Would the real Cheryl Chase, Bo Laurent, Charlie Chase, Brian Sullivan, Bonnie Sullivan please stand up?
OII has recently learned that Bo Laurent, who used the pen name Cheryl Chase, is now helping start another organization:
Accord Alliance
For information on Bo Laurent:
Bo Laurent is the patient representative on Accord Alliance’s Advisory Board. Under the pen-name Cheryl Chase, Bo founded the Intersex Society of North America in 1993. One of two adults with DSD who participated in creating the 2006 Consensus Statement on Intersex Disorders, her long campaign to reform medical care for DSD was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
At the end of one of Bo Laurent's articles, one reads:
"Bo Laurent, a doctoral student at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, is a consultant to the Intersex Society of North America."
OII contacted Bo Laurent's colleagues when he was a doctoral student at the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. We use the pronoun "he" because that is the pronoun that the colleagues used in speaking about Bo Laurent. We have no explanation for this nor do we feel any explanation is needed.
We in OII are left wondering which of the following "Cheryl Chase's" is the same person as Bo Laurent. Or are none of the following Cheryl Chase's Bo Laurent? Frankly, it doesn't matter any more. Cheryl Chase is now Bo Laurent.
Various reports concerning Cheryl Chase's intersex variation have been published.
a) In this report, Cheryl Chase had her gonads removed and is infertile.
"In 1993, an intersexed activist named Cheryl Chase began a support and advocacy group for intersexed adults called the Intersex Society of North America ("ISNA"). Chase was born with a large clitoris, which was removed when she was an infant. When she was eight years old, her internal gonads were removed without her knowledge or consent. Because of the surgery, she is no longer capable of having her own children or obtaining orgasm. Today, Chase and other advocates are vocal about their hope for a moratorium on the invasive treatment of intersexed children."
WHO WILL MAKE ROOM FOR THE INTERSEXED? By Kate Haas
Copyright (c) 2004 by American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics Boston University School of Law; Kate Haas
b) In this report, Cheryl Chase is a true hermaphrodite and only the testicular tissue is removed and she is fertile.
"If Cheryl Chase has her way, Carl will no longer be expected to thank anyone. Born a "true hermaphrodite" (see accompanying story, "The Science of Intersexuality") and labeled a boy at birth, Chase was reassigned female 18 months later. At that time, surgeons performed a complete clitorectomy, removing her entire phallus, which they reinterpreted as a large clitoris, and destroying her potential for sexual pleasure later in life. At age 8, the testicular portions of her gonads were removed, and Chase eventually began menstruating. Doctors considered her lucky: Chase, unlike many intersexed people, was fertile."
See also:
The True Story of John/Joan, By John Colapinto
The Rolling Stone, December 11, 1997. Pages 54-97
c) In this report, Cheryl had ovaries and that was the reason she was assigned female because this was discovered in her early infancy.
"In 1956, and after three days of debate, Cheryl Chase's parents named their newborn Charlie. But at eighteen months, doctors discovered that in addition to what they thought was a small penis with an opening along the bottom, Charlie had a uterus and ovaries.In part because the ovaries were functional, and thus potentially able to produce children, the doctors decided to make Charlie into Cheryl. As part of the procedure, they removed her entire clitoris, leaving her without orgasmic response."
Born Between Two Sexes from Girlfriends Magazine
d) In this most recent account, Cheryl Chase has XX-male syndrome and had ovaries, thus not a "true hermaphrodite" which would have both ovarian and testicular tissue as that term was defined medically.
"Chase was born Brian Sullivan in New Jersey with XX male syndrome, and her genitalia baffled doctors. After the discovery of ovaries and a uterus, a sex change operation was performed when she was aged 17 months, removing her clitoris/penis and opening a vagina."
The Accord Alliance promotes the Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders and that seems to be the primary reason for the new organization's existence. This is something that ISNA could not do because the Consensus Statement PROMOTES non-consensual surgery. Also, it is opposed to using the term "intersex" and ISNA has the term "intersex" in the name of its organization.
ISNA based all of its activism on a very narrow (very narrow indeed) goal – ending FEMINIZATION surgeries. Now, Bo Laurent (who was the real person we thought Cheryl Chase was) is organizing a new organization with a generous grant of over $300,000 to support the new Consensus Statement which recommends surgeries at 2 to 6 months.
Would the real Charlie Chase, Cheryl Chase, Brian Sullivan, Bonnie Sullivan, Bo Laurent please stand up?
Bo Laurent and the Accord Alliance: Anonymous Activism for medical interests
The Accord Alliance, the new Disorders of Sex Development foundation, formed by Bo Laurent, formerly known as the intersex activist Cheryl Chase, appears to be as enigmatic as Bo Laurent’s many different personas themselves.
Some of the enigmas:
Cheryl Chase was opposed to making intersex a medical emergency and was extremely anti-surgery. Bo Laurent, previously Cheryl Chase, is now founding an association which views intersex as a medical emergency and which is even more pro-surgery and pathological in its views of intersex than the previous protocols that John Money had developed before the Intersex Society of North America was founded by Chase.
The Accord Alliance is hosted by the Tides Center. “Money is to the Tides Foundation and Center what water is to the tide. You can’t be sure from what source any part comes. You can’t be sure where any part goes. But it can knock you off your feet and pull you down.” (1) Tides founder Drummond Pike sugarcoats the function of his operation, telling The Chronicle of Philanthropy: "Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with." Anonymity shields accountability. Could that be what's so important? (2)
It is also very interesting that the generous grant of over $300,000 that the Accord Alliance was given to start the organization came from the California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation that was created in 1996 as a result of Blue Cross of California's creation of WellPoint Health Networks, a for-profit corporation. (3) So the original grant comes from a spin-off a medical insurance company. Could that explain why the Accord Alliance is pro-surgery and has such a pathological view of intersex as a Disorder of Sex Development?
Bo Laurent, Accord Alliance or a Giant Discord Alliance?
(Letter to president of OII)
Dear Curtis,
I read an article (1), copyrighted in 1999, which is referenced at the end of the QUIZ for Bo Laurent. In this article Bo Laurent discusses the medicalization and demedicalization of hermaphroditism. Although many consider it an enigma that Bo Laurent was allegedly using Cheryl Chase as a “pen name”, I find it deeply disturbing that in this entire article, Bo Laurent (and co-authors) continuously refer to Cheryl Chase throughout this article in the third person WITHOUT even mentioning the “pen” name Cheryl Chase. Oddly, although much had been written by Bo Laurent under the name Cheryl Chase, Bo Laurent selectively chose to not even use or mention the name Cheryl Chase anywhere in this article in this book on Deviance. When Bo Laurent (and coauthors) wrote about Cheryl Chase, we never read the name or any mention of it. We read: “Third, there was appearance of a leader” (pg. 479); “And, as an indication of how important the leader has become, she was quoted again in the New York Times (March 14, 1997)…” (pg. 483). Again Bo Laurent (and co-authors) omit using the name Cheryl Chase and also omit that Bo Laurent IS Cheryl Chase, by again referring to “one individual”. We read: “ISNA has also been dependent, as mentioned on one individual…It is by no means clear what the fate of her organization would be, should she falter.” (pg. 483). It is interesting that there is discussion of the demise of ISNA in this book on Deviance, with a tie to the unnamed person, which refers to Cheryl Chase, but is co-written by this same person of Bo Laurent, who writes anonymously of this ISNA “leader” and “individual”, in the “third person”.
What is more disturbing and repulsive is that the co-authors with Bo Laurent of this intersex article are primarily involved in research on paraphilias, Martin S. Weinberg of Indiana U. (where ISNA “co-web mistress” Alice Dreger received her Ph.D.) and his colleague Colin J. Williams. Dr. Weinberg’s research interests, for example, are foot fetishism, sadomasochism, men who have sex with animals (zoophilia), transgender sex workers, and intersex.
I am not surprised that Bo Laurent did not admit to being Cheryl Chase. I am not surprised that Bo Laurent did not admit to being that “individual” or “leader” of ISNA. Neither am I surprised that the name Cheryl Chase did not appear in this article, even as a “pen name” for the co-author. After all, it is in a book on Deviance, and the co-authors have made a name for themselves by studying very repulsive behaviors. Such an alliance could have proved detrimental for ISNA, for Cheryl Chase and for Bo Laurent.
One might be surprised that in the reference section of this article (1), a personal communication is cited from Fausto-Sterling. When written by more than one author, it is customary to indicate which author this personal communication was addressed to. BUT, we are not told. Again, as it is not likely that all three authors received this personal communication (listed in ref. 1 as dated December, 1996), we have a glaring omission of the name Cheryl Chase. The extent to which Bo Laurent (and co-authors) went to omit even the mention of the name Cheryl Chase, though in hindsight not surprising, is striking. Of course, with the dissolution of ISNA, and as a member of the Accord Alliance, Cheryl Chase need not be mentioned, and Bo Laurent can now do far more than just “facilitate communication” with the medical community. Indeed Bo Laurent can be in the “medical community”, via membership in the Accord Alliance, thus promoting a DSD pathological model of intersex, and with a name change from Cheryl Chase to Bo Laurent, further may take on a new agenda, and support surgery at 2-6 months of age.
Furthermore, Sheri Berenbaum (who wrote with J Michael Bailey) is chair of a psychosexual network studying intersex and psychosexual development and thus, her associate David Sandberg, who has been co-chair of this network, is also with the Accord Alliance, and thus can further Bo Laurent’s efforts of attempting to politicize the “DSD agenda”, while it is likely that other network members such as DSD promoter Eric Vilain could be brought in on a dime.
The book mentioned on Deviance is now in its 10th edition. To include the name Cheryl Chase in further editions will be expected, although it is moot, and it won’t undo the consequences which the omissions have caused. Without even discussing the tremendous amount of harm to those persons with intersexed conditions which this name charade has caused, I might state that as an academic book, omissions do a disservice to students who read about someone and by that person in cognito. I do not think even the infamous historian Alice Dreger could be trusted to re-write this pseudo-anonymous article with Bo Laurent (LOL). I will certainly be pointing this out to relevant persons with the Chronicle of Higher Education, as well as with other groups.
As for Bo Laurent, do intersex people really need someone whose short list of publications include one in a book on deviance with authors who list their research interests as men who have sex with animals (zoophilia), transgender sex workers, foot fetishists, sadomasochism, along with intersex? What kind of research interests could this Bo Laurent, aka Cheryl Chase have? What kind of agenda? How do we even know that their name is not “Boa Laurent”? With all the criticism the Accord Alliance will likely receive, I wouldn’t even wish Bo Laurent on those “DSD” professionals.
REFERENCE
(1) Weinberg, M, Williams, C, Laurent, B Chapter 14. Medicalization and Demedicalization of Hermaphroditism. In Weinberg, M & Rubington, E. (Ed.) Deviance: The Interactionist Perspective. 2005 (ninth edition), Prentice Hall Publ.
Name withheld by Request
