Articles by Leslie J

A Narrative fed by Comfortable Assumptions

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The often assumed belief that addressing gender pronouns is a desired end game for addressing intersex activist’s concerns needs to be repeatedly challenged, especially so when articles are published in press that fail to acknowledge the continuing human rights abuses of intersex infants and young children. There is little comfort in later being able to…
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Fundamental Human Rights

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A core imperative of intersex advocacy is the securing for everyone born intersex their fundamental human rights of personal autonomy in all decisions made about, and for them – primarily in the medical environment, but equally so throughout an intersex person’s life.   Allied to that fundamental human right is a person’s right to bodily integrity,…
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The IAAF and the Sytematic Abuse of Female Athletes Human Rights

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In the deepening crisis embroiling the IAAF and it’s failure to uphold doping regulations is the tawdry tale of the human rights abuses meted out to female athletes who failed to conform to the artificial values the IAAF adopted to designate who it deemed female enough to compete in elite athletics. At face value the present…
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*I* is for Intersex

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An Apologia? In something of an unusual move, Alice Dreger has issued a joint statement, along with Tiger Devore attempting to distance themselves from the orthodox practices currently adhered to in intersex clinical practice.   Tiger Devore ‘s statement is a masterpiece of succinct honesty.  Tiger admits he was taken in by clinician’s promises of openness…
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Starry, Starry Night – the short life of Herculine Barbin

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Starry, Starry Night – the short life of Herculine Barbin

Herculine Barbin’s birthday – commemorated every year as Intersex Day of Remembrance Almost 150 years after Herculine’s death intersex people ourselves are reframing the language and understanding about what it means to be intersex, what it means to embody diversity that remains both known of, yet unspoken. It is intersex advocates and activists who are…
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J’Accuse

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A personal reflection written for Intersex Awareness Day and Intersex Day of Solidarity   Once upon a while ago, how long ago I will not say here, I was born into a world that refused to accept that being intersex was valid, or acceptable. Instead my existence was cloaked in suffocating silence, to be spoken…
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