Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 11:39:41 -0400 From: Riki Anne Wilchins Subject: N.O.W Passes TransInclusion Resolution MEDIA ADVISORY - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Riki Anne Wilchins (212)645-1753, Riki@Pipeline.COM . NOW PASSES TRANSINCLUSION RESOLUTION . CONSERVATIVE'S CONFERENCE CALLS HOMOSEXUALITY "TRAGIC AFFLICTION" . HERMS INVADE DATELINE NBC . NOW PASSES TRANSINCLUSION RESOLUTION ==================================== (Memphis, TN: 6 Jul 97) AFTER YEARS of debate and dialog, the National Organization for Women (NOW) has finally passed a resolution on transinclusion. The successful vote followed personal support by NOW President Patricia Ireland, and concentrated efforts by NOW-NJ President Bear Atwood and NOW Lesbian Rights Coordinator Kim Ward. The measure was originally introduced and unanimously passed at NOW-NJ's State Conference in 1994, and then introduced at the 1995 National Conference in Columbus, OH. A dozen gender activists in Menace T-shirts showed up to get signatures on petitions supporting the measure. But, in spite of signatures by over half the attendees and apparently overwhelming support, the measure was tabled to the National Board, where it languished for the next 2 conventions. The breakthrough was prompted by an invitation Ms. Atwood extended to activists from GenderPAC and other groups to address the State Coordinators Conference in San Francisco several months ago. As more State Presidents got behind the measure, Ms. Ireland asked activists to address the NOW National Board at the current conference. ### CONSERVATIVE'S CONFERENCE CALLS HOMOSEXUALITY A "TRAGIC AFFLICTION" =================================== (San Francisco: 20 Jun 97) GAYS AND lesbians suffer from "gender disturbances" and an "infantile refusal to accept reality" maintains the American Public Philosophy Institute, a group of conservative 'intellectuals' who held a 3-day conference at Georgetown University. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 350 people from around the country attended, including William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, who addressed the conference. Organizers said their purpose is to understand homosexuality "as a tragic affliction, with harmful consequences for both individuals and society...." George Rekers, a professor at South Carolina Medical School, opened the conference with a discussion of gender roles in children. He said that lesbians tend to be tomboys in childhood, preferring "masculine" toys and demonstrating, "a distinct dislike for doll play and other female activities." Male homosexuals show the opposite pattern, "preferring the company of girls and wanting to wear lipstick and dresses." He maintains that "gender disturbance" can be corrected by therapy during childhood. Funded by Taxpayers ------------------- Reker's work, which is heavily funded by the federal government through research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health, features "aversion therapy," a technique that punishes nonconforming behavior (limp wrists in boys or swaggering in girls) and rewards conforming behavior (girls playing dolls, boys playing baseball). Said another panelist, Joseph Nicolosi, "There is no such thing as a gay person," because homosexuality is "a fictitious identity that is seized on to resolve painful emotional challenges." Homosexuals engage in "a narcissistic refusal to accept a gendered world and the human biological reality on which that world is based." ### HERMS INVADE DATELINE NBC =========================== (San Francisco: 21 Jun 97) FOR THE first time a major network news show has focused on Intersex Genital Mutilation. On June 17, Dateline NBC, a top-ten news show seen by 25- 30 million viewers, featured an interview with Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) founder Cheryl Chase. Included in the segment was footage from the August '96 demonstration by Hermaphrodites With Attitude outside the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP). A surgeon representing the AAP declared that surgery is now so improved that operating on intersex genitals has virtually no adverse consequences. He compared the surgery to facial surgery to remove a deformity. But ISNA members, now numbering over 200, state flatly that the surgery has harmed them terribly. Many have been left with little or no erotic sensation. Some have ongoing urinary complications, and almost all of them are outraged and angry that their bodies were cut up without their consent. Following the Dateline report, the San Francisco Chronicle also ran a piece highlighting IGM. A segment on ABC's Prime Time Live is reportedly in the works for the fall. This media attention follows a half- page story in the New York Times Science section, and a 3-page spread in Newsweek magazine. Noting that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as practiced in African or Muslim countries has drawn wide condemnation in the US, Ms. Chase said, "Genital mutilation is a phrase that's easy for us to apply to somebody who belongs to a third-world culture. "Yet any mutilating practice that's delivered by licensed medical practitioners in our world has an aura of scientific credibility." ### Online Editor: Clare Howell, clareq@idt.net Subscriptions. Please send: Subscribe iyf-online OR Unsubscribe iyf-online TO MajorDomo@Apocalypse.Org For prior press releases, check the GenderPAC web site at: http://WWW.Gpac.Org (c) 1996 InYourFace An on-line, news-only service for gender activism. When re-posting, please credit InYourFace.