and gender expression associated with Congenital adrenal hyperplasia: There’s a common misperception that, now that the Johns Hopkins psychologist John Money is gone, so are all the ethical problems with the way people with genital anomalies are treated. Not…
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Chris Somers xxy (vice-president of OII Australia) and colleagues present an analysis of intersex issues for primary healthcare providers. Chris Somers xxy is a national and international intersex activist with a M.Ed. By Research (UWA); concerning Androgyny; B.Ed. (Melb); Hons Dip Creative Photography (Trent Polytechnic now Trent University, UK); who has worked in a number…
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