Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 04:37:25 GMT
Subject: INTERSEXED DECRY AMERICAN GENITAL MUTILATION
From: riki@nyc.pipeline.com (Riki Anne Wilchins)


MEDIA ADVISORY - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
 
CONTACTS: 
Cheryl Chase, (415) 436-0585, CChase@ISNA.Org 
Riki Anne Wilchins Riki@Pipeline.Com 
 
 
INTERSEXED DECRY AMERICAN GENITAL MUTILATION  
============================================ 
 
[San Francisco, CA - October 14, 1996] WHEN  
CONGRESS PASSED a bill outlawing African  
genital mutilation last week, American  
advocates of the intersexed were quick to point  
out that there is *plenty* of home-grown 
genital mutilation here at home -- it's the  
mutilation of intersexed children and it occurs  
in US hospitals every day. 
 
     Said Cheryl Chase, Executive Director of  
the Intersex Society of North America, "About 1  
in 2,000 babies is born with genitals that are  
"queer," and the response of American doctors  
is to cut them off, simply because they judge a  
clitoris to be 'too large' or a penis to be 
'too small.'  These infants have no say  
whatsoever in how their bodies are cut, and its  
outrageous that Congress didn't address  
Intersex Genital Mutilation or IGM." 
 
 
"It's For Your Own Good" 
----------------------- 
 
     Doctors contend IGM is for the child's own  
good. "Not so," rejoins Chase hotly. "Ask any  
ISNA member.  IGM has robbed us of our 
genitals and our sexual feeling.  Most who  
survive IGM are also psychologically scarred  
for life, while others have committed suicide. 
Cutting infant genitals to fit heterosexist  
norms is *not* medicine; it's mutilation in  
every sense of the word and it's got to stop." 
 
 
    Since Congress refused to act, some ISNA  
members have banded together to form  
"Hermaphrodites with Attitude" or HWA, a  
protest group which recently announced plans to  
picket hospitals where IGM is being performed. 
 
 
5 Children Mutilated Each Day 
---------------------------- 
 
     Said an unnamed HWA spokes-herm, "Doctors  
are now cutting into 5 intersexed infants every  
day.  If we can save just one helpless child 
from IGM it will be worth it.  Congress has  
decided that African infants have the right to  
keep their genitals -- now we're fighting to  
win the same right for American children." 
 
     Both HWA representatives were subjected to  
IGM at New York City's Columbia Presbyterian  
Hospital.  Articles in the September issue of  
OUT Magazine and in a January issue of the NY  
Times profiled ISNA's activities. 
 
                  ### 
 
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