For Parents/Families/Birth Professionals
On Health Care for 2012
“Being intersex is often treated as a medical issue, simply because we’re different. Just as being male or female is not a medical issue, although there are specific health issues specific to being male or female, neither is being intersex. Intersex people simply have a naturally occurring variation — just like having red hair —…
Read MoreWhen medicine can be dangerous to your health and human rights – ACOG pretends that intersex is transgender
MEDICINE, as we often point out, is not a science but a technical art that sometimes makes reference to science. Medical people are as subject to systems of belief – religions and ideologies unsupported by scientific inquiry – as non-medical people. Systems of belief, by their very nature of being based on belief, have little…
Read More5-alpha Reductase
5-ALPHA reductase deficiency, commonly shortened to “5-alpha” by community members and allies, is similar to the androgen resistance syndromes – AIS. Individuals with 5-alpha have XY chromosomes and testes but appear phenotypically female at birth. This variation results from the body’s failure to convert testosterone to dihydrotestosterone, the more powerful form of androgen responsible for the…
Read MoreIntersex and Identity: The Contested Self
Intersex and Identity: The Contested Self (Rutgers University Press, 2003), by Sharon Preeves, is a groundbreaking text about intersex people, our identities and medical treatment. Professor Preeves is a professor and chair of the Sociology Department and director of the Public Health Sciences Program at Hamline University who recently served as a faculty research collaborator…
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