The December issue of Marie Claire Australia has just been published, and it contains an article about intersex for which members of OII Australia were interviewed.
We had hoped that the article would be positive and accurate. Sadly it falls short.
Intersex is an issue that should be of interest to all Australians, the prevalence of intersex in the population is, after all, between 1:60 and 1:100.
The title of the article, a special report, is FOR MOST OF US, IT’S SIMPLE: MALE OR FEMALE But what if you’re born somewhere in-between? It is on pages 60 to 66.
We have notes about some of the content of the article, and these follow below.
Cover, Marie Claire Australia, December 2009.
Notes:
- OII Australia rejects the terminology of Disorders of Sex Development (DSDs) as pathologising and stigmatising.
- We are saddened that the article uses the term DSD interchangeably with intersex.
- “Judy” did not make it clear that real progesterone is not available in Australia. Actual progesterone – chemically identical to the progesterone the human body makes – is very different to the artificial substitutes – aka progestins – invented and patented by drug companies.
- Oral forms of estrogen are not suitable for lifelong use by intersex people or long-term use by non-intersex people.
Comment from Gina Wilson, one of the interviewees:
Despite several very long recorded interviews and e-mail follow-ups with me, this article has factual inaccuracies and does not report DSD as a contested term. Julietta told me she did not speak to a single intersex person who liked DSD, she is aware it is an insulting term to us and yet she was still prepared to put it in there.
I did not say that I had surgery as a child to make me appear more feminine. I don’t know where that one came from, Julietta. My life story is a bit more complex and nuanced than that.
Julietta, my eighty-year-old mum, sitting in a nursing home with a chronic illness, is going to read this and so are my siblings. What do you think they will make of your report about my surgeries? What do you think they will make of you reporting I have a “Disorder of Sexual Development”?
OII struggles against a society that pathologises our difference, a society that often perceives us as freaks. Reporting intersex using the DSD terminology reinforces the notion that we are diseased and in need of a cure.
You did not report your conversation with Gary Warne – the leading Australian paediatric endocrinologist. You told me he said, “If I was intersex I would not want to be called disordered.” That’s a fairly significant omission, Julietta.
Marie Claire Australia Contact Details:
marieclaire@pacificmags.com.au
McMahons Point, NSW, 2060 Australia
Jackie Frank is the Publisher/Editor of Marie Claire Australia magazine. Anna Tsekouras, assistant to the publisher/editor: +61 (0)2 9464 3177
