Fixing a Remiss: More on the FGM incidents at Cornell

[eumelia]

In my previous post (DW/LJ) I wrote about the genital mutilation done in the name of science on young girls at Cornell University.

I was remiss is the that I erased the fact that this is an Intersex issue, that all the girls/women (51 of them) were not considered "normal" individuals. I put the word "normal" in quotes because I have issues with that word, it is not neutral and it is not an apt descriptor, I'll get to that in a moments.

As I said of the 51 participants, 46 of them had the condition of Congential Adrenal Hyperplasia which is a hormonal condition that affects the size, look and structure of genitalia.

Treating a hormonal condition does not mean that genitals should be restructured for cosmetic reasons without the informed consent of the child! Really, really, really!

3 other participants were transgender women and the remaining 2 had other sexual development conditions.

All this information is taken from lizardspots' post on the matter.

The post itself is very informative, but suffers from "The Trouble With Normal" (i.e. Cisgender privilege, and no I'm not immune, hence this new post on the matter) and I advise everyone who goes to read the post linked above to read this brilliant anonymous comment that exposes the problematic nature of using so-called neutral language when discussing people who are routinely medicalised for not having genitalia that can be categorised so easy-peasy.

This post examines why this has hit the blogosphere only now when the research was done in 2007 and why intersex erasure occurred in the first place when this story broke.

My opinion has not changed, I still think the underlying motivations of misogyny (which informs homophobia, transphobia and intersex erasure) is the problem. That the need to make sure everyone fits in the box prescribed for them and woe be it onto anyone to steps outside the frame that social norms (may that word die in a fire) dictate who is human and who is not.

Obviously, these girls and women are not human enough. Not "feminine" enough.
The nightmare scenario of girls being carted off to be "fixed" still stands.

But that's just my own 2 cents.

H/T to kynn.

In my previous post I got a comment from Advocates for Informed Consent, a non-profit USA based organisation that advocates for intersex children under the scrutiny of the medical profession. Here is their website: Advocates for Informed Choice.

There is a plethora of information from this international website Organisation Intersex International.

Comments

[used_songs]

Thank you for posting this!

[eumelia]

I hate the fact that I took part in the erasure of intersex people and issues, it's just appalling that these individuals are constantly brushed under the carpet because they're too "ambiguous" for us to handle.