LAST night’s broadcast of a segment on intersex by ABC1 in its Hungry Beast program and the online forum that followed has been enormously useful to us already.
We have obtained a copy of the transcript and are in the process of analyzing the questions and the public beliefs about intersex that its 100 pages reveal.
We will then work out how to do our job better, more effectively.
Thank you ABC1, Hungry Beast & Ali Russell!
At a glance, though, it seems that the Australian public has a great many erroneous or misdirected beliefs about intersex.
Hardly surprising given the almost total suppression of the facts about intersex that has reigned worldwide until now.
Large parts of the media have not done intersex much of a service either. Just look at the misunderstandings currently being promoted through the Norrie story, and before that Caster Semenya.
The Questions:
Some of the questions revealed those popular misunderstandings.
There seems to be a belief that being intersex is to do with who you have sex with.
Another is that intersex and transgender are somehow the same thing, with another variant belief being that transsexualism and intersex are somehow the same thing.
The prevalence of intersex was also questioned, with one participant finding it difficult to believe that the prevalence of intersex is between 1:60 and 1:100 of the population.
Have we got news for you… it has been reported that the prevalence of intersex in South Africa is closer to 1:50 and that in the Middle East is around 1:25.
One hospital administrator in Saudi Arabia was quoted last year as stating that she sees 1:5 intersex births at her institution. One in five!
Our Thanks:
The transcript has been sent off to some OII and OII Australia members of academic background for further analysis so we can work out how to better communicate the facts about intersex.
But in the meantime we wish to extend our gratitude to the team that produced and broadcast the segment on intersex last night, to director/shooter Ali Russell, and to the forum administrators who had the task of monitoring the most frenetic online forum we have ever seen.
We also wish to thank Zoe Brain and Natalie Kirk for being the courageous subjects of the segment and hope they don’t come to regret agreeing to do so.
Next for OII Australia:
We will be boosting our efforts to tell our own stories in our own way, as detailed in Why Tell Our Own Stories? in this website.
If you wish to support our effort in doing so, please consider making your support real by donating to our storytelling effort.
Go to this page – Our Production Facilities & Needs – to read all about it and then to donate via PayPal.
