Sex versus Gender: Exposing medical violence and dishonesty (commentary)

[Natasha]

Sex versus Gender: Exposing medical violence and dishonesty (commentary)

http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_34
03/29/2008

"Medical specialists complicate and erase intersex experience and
visibility by insisting that sex is a biological fact and gender a
social construct."

[Curtis]

Thanks Natasha for posting this.

Here it is in a nutshell:

Alice Dreger: The violent gender police of intersex and trans identities
by Curtis E. Hinkle
30 March 2008
http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_37

'It is obvious from reading Alice Dreger's recent articles both in the Johns Hopkins publication she edited and her article in defense of J. Michael Bailey that she is working to undermine what she calls the "feminine essence narrative".  In other words, she is against using gender identity as a valid construct for explaining why transsexuals reject their assigned sex.

However, this same "ethicist" insists on using this same gender identity construct as a justification for violently erasing intersex children's own identities and rightful place in society.

...

She insists that intersexed children must be assigned a GENDER identity (a sex often cannot be assigned because the sex is not categorizable as clearly male or female) and she further insists that this is to be done as early as possible without any input from the child.  In essence, Alice Dreger is in favor of imposing a "feminine essence narrative" on many intersex children without any essential input from the children themselves."

EDIT - deleted majority of the posted article, edited a 'teaser' that communicates the gist of the article in under 200 words. =K