Medical Ethics

Toeing the Party Line

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  “Lies, damn lies and statistics” ~ attrib. Benjamin Disraeli “My point, however, is that intersexuals are not as rare as people may think” ~ Anne Fausto-Sterling Who is privileged enough to hold forth on who is, and is not, intersex, and what even intersex means, if it is understood at all, was long ago…
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Say my Name: politicisation of the body and the legitimisation of institutionalised violence toward intersex children

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There is no surprise that clinical psychologists hold conferences, nor that they write up their conclusions of the meetings and debates they attend. Except that something at a conference in 2000 held by the Tavistock/Portman clinic caught one of the attendees askance: a conference on gender identity entitled “Atypical Gender Identity Development: Therapeutic Models, Philosophical…
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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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Lazy Sunday Afternoon*

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Idly musing on a sunny Sunday afternoon about the current positions shared by clinicians working within intersex medicine, and advocates striving to change those parameters Clinicians – we will talk to you – these are our terms: current clinical protocols. Advocates – we will talk to you – these are our terms: change the current…
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