Organization for Intersex International (OII)

Bodies Like Ours

E-mail : rife@webglaz.ch
Phone and fax :
+41 (0)22 860 11 44

Mailing address :
RIFE
CP 214
CH-1226 Thonex/Geneva
Switzerland

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For quite a while, intersexed people whose sex cannot be clearly defined as either male or female, have been attempting to make their experiences with cultural taboos, forced normalization and violent medical practices public. Up until the 20th Century they have been classified as hermaphrodites. So-called medical progress has not only pathologized them but has additionally "medicalized" them out of existence. Today they have coined the term "intersex" as a political category, often after having lived for years under a forced sex assignment.
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The abject, sexist, patriarchal society has consistently denied the reality of nature and hidden the biological existence of numerous human beings. Such a society is murderous, destructive and mutilating.
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Read our Declaration of Fundamental Principles.  If you wish to support us in our struggle for human rights for the intersexed and against all forms of sexism, we invite you to sign our petition by sending a short e-mail in your name or the name of your organisation to: OII-Europe@webglaz.ch
Declaration of the Fundamental Principles of the coalition of Francophone intersex activists (OII and FINE).
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Cases of partially intersexed states, improperly called female pseudo-hermaphrodism, are characterised by external genitalia which are judged to be to "virilised" in accordance with the cultural and medical standards in effect. 
Female pseudo-hermaphrodism is the term for intersex with a corresponding 46 XX karyotype.  That is, when the chromosomes are the same as those for the majority of persons said to be female. We now know that in all mammals (including humans) there are females with XY chromosomes and males with XX chromosomes. Use of the term “hermaphrodit” indicates a lack of scientific discipline because it would imply that individuals could have both male and female reproductive organs. Snails as well as molluscs are able to reproduce as both male or female.  In humans, this is not possible.
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Imagine the following scenario: a young woman finally delivers a healthy baby in a large urban hospital. The doctor in attendance looks immediately between the child's legs and hesitates to announce the first news most new mother's hear upon the birth of their baby. Instead, he turns to the others in the room and looks inquisitively. No one is sure of the sex of the infant.
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Some of the intersexed, despite being direct victims both within their flesh and their soul of the absurd concept of the dichotomy of the sexes, do not escape the conditioning of their societies. 

Just because one is a woman does not make one a feminist. For the same reason, just being born intersexed does not automatically undo all the brainwashing that is however the reason for their discomfort.
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This is probably one of the most common misconceptions about intersex. Intersex usually has nothing to do with the genitalia of the person, much less having two sets.There are intersex people with a penis and a vaginal opening. However, there are no documented cases of a person being born with fully developed male and female genitalia.The vast majority of intersex people have genitalia that look pretty typically male or female with a small minority having atypical genitalia. As a matter of fact, the quaint, pseudoscientific term “true hermaphrodite” can refer to a person with totally typical male or female genitalia. 
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Jerry Falwell and his cadre of ill-informed homophobic marriage defenders are still at it.The premise of their "One Man and One Woman" Marriage Initiative (http://www.onemanonewoman.com/) has been endorsed by President Bush as an appropriate basis for an amendment to the United States Constitution.We should all welcome it, because medical challenges to such a law will prove, ultimately, the impossibility of using medical criteria to define a "man" or "woman". The many kinds of intersex persons who cannot fit any chromosomal or anatomical definition of male or female will have to have their constitutional rights upheld. The reality of such persons will never permit a simple chromosomal, gonadal or genital definition of male or female, man or woman.
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