Hermaphrodites With Attitude
Call For Demonstration

From InYourFace News Service


The new national protest group Hermaphrodites With Attitude (HWA) has called for a picketing of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP has drawn heavy criticism from HWA activists for their complicity in Intersexed Genital Mutilation or IGM. The AAP is holding their annual meeting in Boston the last week in October, and the demonstration is believed to be the first ever by intersexed gender activists.

Said HWA spokesperson Cheryl Chase, "The AAP will be teaching conference attendees how to 'manage' intersexed and queer genitals with surgery, secrecy and outright lying. No other patient group is cut up as we are without even a hint of consent. HWA is committed to stopping the barbaric practice of IGM so no more infants suffer through the mutilation we have endured."

The demonstration will be at the Hynes Center in Boston, MA, on Saturday Oct 26, 12 Noon

When Congress passed a bill outlawing African genital mutilation last week, American advocates of the intersexed were quick to point out that there is *plenty* of home-grown genital mutilation here at home -- it's the mutilation of intersexed children and it occurs in US hospitals every day.

Chase, who is also Executive Director of the Intersex Society of North America said "About 1 in 2,000 babies is born with genitals that are 'queer,' and the response of American doctors is to cut them off, simply because they judge a clitoris to be 'too large' or a penis to be 'too small.' These infants have no say whatsoever in how their bodies are cut, and its outrageous that Congress didn't address Intersex Genital Mutilation or IGM."

"It's For Your Own Good"

Doctors contend IGM is for the child's own good. "Not so," rejoins Chase hotly. "Ask any ISNA member. IGM has robbed us of our genitals and our sexual feeling. Most who survive IGM are also psychologically scarred for life, while others have committed suicide. Cutting infant genitals to fit heterosexist norms is *not* medicine; it's mutilation in every sense of the word and it's got to stop."

Since Congress refused to act, some ISNA members have banded together to form "Hermaphrodites with Attitude" or HWA, a protest group which recently announced plans to picket hospitals where IGM is being performed.


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