The European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBT Rights hosted a seminar on intersex and trans people recently, with presentations by Dan Christian Ghattas of OII Deutschland, Silvan Agius of ILGA Europe, Richard Köhler of Transgender Europe, and others. Dan’s excellent presentation can be listened to and downloaded (PowerPoint format) or viewed via the Intergroup’s page alongside…
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Articles by Admin
The Guardian: “The IOC’s superwoman complex: how flawed sex-testing discriminates”
Rebecca Jordan-Young and Katrina Karkazis have another article on IOC sex testing today, in The Guardian: Last week, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) quietly dropped what may prove to be a bomb in the middle of the already explosive question of who can compete in women’s events in the 2012 London summer Games. The new…
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The Times of India: “Male, female and the third option”
Payoshni Mitra writes in The Times of India on the case of athlete Pinki Pramanik, arrested for rape in a case where she is alleged to have promised to marry a women “but later denied” – see “Gold medallist Pinki Pramanik accused of being male, held for ‘rape’”. Mitra, an independent researcher on gender and…
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NY Times: Hida Viloria’s letter on “No Clear Option for Testing”
Hida Viloria’s letter to the New York Times on genetic testing of elite female athletes appears in Sunday’s paper: To the Sports Editor: Re “No Clear Option for Testing,” June 18: At the 2010 Winter Olympics, a sportscaster said, in reference to the figure skater Johnny Weir, “We should make him pass a gender test.”…
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Petition on ending intersex female genital cutting in the US
We invite readers to sign this petition by Advocates for an Informed Choice in the US: Dear Secretary Clinton & Ambassador Verveer, February 6, 2013 marks the tenth annual International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). Cosmetic genital surgery is a practice of cutting girls so that they can fit cultural norms,…
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EU report on discrimination against intersex and trans people
The European Commission has just released a ground-breaking report on discrimination against intersex and trans people, titled “Discrimination against trans and intersex people on the grounds of sex, gender identity and gender expression”. It’s an excellent study, both in documenting legislation, in its conclusions and in how it manages to address two distinct groups of…
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OII Australia and OII Aotearoa/NZ release submission on the DSM-5 and SOC-7
OII Australia, together with OII Aotearoa/NZ, today released a submission [PDF] to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), regarding the draft Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition. The APA is the body that, until 1973, classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. The APA currently regards gender non-conformity to be a disorder, including gender non-conformity by intersex people.
News reports: “Man discovers he’s actually a woman”
We’re concerned about the credibility of this report, and the original one, just as we’re incredulous when we hear a report of a sex change via bee sting, reported as fact. Man and father, woman or intersex? While we wish good luck to this family, what is most disturbing about this meme is that…
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