If you think growing up gay was tough, try this one for size:
you're a 14-year-old boy and you start growing breasts.
Or this: your name is Anna, you're 21 and about to get married, and your mother says you can never have children.
Catherine Watson explores the world of intersex.
Tony Briffa is an engineer, a foster parent, and the Greens candidate for Lalor in the next Federal election. He also has a former husband, and once considered himself a lesbian. Briffa’s story is a graphic demonstration of the complex lives of intersex people.
[Click here for the story published in M.C.V. (Melbourne Community Voice) 12th October, 2001. ]
Renee
and Tony Married!
Renee P and Tony M, two of the most loved AIS People, were married this week.
Renee is one of the founders of the AIS People Club, an internet based support
group for people with AIS and similar intersex conditions. She met Tony -
who has PAIS - at the club and after going out for over a year and an engagement
lasting several months, they decided to tie the knot.
We all wish the happy couple the very best for their lives together.
First
"out" Australian Intersex Candidate!
Tony Briffa is running as the Greens Candidate for Lalor in the Federal Election
on November 10. Tony has AIS and is actively involved in a number of human
rights organisations.
Tony's Greens Biography can be accessed at http://www.vic.greens.org.au/election2001/lalo.html
Sept
2001 dAISy distributed.
If members have not received their copy of September 2001 dAISy, please contact
the office.
National AIS Support Group Meetings.
The next support group meeting will be held in Melbourne on the weekend of the
17th and 18th of November 2001.
Please contact the AISSG Australia for further information.
March 2001 Meeting Overview
A Parenting Survey for Victorian Intersex Folk!
[NOTE: This survey is now complete. Please do not contact the researchers for additional surveys.]
Dr
Ruth McNair and Deb Dempsey have designed a survey for parents and prospective
parents in the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex communities of
Victoria. They have consulted in length with the AIS Support Group Australia to
produce the intersex component, and are working in partnership with the
Australian Institute of Family Studies and The Bouverie Centre.
This survey is designed to collect information about the range of
families that exist or are planned by lesbians, gay men, transgender and
intersex people. You can fill it in
if your children are under 18 years old or if you are considering becoming a
parent over the next 2 years or so. You
are eligible no matter how you have created or intend to create your family.
We ask questions about:
·
Whether you are a parent or intend to be
·
How you have achieved or hope to achieve your family
·
Your parenting relationships and the extent of our involvement
with your children
·
Your social and support networks
·
Health in relation to conception
·
Your preferences with regard to conception methods
The
survey will be distributed widely through various medical clinics, email mailing
lists and word of mouth. The survey
has been funded by the Department of Human Services, Victoria. Information that we collect will be forwarded to DHS and will
be used to inform policy debates regarding access to assisted reproductive
services and adoption. At the very
least, the information will prove that there are a large number of largely
invisible alternative families in our community and that the alternative
families baby boom is alive and well in Victoria.
To
receive a copy of the survey to fill in or pass on to a friend
Please
contact:
Dr
Ruth McNair or Deb Dempsey at
The
Department of General Practice
200
Berkeley St, Carlton, 3053
Phone
03 8344 6077
Fax:
03 9347 6136
Email:
r.mcnair@unimelb.edu.au
Or
Pick
up a copy at The Carlton Clinic
88 Rathdowne St, Carlton, 3053
A
project of The University of Melbourne, with
The
Australian Institute of Family Studies and The Bouverie Centre
Funded
by The Department of Human Services, Victoria
I
urge as many Victorian people as possible to participate in this confidential
survey. Feel free to contact Tony
Briffa for further information.
New Scientist
features Gender and Intersex
May 12, 2001.
Tony Briffa's letter to NewScientist was published in the 2 June 2001 issue,
and they were kind enough to include the AIS Support Group Australia's contact
details. The letter said:
"Beyond he, she and it"
Thank you for highlighting the issues facing intersex people in "Beyond two
sexes" (12 May, p 26). People with intersex conditions continue to be
abused by the majority of the medical community all over the world, and these
practices will not change unless we educate the broader community.
We also need to consider changes to the law, and continue to strive for legal
recognition of intersex as a bone fide gender for people with intersex
conditions who identify themselves as such. I am not suggesting that we
raise children with intersex conditions as "its". However,
adults who do not identify themselves as exclusively male or female should have
their gender recognised legally, complete with all the benefits associated with
that legal recognition.
Above all, I would just like to reiterate what I say to people when discussing
intersex conditions: "Intersex is a variation, not a defect."
(Click here for more information on the original articles)
Following a private discussion on this article, Tony responded:
I'm glad that Eric Vilain is
on NATFI, but I feel he has much to learn from the various intersex groups and
our representatives. Without wanting to sound overly unfair, I think he
first needs to understand the concept of gender, and that looking completely
male or female does not make someone identify in that gender. We have seen
this time and time again with both intersex and transsexual people.
Vilain is quoted as saying "Our discovery offers insight into the genetic
pathway of sex determination - what makes a man male and a woman
female". This is incorrect. What makes a man male or a woman
female is the individual's brain and their self-identified gender. The way
the body looks has nothing to do with it.
"These findings suggest that WNT-4 influences the sex determination pathway
at each step of the way," Vilain said. "We discovered that when the
amount of the gene fluctuates even slightly at any stage in the genetic
blueprint, it changes the embryo from male to female." This part is
mainly correct,
but what he means is that the amount the gene fluctuates changes the embryo from
looking phenotypically male (or along male lines) to phenotypically female (or
along female lines).
"WNT-4 offers another diagnostic clue that explains why certain cases of
sexual development go awry," Vilain said. "Firm diagnosis through
genetic testing will equip physicians with the information they need to help
parents make important medical choices early in their child's life."
Presumably he is saying that genetic testing will then enable physicians to
surgically and hormonally reinforce the gender of assignment more
confidently. I think this is dangerous. Very dangerous. Why
not settle for simply raising the child as either male or female (without
surgery) but leaving the right to self identify and body integrity to the
individual? I think most children know by the time they are 12 if they
want to develop as a male or a female. I am yet to see anything that
suggests that genetics can ALWAYS predict the gender a person identifies.
Given this, why should there be such a rush in surgically assigning gender?
Vilain's laboratory next plans to explore whether scientists can reduce the
chromosomal dose of WNT-4 in the embryo of pregnant women whose first child
possessed malformed or ambiguous genitalia. "Our findings suggest
that clinicians could identify the WNT-4 duplication prenatally," Vilain
said.
"If this proves true, in the future we may be able to correct the defect in
the womb and restore the embryo to its original male status. This may repair the
genital malformations before the child is born." I find this highly
offensive. Many intersex people do not consider themselves
defective. I certainly don't. If anything was defective it was the
medical treatment I received. The treatment Vilain is hoping to create is
vile. It is blatant gendercide. This so called treatment would have
everyone with AIS born with completely "male" genitals, with nothing
to guarantee the self-identified gender of these individuals. Whilst to me
this may appear great, as I do
not identify as a female, I am gravely concerned for the future generations of
people with AIS and other intersex conditions if Vilain was to be
successful. I personally hope he isn't.
I also hope that NATFI listens to the intersex community on our feelings about
this. After all, intersex people are the true experts in living with
intersex conditions.
I would love to see the focus on research into intersex conditions shift into
research into hormone therapy (both testosterone and oestrogen), surgical
techniques for intersex adults including vaginoplasty and phalloplasty,
non-surgical dilatation, timing of gonadectomies, bone mineral density,
fertility etc.
Our
website recognised as being of “lasting cultural value”.
The
National Library of Australia have been assessing online publications since 1996
and identifying those that they consider to have "national
significance" and that are of "lasting cultural value". Those identified as meeting with their criteria are then
asked for permission to be included in their archives so that "Australians
have access to their documentary heritage now and in the future".
In January, we received an email from the National Library of Australia inviting
us to be included in their archive.
We are obviously very pleased with this, as it reflects the amount of time and
effort many of us have put into the site, and the significant place our support
group has in the history of support for people with intersex conditions here in
Australia. I would especially like to thank those of you who have
personally contributed to the site, especially Andie, Bev, Deb, Garry Warne,
Graham, Elizabeth, Julie, Kylie, Linda Ann, Milton Diamond, Phoebe, Renee, Ruth,
Sarndra, Shorona and Tony.
I understand that this means that anything included in the site will be
available for future generations to see. It also means that our personal
stories of living with AIS and other related intersex conditions will live on.
If anyone would like their
story or an article/poem included in the website, please contact me and I will
include it in the next website update.
Good Medicine Magazine (Australia).
April 2001.
The April 2001 issue of Good Medicine Magazine included a section on disclosure
and consent for surgeries performed on children with AIS. Tony Briffa was
featured in this article, and was quoted as saying that the major issue for
those with AIS is the right to self-determination; to have the full nature of
their condition disclosed to them by doctors, and then having the right to
decide what type of treatment is necessary, including the right to decide
what intervention they want, if any at all.
The article included contact details for our group, including our web address, and several people with AIS contacted us as a result.
New Committee for AIS Support Group (Australia).
Sunday, November 12, 2000
The AIS Support Group (Australia) voted in a new committee with several new
positions added to keep in line with our specific needs. These positions include
an official representative for the "Men with AIS" sub-group,
along with a "Parents Liaison Officer" (which was filled by
Ruth, a mother of an
adult person with AIS).
Tony Briffa has been unanimously elected as our new President. Tony has partial AIS, and is committed in continuing to serve the needs of all with AIS and related conditions, and their families.
Tony recognises the importance of democracy within the Support Group, and is very excited with the membership and experience of the new committee. "We have an elected group of committed representatives which include women and men with CAIS & PAIS and a parent of an affected adult. The greatest asset of our group is our membership, and with the infrastructure we now have in place, the AIS Support Group Australia will continue to thrive and offer support and information to many with AIS and related conditions."
AIS Support Group Australia Annual General Meeting
ratifies its aims and policies.
Sunday, November 12, 2000
(Click for a complete list of the ratified aims
and policies)
Recent Media Coverage of AIS and related conditions
 |
60 Minutes (Australia), Channel 9, 25th
June 2000. |
with
questions or comments about this web site.