Videos for Jeannie Kay

Beautiful - Meshell Ndegeocello



Loving Annabelle



Philippe Jaroussky - Vedro con mio diletto – Vivaldi



Le souvenir

A Tribute to my Loving Companion, Jeannie Kay

I have been overwhelmed by all the loving support and condolences that I have received since my partner Jeannie Kay passed on last Friday, February 20, 2009.

I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for surrounding me with love and affection during this difficult time.

The word “love” exists for a reason and it cannot be defined rationally because there are more important regions of our consciousness to be explored. The regions of the heart cannot be expressed in mere words. There is a reality beyond words and all human knowledge which depends on language to express it can only hint at the great mystery of life. There is a place for silence and reverence. There is a place for awe. - Dedicated to my partner Jeannie Kay- Curtis E. Hinkle

To live in a heart one leaves behind is not to die. Je t'aime ma chère Jeannie Kay. Tu vivras toujours au fond de mon coeur. Merci. - Curtis

In Memoriam
Jeannie Kay Mebus Hinkle

Online at: http://www.intersexualite.org/Jeannie-Kay-Hinkle.html

Open Letter to WPATH President followed by Letter to WPATH membership

Letter sent May 28, 2008. Note: this detail is important when reading Whittle's response dated May 29, 2008 to Ken Zucker which is further down in this post.

Dear Stephen Whittle,

Sophia Siedlberg and I are writing to you on behalf of the Organisation Intersex International about a very disturbing problem associated with WPATH and what appears its total lack of intersex input and representation. We in OII have worked very diligently to prove that we are allies with your membership. We therefore are concerned that we have been ignored and perhaps even intentionally harmed by WPATH.

There is a committee in WPATH with the following name:

WPATH Committee on Disorders of Sex Development
One of the members of this committee is Ken Zucker, Ph.D. (Canada).

This is offensive to the membership of OII which is the largest intersex organisation in the world and also a Canadian organisation. We are very concerned that Ken Zucker is the Canadian representative on a committee devoted to intersex issues using the extremely stigmatizing term "disorders of sex development". It is important to point out that more and more Canadians, many of whom are in close contact with OII, find that Ken Zucker is an embarrassment to Canadians and many are very upset about abuse of gender variant children being subsidized by publicly funded dollars.

http://www.intersexualite.org/Ontario.html
http://www.intersexualite.org/CAMH.html#anchor_6

Also, there is no intersex membership on this committee. There was absolutely no discussion with intersex people that we are aware of about forming this committee and we would like to know why this committee is even
a part of WPATH.

We are also concerned about the conflation of the DSD terminology in a mental health setting and do not have time to share all those concerns with you in this communication. However, you can find information on OII's website at the following link:

http://www.intersexualite.org/investigation.html

Does WPATH approve of referring to people with intersex variations as having a "disorder of sex development"? Does WPATH approve of Ken Zucker's membership on this committee despite that fact that we in the intersex community are not aware of any attempt on his part to inform himself of what the majority of intersex activists feel about these issues?

I would like to know if this is the image that WPATH wishes to give to the world and I would like to know what the overall membership feels about stigmatizing intersex people and putting Zucker on this committee. Would you please let the Organisation Intersex International know how the membership feels about treating intersex people and our issues in this manner?

We hope that this matter can be resolved in a manner that does not cause serious damage to the intersex
community and all the intense work we have done to be inclusive of trans issues.

We urge all people worldwide who are concerned about the CAMH to sign the following petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/hrights/petition.html

Kind Regards,
Sophia Siedlberg, OII-UK
Curtis E. Hinkle
Fondateur, Organisation Internationale des Intersexes
Founder, Organisation Intersex International
http://www.intersexualite.org/

ADDENDUM:

Please read the following information from Intersex Initiative which also expresses these same concerns.

http://www.intersexinitiative.org/news/000050.html

Follow up:

OII has yet (18 Feb. 2009) to receive any serious response from Stephen Whittle concerning the specific issues raised in this letter, nor the serious allegations and other ethical issues concerning Zucker that the president of OII shared with many members of WPATH who were members of the Gender ID Coalition which Stephen Whittle was also a member of.

The following information was shared:

http://www.intersexualite.org/Zucker_boys.html

http://www.intersexualite.org/Zucker_ethics.html

____________________________________________________________________

Open letter to members of WPATH about Whittle’s attacks on the intersex community


I have found that not confronting bullies who attack other people unjustly and inaccurately is not healthy and constructive, especially when the person is head of an organization which is speaking both on intersex and trans issues.

On Whittle's blog:
http://whittlings.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

1) He has used OII's logo without our permission or even asking.

2) He has described me as having gone mad. He has no proof of this. All my correspondence with him has been cordial and factual. This is outrageous for the head of an organisation which speaks on both intersex issues and trans issues.

3) He has humiliated me in front of the board of OII by writing to almost all the board members and caused great damage to our organisation as a result. I simply asked a very important question about why Zucker was on the DSD committee and why the name of the committee was DSD committee when there is almost NO support for this terminology and most intersex people consider it offensive. That is a reasonable question from an intersex organization which is truly international and the largest intersex organization in the world.

4) He wrote an e-mail to Zucker himself soon after receiving my open letter and in that e-mail he stated that they could shut up these outside people and organizations. Well, it is clear to me that he must have been talking about OII because he started his blog to misrepresent OII and it does not take a lot of logic to figure out the outside organization he is trying to shut up.

From: Stephen Whittle
Date: May 29, 2008 5:52:50 AM EDT
To: WPATH-MEMBERSHIP@LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [WPATH-MEMBERSHIP] Open response to Alice Dreger
Reply-To: Stephen Whittle

Hi Ken
thank you for this very thoughtful response to Dana - I wonder whether you might want to say this more widely. I (both personally and in my role as President of WPATH) am being currently overwhelmed by a huge number of outside people and organisations, as you can imagine, to produce some response to the latest debacle re. the DSM V. Currently all of these enquiries are being fielded with 'this is a complex question - I'll get back to you some time in the distant future'. It's not doing my reputation, or WPATH's much good.

I cannot help but feel that with some judicious editing and a little more background, this could really shut some people up and show the extent of some of their specious claims. That does not mean to say that I do not recognise some of their concerns, and would like to see a public summary of your clinical follow up studies. Not many outsiders have access to the ASB - they are one of the more expensive and more difficult journals to access, so instead people rely on what they think you have said. I have often wanted to send out copies of your papers, but of course, the ASB's copyrights prevent it.

However, I think your response below has the beginnings of a much more serious statement that we could all benefit from. I also believe it might become something WPATH might be able to support and promulgate (subject to the board, of course).

all the best
Stephen


Professor Stephen Whittle, OBE, PhD, MA, LLB, BA
Professor of Equalities Law
Manchester Metropolitan University
All Saints West
Lower Ormond Street
Manchester, M15 6HB
-------------------------
Vice President , Press for Change
www.pfc.org/uk
President, World Professional Association for Transgender
Health
www.wpath.org
Executive Chair, Transgender Europe, www.tgeu.org

5) If you want a sample of the type of e-mails that he sends to people, just read this:

Letter from Whittle to Andrea Brown, someone who is not a member of OII, who tried to get both sides of this story

From: Stephen Whittle
Date: 2008/7/30
Subject: Re: Whittle and OII arguement: Now we have both sides of the
arguement, eventually. You can make up your own minds, who is telling
the truth.
To: Andrea Brown

Andrea (or whoever you are)

I knew an Andrea Brown in the early days of Press for Change, she was out, an activist and a kind, sensible, realistic young woman. I presume you are not her. But, to the point, my side of the argument was presented to OII at the end of June, within 3 weeks of reading their mail.

What is there not to believe in my reply - it is a simple outline of facts.

You really are becoming a disgraceful pariah, feeding off other people's miseries, and ultimately causing harm to those you profess to support. And you are vicious to boot.

This is not a threat , this is a promise: if you once again repeat, in any forum, yours', Sophia Seidlberg's or OII's defamatory lies and allegations, or anything else that is untrue or defamatory about me, I will sue you for defamation, even if I have to hunt you down to the ends of the earth. And I promise that - speak the truth and you have nothing to fear, continue these lies and I will use the law to obtain what is right and truthful.

Stephen

I would suggest you crawl back into your closet (from where you have never actually left), behind your wall of secrecy, and leave alone the rest of us who want to change the world for the better.

Stephen

____________________________________________________________________

I think that members of WPATH need to confront Whittle about this. This is very unbecoming and I do not understand how members can accept such outrageous behavior without lodging a complaint. I do not merit this type of treatment and I resent this very much. I am not a member of WPATH and certainly would never consider becoming one after this type of treatment.

Kind regards,
Curtis E. Hinkle
Founder, OII
http://www.intersexualite.org/

____________________________________________________________________

I love Margerie Brubaker

Zucker: A Study in Weirdness

Kenneth Zucker
Illustration by Sophia Siedlberg




















For more information about Kenneth Zucker:
Click here

Intersex – A History of Erasure

by Curtis E. Hinkle
2004

There are no pre-existing male/female categories. Our conceptualizing people as either one or the other is a cultural artifact and the construction of sex/gender/desire within a binary only reinforces the underlying assumptions and hierarchy of power inherent within such a socially constructed system. In the late 19th century, European cultures felt threatened by more and more women speaking out and wanting recognition and also by homosexuals who were becoming more visible. It was a coincidence that medicine had advanced to such a degree that hermaphroditism was beginning to be understood and it was also dawning on physicians that it was not as rare as they had thought. Their reaction to our presence – those of us born with bodies that do not fit into what society views as normal female or male within this arbitrary division of the sexes – was very revealing concerning the desperate attempt of our societies to perpetuate a myth concerning only two sexes. Physicians were being visited by people who had all types of different anatomies – men who menstruated, women who had no wombs, women with beards and penises, men with breasts and wombs, etc.

What was the main preoccupation of these men of science in trying to categorize hermaphrodites within the binary? To them sex/gender/desire were all one and the same thing basically. These categories were not considered three different categories at all as many people do now. To the scientists of that period whom you had sex with was just as much a determinant of your sex as your body. Men were to have sex with women, etc. Hermaphrodites were challenging the heterosexual assumptions that enforced the structure of power and relationships between men and women. The “scientists” were confronted with such disturbing questions as: How do we know if this person is or is not a pervert (besides being a freak)? Hermaphrodites could “trick” innocent people into perverted (same sex) relationships without the person even being aware of it. How do we maintain order, stability and “family” in a society where we admit people who are not male or female? (Doesn’t this sound familiar – “family values”?) WE MAKE THEM DISAPPEAR. And this is what categorizing people as male or female only by their gonads did. No more hermaphrodites, or at lease so few that we could forget about them, and then we are back to our neat little world where there are only two sexes and we can regulate their behavior and their relationships so as to maintain the system with all its inequalities.

The answer that the scientists came up with shows to what degree heteronormative hegemony (compulsory heterosexuality) is fundamental to our culture’s conception of sex, gender and desire. After looking at all different combinations of intersex bodies and debating over which particular aspect of those bodies would determine one’s “true” sex, they finally agreed on just one aspect of the body – gonads (ovaries or testicles). In so doing, the vast majority of people who would have been designated hermaphrodites previously were suddenly not hermaphrodites at all. They had become pseudo-hermaphrodites. This was important because there are supposedly very few people that meet the definition of being a “true” hermaphrodite. Having both an ovary and a testicle is very rare and so is having an ovotestis. This meant that for all intents and purposes, hermaphrodites had been erased as a real sex category and the neat little construct of just two sexes was kept intact. You were a woman if you had ovaries, regardless that you might not have a vagina and no breasts and a beard. You were a man if you had testicles even if you had a vagina, breasts and could not grow a beard.

Today we go even further. We do not just come up with new definitions to eliminate intersex people, we alter their bodies – making them physically invisible. This is one of the most tragic symbols of human oppression and the medico-legal collusion with political agendas to make sure we have no voice – no face – no existence. Only by challenging the foundations of the binary categories can intersex people have a voice, be part of humanity. In so doing, our mission is not to form another identity movement but to work for the improvement of humankind in general. The current system is mutilating us all.

No group or authority or individual should have the right to define, limit or determine who is and who is not intersex. That is up to the individual. We don’t need more police to enforce rigid categories which already divide us. We in the intersex movement are working to be part of humankind, to be persons with full human rights. We are working to end the oppression of gender apartheid and gender mutilation of all humankind and make a place for all of us who identify outside the binary.

OII's Statement of Dissent

OII is working to end NON-CONSENSUAL normalisation treatments of intersex children and adults without consultation with the individual intersexed person.

We oppose all consensus statements, especially those without representation of intersex people as equal stakeholders in the consensus.

We have no desire for any consensus statement because intersex people do not agree on:

• the exact definition of intersex
• what treatments are appropriate for all intersex people
• what gender assignment, if any, is appropriate for all the different intersex variations
• pathological definitions of our bodies and identities

OII is working in favour of human rights for individuals affected by intersex variations and therefore is opposed to all attempts to impose definitions, treatments and terminology on all people with bodies which do not meet the current standards for male or female.

Consensus statements imply that there is consent. We dissent!

This is on OII's website:

Click here

A Queer feminist perspective

A queer feminist perspective on intersex activism based on my experience of sexist and racist separatist movements

By Curtis E. Hinkle

Founder, Organisation Intersex International

Online at: http://www.intersexualite.org/queer-feminism.html

One thing I think is essential is that everyone be able to express their own opinions openly and honestly and that each intersexed person be free to work for human rights from the perspective that best fits with their own personal experience and understanding of who they are. I want to share my own perspective and it is only my perspective.

I do not find identity politics and defining people by particular reductionist and essentialist definitions as the best way politically to work toward human rights and this is the reason that I have been a queer feminist and resisted both sexism and racism. I find that the way identity movements are constructed that they are essentially sexist and encourage separatism.

I have issues with separatist movements. This essay is not a critique of the LGBT movement per se but of the white separatist movement that I experienced in the region of the United States where I spent a lot of my childhood, Louisiana. This state has a long history of white separatism and in order to entrench this separatism into Louisiana's state laws, there had to be a definition of what a white person was and what a black person was. The solution was to define anyone who was not able to prove they were totally white as:

quadroons, octoroons and even quintroons. This was true until the 80's and all legal documentation had to reflect this. All quadroons, octoroons and quintroons had to have Black on their legal documentation

It can prove quite difficult to take a large population, regardless of the characteristic chosen to separate them, and come up with workable definitions that do not stigmatize people or which can actually divide all people into the categories proposed, especially if there are only two categories.

To me as an intersex person, I understand the sexual apartheid system with male/female legal categories as an equivalent to the racial apartheid system and the underlying political reasons for such a legal separation as somewhat analogous.

I think most people would agree that the system I just described in Louisiana is racist.

My questions are:

Are the separatist divisions posited as good within the LGBT identity movement not sexist?

Are there ethical reasons for perpetuating sexism?

As an example, what does it really mean when a parent of an intersex child is told to raise the child as a girl? To me that is sexist because the notion of "girl" carries stereotypical connotations not essentially derived just from her body which in this case was not a typically female body to begin with.

My family is biracial. If a doctor told us to raise a child as black or white, I would personally interpret that as racist.

Are racism and sexism ethically justified in some cases and if so, when and for what reasons?

I have yet to find ethical justifications for perpetuating racism and sexism as particularly helpful for human rights for all people. Someone will always be excluded and categorized as the "other" as a result of such imposed boundaries.

Now, concerning the separatism within the LGBT movement, I feel that that all separatist movements are another way that oppressed groups perpetuate oppression and divert energy, which is through the policing function necessary to make sure that the borders of "us" and "them" remain clearly bounded. It is the people who fall into the borders/liminal spaces who become the new oppressed minority within such separatist groups. And, as seems endemic, as the definitions of the identity change in response to political changes within the group, and as individuals change and grow in the fluidity of an examined life, membership in the group requires a scramble to prove one still qualifies. Policing and proving membership come to replace activism as the focus of the group. This is what I feel has happened within the intersex community. Policing and defining became the actual focus and we ended up with a intersex being redefined as a genetic defect – DSD or Disorder of Sex Development.

The enforcement of static identity is why I believe that separatisms seem to do more harm than good, particularly around an inherently fluid aspect of life such as sexuality, but even "race" is fluid and culture-dependent for its definition, and policing of racial borders has certainly been an aspect of racial separatist groups with whose histories I am acquainted. Through this insistence on a static allegiance to a particular identity, human growth is curtailed.