Parents of an adopted boy, referred to as M.C., are suing the South Carolina Department of Social Services, social workers, and doctors who were all involved in surgically changing their son’s genitalia to match that of a girl’s.  M.C., who is now eight, was born intersex.  The surgery was performed when he (M.C. now presents as male) was sixteen months old.  On top of violating M.C’s rights, the doctors also failed to get informed consent from the foster service that was caring for him.  According to theIntersex Society of North America, intersex “is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.”

Further adding to this disregard for intersex people’s rights, the South Carolina documentation for the child’s surgery used the term hermaphrodite to describe him.  Hermaphrodite is quite an outdated term, one that some intersex people want to reclaim similar to “queer” or “dyke” by their perspective communities, but the overall consensus by intersex activists is that the term carries too much stigma from its mythological origins and from the abuse carried out by doctors who have performed unnecessary surgeries on them for years.

While the parents of M.C. seem to have his best interest in mind, the fact that this unnecessary medical procedure was done without thought adds to a greater problem: America’s ignorance about the lives and existence of intersex people as well as America’s need create fixed binary gender identities.  There are a multitude of gender identities in existence in the world that do not correlate with genitalia.  There are people who identify as two-spirit in many Native American and Indigenous North American communities (mixture of male and female), hijra in South Asian countries (born male or intersex but identify with femininity), third genders in Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, and many more countries, as well as a number of identities that fall under the transgender umbrella in Western countries.  This should show that gender is complicated, and assuming we know what someone’s gender is before they have the time to process that for themselves is dangerous.  Both for transgender people and intersex people, gender is a journey, one that should not be interrupted by coercive surgeries and correctional therapy.

You will be pleased to learn that the United Nations has made a step forward.  The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) released a statement in February denouncing the use of these surgeries to “normalize” intersex children.  According to the Ms. article  on the subject, “SRT invited Advocates for Informed Choice (AIC), a leader in the fight for intersex rights, to testify on the medical treatment of intersex. The hearings resulted in the SRT’s formal stance against irreversible, involuntary and nonconsensual medical interventions.”  The report states that, “these [genital-normalizing surgeries] are rarely medically necessary, can cause scarring, loss of sexual sensation, pain, incontinence and lifelong depression and have also been criticized as being unscientific, potentially harmful and contributing to stigma.”

Speaking as a someone who identifies as genderqueer, our society’s use of policing children to adhere to only the fixed binary terms of male or female will continue make transgender and intersex children suffer.  There needs to be a more collective opening of minds to the idea of gender as complex.

Wow, this could be huge re: precedents in informing parents.

tastefullyoffensive:

Old Economy Steve[via]

mocosyamores:

The only ones who deserve our time and affection are those who see us as the gorgeous, most beautiful beings we are.

racialicious:

Oh SNAP! 

letmypeopleshow:

Sometimes we chase unicorns, and sometimes they chase us

The unicorn, usually the victim of hunters, becomes the conqueror—and a female one at that—in Kathy Ruttenberg’s ceramic sculpture Careful What You Wish For, from her recent show at Stux. Her necklace of trophy heads  sends a warning to anyone who might want to cut off her horn. 

For lots more unicorn art from around the world, click here

COURTESY STUX GALLERY.

richard-sp8-jr:

in first period a girl got dress coded for wearing a tank top with a jacket over it and this scrawny little boy stood up and yelled “OH MY GOD SHE HAS SKIN THE SKIN IS TOO MUCH FOR ME HER SHOULDERS ARE BEAUTIFUL THIS IS TOO MUCH” and the teacher got so annoyed with him that she didn’t get to dress coding her

alexandraelle:

She asked to touch the sky, I tried to make it happen. #Clouds #DIY

sourcedumal:

blackwithflowers:

blackwithflowers:

I think Black people are not afforded the luxury of existing without being pigeonholed into an aggressive state of being. Many times Black people are displayed as hyper-aggressive and because of this display we create a mentality that were stuck with hyper-aggressiveness. 

That isn’t to say that being strong, tough, or aggressive are bad things, they come with our survival. But the vulnerability  pain, and gentleness that Black people reveal are not present many times in the media or even in our homes. The luxury of intimacy with other people is so small in comparison to the thousands of images of us being strong and “animalistic” (by intimacy I mean without guards, barriers, being invested with other people without a facade to what you are or layers you create.)

Similar to the phrase ”carefree black girls and boys”, I wanted to give a safe space to vulnerablity of Blackness to be  on display

————————————————————————————

Genteel, Romanctic, Poetic, Ethereal, intimate and vulnerable imagery of Black people.

___________________________________________

Submissions are highly welcomed!

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1.Jourdan Copeland|Source

2. Men by Eric Nehr | Under The Influence Magazine | Source

3.Jessie Adore|Source

4. Solange Knowles by Dominic Hayden-Route for Oyster Magazine | Source

Signal booossttt ??

Yes.

Genteel.

A word never used for Black people.

We need this

feistie:

A kid was walking around school wearing this today and didn’t receive a single comment from administration.

Meanwhile, I was pulled over twice by them to mention how “incredibly short” my bottoms were.

Last time I checked, my shorts don’t reference blowjobs.

Quit sexualizing things that aren’t meant to be suggestive.

the actual administration pulls up WOC on these entirely standard shorts, but not white boys with that shirt [which, every student sitting behind them in class has no choice but to see, constituting a low level form of harrasment or public lewdness]??

not surprised, but i wonder what the adults in this admin say when [if] they’re ever asked about  school policy on sexual harassment? Classic example of how adults say the right things in public [if they do even that], then let youth know what the real deal is through who they single out, undermine or excuse IRL.

overreaching:

Probably no one cares, but The Little Mermaid was published in 1837. And it’s spelled Andersen. He totes loved him some Edvard Colin, though.

this is an always caring about the details of folklore, fairy tales & related genres zone!

rhrealitycheck:

“All the women living with HIV in my organization have been subjected to various forms of violence before and after diagnosis, from sexual violence, psychological, economic to institutional violence.”

This was one testimonial from a consultation conducted by the Athena Network and the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS.

Such testimonies of violence are not isolated.

In Chile, 77 out of 100 women have experienced violence, mostly at the hands of partners, fathers, and to a lesser extent strangers.

In Guatemala, women living with HIV reported that when disclosing their HIV status, they experienced increased violence from their partners, relatives, community members, and service providers.

In Panama, 35 percent of the  82 HIV-positive women involved in a study had been victims of abuse; 33 percent indicated that their family discriminated against them due to their HIV serostatus, 51 percent said that their confidentiality had been violated, and 15 percent stopped going to the HIV Treatment Clinic for that reason.

In El Salvador, 41 percent of women reported at least one form of stigma and discrimination, compared to 34 percent of transgender people and 23 percent of men.

And in the Dominican Republic, 42 percent of women reported physical violence, 37 percent emotional violence, and 22 percent sexual violence from their partners.

Yet, as in all regions, deep gender inequality means that violence against women is not always recognized by those who experience it. Olive Edwards, a facilitator at the Jamaican Community of Positive Women, said, “When we started to have a focused discussion on violence against women living with HIV, the women in our groups (where we usually vent about acts of discrimination) were silenced. … We are bound by a culture of gender inequality and norms that increase our vulnerability to violence and HIV.”