Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Elizabeth Reis defames and trivializes intersex people

http://intersexpride.blogspot.com/2008/02/elizabeth-reis-defames-and-trivializes_02.html
02/02/2008

Below is the abstract of a recent article written by Elizabeth Reis, someone who is not intersex, who tries to justify the unjustifiable by thinking some clever little slight of hand will make all well with DSD terminology.

Oh my.

i don't think Ms. Reis was being disrespectful. she was just discussing a bit of nomenclature. hasn't she got a right to do that?

I know Elizabeth Reis, and I don't think she would have made light of the intersexed people. She has always been right with the trans community. I didn't read all of the article only part. She would never use the terminology that were in the circles.
Sheila

Of course she has the right to do discuss any topic.  However, this article is very biased and it is full of information taken from OII's website without ever giving any credit to the authors.  She will not do that because if she did ,she would have to admit that there are very few intersex people fighting in favor of DSD. 

She cites only one person who is really opposed to this terminology. 

I don't have any opposition to people who are not intersexed writing about intersex.  I do have problems with people who are not intersex telling me what term I should use and the term that Reis recommends strikes a lot of us as simply trivializing.

A divergence of sex development?  Most of us don't appreciate her taking our ideas without permission.  Most of us don't appreciate her telling us that divergence of sex development is a good term for us and we are frankly tired of people who will not even admit that OII exists and she knows we exist because she cites references from the internet where we have written against DSD terminology and the protocols that are being based on this change of terminology.

For more information:
DSD: North American Medical fascism and manufacturing consent
http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_29

Kind regards,
Curtis

Quote from: Curtis on February 04, 2008, 08:56:09 PM
Of course she has the right to do discuss any topic.  However, this article is very biased and it is full of information taken from OII's website without ever giving any credit to the authors.  She will not do that because if she did ,she would have to admit that there are very few intersex people fighting in favor of DSD. 

She cites only one person who is really opposed to this terminology. 

I don't have any opposition to people who are not intersexed writing about intersex.  I do have problems with people who are not intersex telling me what term I should use and the term that Reis recommends strikes a lot of us as simply trivializing.

A divergence of sex development?  Most of us don't appreciate her taking our ideas without permission.  Most of us don't appreciate her telling us that divergence of sex development is a good term for us and we are frankly tired of people who will not even admit that OII exists and she knows we exist because she cites references from the internet where we have written against DSD terminology and the protocols that are being based on this change of terminology.

For more information:
DSD: North American Medical fascism and manufacturing consent
http://www.intersexualite.org/Curtis.html#anchor_29

Kind regards,
Curtis

oh. so you're saying most of the hostility surrounding this issue is the medical establishment's  introduction of the term DSD? and that some in the medical community are trying to replace the term Intersex with DSD? for the purpose, ostensibly, of allowing doctors to maintain the practice of sexual assignment surgery at birth? (sorry for being so in the dark here. today's actually the first time i've heard the term DSD).

-ell

Hi Ell,

You are right.  The problem is not just the term but the reason for changing the term at all.  Intersex was not PRECISE and could NOT be used to normalize children without consent as easily as DISORDER of sex development can and that is what has happened. 

Elizabeth Reis' suggestion that we keep DSD but pretend it stands for DIVERGENCE of sex development shows a lack of understanding of how most intersex people feel and also a lack of the understanding that this is NOT just about a change in terminology. 

But even if it were just about not liking the new term, disorders of sex development, that would still be important to many intersex people.

What Elizabeth Reis needs to take into consideration is that practically all of us who oppose the term DSD are not interested in her suggesting that we pretend it stands for Divergence instead of disorder.  We like INTERSEX and that is that.

DSD is being used to cover the butts of doctors and was first suggested by the John Hopkins University because it has been very fearful of lawsuits.  Alice Dreger is an editor for John Hopkins University's professional jounal on perspectives in biology and medecine and her husband in a pediatrician.  She is not intersexed and does not have a good reputation with lots of intersex people who resent what she has done and we do not like the fact that she is orchestrating a continuous attack on all opponents by getting other academics to write articles like this one by Elizabeth Reis. 

Elizabeth Reis would probably not like it if I came up with the idea of replacing the term woman with "divergence from Male sex develpment" and make "woman" a disorder of Male sex development and then enforced testosterone treatments and other virilising surgeries on all women by using the new medical term "disorder of male sex development" to justify those treatments without consent.  She would probably also think it was trivializing if I recommended that we keep DMSD (and allow the medical world to continue masculinizing all females) but pretend it means Divergence of male sex development.  Why not just be women and stop the masculinization. (Substitute the word intersex for woman and the word sex for male in the above analogy and you will see how many of us read Elizabeth Reis' article"

Reis' article is a result of not listening to intersex people and that is apparent.