This article is really interesting. It pushes a lot of boundaries for me by not making things clear. For example it takes the article until the third paragraph to explain WHY the feminizing of male fish is an ecological problem and before that it just assumes that its audience is appalled.

The article is ended by speculating what hormone mimicking chemicals will do to humans. “At the very least, we can hope that the thought of drinking water that turns male fish into females will spur us to clean up our rivers.” This is a sketchy statement. For me the thought of fishes reproductive systems being shot is what makes me want to clean up the water – not the idea of male to female.

The comments at the end further reflect how confused the readers are by all of these ideas.

There is also a comment by an intersex person who claims to be intersex due to synthetic chemicals which I think is really interesting and I wish I had more information about that. This is the first person who I have heard claimed this.

http://www.intersexinitiative.org/

Let’s hope that this doesn’t happen in Chicago if we are the next host of the Olympics.

Beijing threatens to test Olympic athletes’ genetic and chromosomal sex

http://www.intersexcollective.org/

Intersects will be a zine with the intention of re-imagining sex and gender through the lens of historical fact, current science and modern lives. Springing from a well-researched artistic think tank we hope to make media that brings to light all the variants that make the norm seem less normal. We want to stop pathologisation where it is misplaced, de-mystify variations on the sex and gender binary, and creatively imagine other ways of living with sex and gender. Subjects that the zine will touch on include:

Who our binary sex and gender views harm.
What sexuality has to do with sex and gender.
How sex and gender function in other species.
What pollution has to do with sex and gender.
How sex and gender function in different cultures.
How sex and gender have functioned throughout history.

Articles will be written by members of our think tank and by an open call for submissions which we will then jury. Interviews will make up a large part of the zine with the intention of interviewing authorities, those who have researched and those who have experienced life on the fringe of sex and gender.

(Article care of Bryce Wolfe)

The woman from this movie also feels harmed by the decision to use the term DSD. This movie is sweet and, as far as I’ve read in the comments, it seems to be bringing out a positive response from the Youtube community.

Among all kinds of other information I learned from this article that ‘variant’ genitalia are the words that some intersex advocates use to describe intersex genitalia.

“As you can hear, every description I offer can only be fully understood in relation to those bodies taken as the measure of normalcy: male and female bodies. This is the standard from which intersex bodies are thought to vary.”

This is a post on the origins of the term disorders of sexual development. It also has some links to other articles debating the subject:

A Critique of the DSD Nomenclature

This article touches on the fact that we are currently in a chromosome purist age where chromosomes are taken to be the “true” determiners of sex:

The DSD nomenclature uses chromosomes, instead of gonads, as the most important classifier of an individual’s sex, such as “46,XY DSD” and “46,XX DSD”. This is no more helpful than using male pseudohermaphroditism or female pseudohermaphroditism which was based on gonads. (2)  Instead of male pseudohermaphroditism and female pseudohermaphroditism, the new DSD nomenclature proposes “46, XY DSD” and “46, XX DSD” as replacements for the former taxonomy.”

“Disorders of sex development (DSD), defined as “congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical,” was recommended to replace potentially confusing and stigmatizing terms such as intersex, pseudohermaphroditism, hermaphroditism, and sex reversal, as well as gender-based diagnostic labels such as male/female pseudohermaphroditism.”

In our imaginary futuristic world intersex people are the norm and calling it disorders of sex development doesn’t fit. Is the word intersex stigmatizing? Should we use another in this blog/zine/screen play or in our daily lives?

OII (or Organisation Intersex International) uses the word intersex and obviously regards the label of disorders as unfit and insulting. This can be seen from paragraphs like this:

“In November of 2007, GendersInX, a grassroots intersex support group founded by Andre Lorek, unveiled this Ribbon and has given it to the Intersex communities worldwide. The Ribbon stands for the people we are no matter what gender we feel most appropriate individually. In a world where gender is being perversely attributed to doctrines that describe us as “sexually disordered” and in which the medical communities would rather normalise us, we have a symbol of unity and of combined strength to fight against those who would invisibilise us and pathologise our gender.”

In Katrina Karkazis book she uses the word intersex acknowledging that it is a . . . “Intersex is a catchall category that encompasses dozens of medical diagnoses, but the defining feature is that intersex bodies in some way violate the commonly understood biological diferences between males and females. The category intersex relies on the very categories of the medicalization of sex, and it is meant to cover a range of disparate diagnoses and biologically diverse individuals. But the breadth of human physical variance is more complex that the category allows for.” (page 9)

Of the intersex adults that she interviewed she said that “Some people consider the label intersex as central to their sense of self; for others it holds no personal relevance, and yet others see it as incorrect and even deeply offensive.” (page 18)

It seems obvious then to conclude that people who see intersex as being central to their sense of self could be DEEPLY offended by the term disorders of sex development. With a label that blatantly pathologies like that I think the obvious choice is to use the word intersex and be sensitive to its stigmatizing affects, while hoping for either its de-stigmatization or a more appropriate alternative word.

Thoughts?

P.S. Also as Gina pointed out in another comment some GLBTQ organizations have embraced the word intersex and changed their name to GLBTQI.