Double-standards

Double Standards and semi famous names Download pdf version: Click here

By Sophia Siedlberg

One question worth asking about ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, and the main players within it has been the issue of Medical History. To simplify this, two of the stated founders Cheryl Chase (1) and Kiira Trea (Denise Tree) have often been very strict about membership policies; in particular, they excluded anyone they considered may have a male to female transsexual history. At the same time there are often allegations aimed at these two in particular about whether or not they themselves have such a history. The responses have been vague at best. (2)

It is not so much the history as the hypocrisy. To draw a few examples, Ted Haggard a well known Evangelist spent years denouncing homosexuality only to get caught with his pants down with a rent boy. To a lot of people it is not so much what he got up to when no one was looking but his public face of blustering hellfire and damnation at gays while it turns out he was gay himself. I know there are complex debates like LGBT activists saying all Evangelists are really closet gays and the Evangelists just see what happened to Haggard as an opportunity for the LGBT crowd to stick the knife in and twist it.

To most reasonably unbiased people it is the hypocrisy that is often hard to swallow. In the UK the whole political system seems to be dogged with many cases of politicians getting caught doing something they should not be doing, but those who resign, put their hands up and say “I did it” and had no notable history of condemning what they did, tend to fare a lot better in public opinion. In the mid 1990’s the UK’s conservative party went on a huge “Back to Basics” campaign where they were planning to instill the message of “Family values” into the wayward population. Within months of this there were scandals appearing in the media that were so strange and numerous the Tory government of John Major suffered what could be described as the biggest landslide defeat in the history of UK politics.

This brings us back to ISNA as a political entity really. The point is, were ISNA more in the mainstream public eye and subjected to the same kind of public opinion that Evangelists and Politicians are, ISNA would have never gained the level of control it did over the intersex community.

With Tree and Chase there have often been conflicting stories about their history, often following the same pattern. “Assigned female after suffering bad surgery but were XX women” Followed with “Assigned male, but were really XX Women who were wrongly assigned male” to “XY women with something like AIS who were politically active lesbians”. And in Tree’s case “A Male to Female Transsexual who became a lesbian but was an Homosexual (Male) transsexual who must deal with older transsexuals who are not transsexuals”. Confused? You would not be alone. The list of names gets interesting as well, like Chase was Charlie Sullivan, then something else and eventually Cheryl Sullivan etc., etc. Tree is perhaps even more notorious for name changing.(2)

This point being that to be accepted into the ISNA “intersex club” one had to have been assigned female, preferably have been born female with an enlarged clitoris that was chopped up a bit, and not have chosen to become male, because all this was a lesbian and feminist issue. They were very narrow in defining what intersex is supposed to be. They even published statements like: “Anyone who is not within this tight category is really a transsexual seeking legitimacy”. It turned out that this was a Bailey Quote.(3) (Interesting)

This is the issue, if they acted like that in the public eye while being politicians or religious leaders, they would be in big trouble.

Why am I saying this? Well, it is Alice Dreger’s rather interesting way of documenting all this over time. For me the problem is that Alice Dreger points at the critics (mainly of Bailey) and constantly accuses them of lying. Lynn Conway and Andrea James who have over time also been documenting the antics of Bailey’s gang of control freaks are always accused of misrepresenting the facts and lying. But even Dreger has a very difficult time trying to keep the story consistent from where she is telling it. Andrea James and Conway, if they are out to “destroy Bailey” and the various plans of others involved, they really do not need to invest much effort in this. Because the interesting thing about this is that with Andrea James and Lynn Conway you tend to find that opinion takes the form of commenting on discussions between them and Team Bailey. The rest consists of what are now clearly documented events and facts. While some of the remarks could be seen as libelous or provocative, they are very clearly backed up with evidence. I said in Treestumps and Broomsticks that Andrea James had been quite brutal about Denise Tree, but the thing is there is still a lot of well documented evidence presented by Andrea James and Lynn Conway to back it up. Contrast this to Alice Dreger’s Blog. It is all opinion. In fact much of it is not so easy to verify.

With the TSRoadmap site you get the discussion, and then the opinion, and then the meticulously compiled proof which is often irrefutable. With Lynn Conway's site you get constant and again well documented updates to the ongoing debate about Team Bailey. Dreger on the other hand offers little or nothing to counter this. Her usual response is “I am an expert in intersex and the history of minorities and ethics, so I am right.” But even that is a bit lame, because while Alice Dreger loves to “Pull Rank” (As demonstrated in her arguments with Joelle Ruby Ryan), it is fair to say that Lynn Conway is a far more substantial academic than Dreger. And when you take a look at what Andrea James has been documenting, in clear and well organized detail, it makes Dreger’s responses look sloppy at best.

It is interesting to note that the work of the critics of Team Bailey looks more like an academic paper that is well researched and documented, while Alice Dreger’s Paper (About the reaction to Bailey’s writing) looks like a mix between Bailey defense and a rant.

I will admit now, that often when I myself write for the OII blogs and so on, I am not writing as an academic. I am just expressing my opinion and posing a lot of awkward questions. But in the last two or three years a pattern has been emerging. I find some evidence to question Team Bailey and then they refuse to respond or even become abusive. And then I go to the sites run by Andrea James or Lynn Conway and either the information is there, or there is something I can add to this body of information.

When about two years ago I started to look into this for myself, I did feel that it was six of one half dozen of the other. But when I did have questions to ask Alice Dreger (Who was the main face of Team Bailey) I would either get confusing responses or nothing at all. I even had to resort to a small degree of social engineering to get answers. Nothing. When I approached the other side of the debate, with Lynn Conway and Andrea James, they were much more open about things.

I decided to look into Alice Dreger’s claims in her blog entry “The Bog I write in fear” since I first commented on it when it first appeared. I have found that most of Alice Dreger’s comments about Andrea James were more or less fabricated. Aside from the angry email exchanges, there is little evidence to support Dreger’s claims. Interestingly Andrea James had published these email exchanges, in their entirety, warts and all. Even the now infamous “Womb Turd” quote appears on Andrea James’ site.

Dreger has not and probably will not publish the same because what is on Andrea James’ site is pretty much all there is to see of it. Dreger could not fabricate a few extra emails to make herself look good because that would be too obvious, even for her.

We are into double standards here. Dreger and Bailey and their little hive of bullies are always harping on about integrity and truth. They are always talking about being open as well. But all I ever get from Team Bailey is threats, lies, accusation, spin and fudge. On the other side of the coin, I don’t even have to talk to James or Conway, the information is there, warts and all and in the open.

So I am going to come to a conclusion that may upset Dreger quite badly. I do not see it as six of one and half dozen the other anymore. I approached this with an open mind. I admit I had my nagging doubt about Bailey but I was not going to make any judgment one way or the other until I took the time to look into this myself. So here it is, “Team Bailey” are a well organized group of academics and activists who have an agenda. That agenda is to use various forms of social cleansing to get rid of or further stigmatize various minority groups. Their critics are not liars or “Out to get Bailey”. They are people with a genuine grievance about the endless stream of demeaning and sometimes hateful publications from Team Bailey. Bailey cannot really play the “Lovable rogue” routine anymore because the most recent events have illustrated how bad it gets.

And added yet another awkward question to my list. And perhaps the most comical.

Are this "ISNA" and "CISAE" and "Transkids" all a comedy hoax, like Candid Camera? Like we will get the joke over the obvious bit of silliness.

You see when I published Treestumps and Broomsticks on the OII blog, it would appear the Transkids.us Website went offline. (4) It has been hinted to me that my article may have been instrumental in all this. Now this I find interesting knowing that as I write I tend to hit sore spots in Team Bailey and something happens.

OK, how about in 2001-2002 I was on an emailing list, when upon criticizing Cheryl Chase I was subjected to the trolling of some of the Bailey bullies. I was rather struck by the names of two of the main protagonists Stephanie Velasquez and Kiira Treia. I was sort of reminded of the TV series, Star Trek. Like, Velasquez is the name of one of the Producers of the TV Series and also a Character in it, and the name “Kiira” or Kira” was a character in the Star Trek series Deep space 9. This name changing gets very weird, It is always names drawn from Paramount (The media company). Cheryl Chase is also the name of a voice over artist who is famous for the Rugrats TV series for example.

Well Velassquez, and Kiira were claiming that Kiira had set up ISNA with Cheryl Chase. (Was Spock also involved?). Now, if this came out today, it would be very awkward. Because Kiira and Chase were big friends of Professor Bailey and clearly up to something, Like could ISNA be one gigantic hoax? Run by people using the names of Paramount TV Show characters and artists? (How obvious and silly does this get?)

Perhaps this is why the Transkids.us disappeared. I mean pseudo identity theft using the names of people, fictional or real connected with a well known media company does tend to scream. “!!!HOAX!!!” It has about the same effect as "Anne Scummers" appearing as the sender of a particularly nasty form of Spam.

Such is the Paramounting evidence I suppose (I could work for the tabloid press with a pun like that).

Cue Star Wars theme and scenes of Mount St Helens. Well it says it all, I actually think that the past 15 years of “Activism” on the part of Team Bailey have been one gigantic hoax. It is not the use of names that is the issue. That was just a flourish or some "Board meeting" dreaming up names off the top of their heads and coming up with names from Television. It is the fact that as you scratch beneath the surface and put all the threads together, you get 15 years of "intersex activism" and "Transsexual academic discussion" from this clique of "experts" looking like a very amateur hoax. A hoax that is so lame it would do a Russian spammer proud.

Notes:

(1) See also: Cheryl Chase and Disorders of Sex Development (DSD): A report from OII - USA, Edited by Curtis E. Hinkle

October 2, 2006

(2) 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 Haasd

http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/USA/haas1/

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.”

http://tinyurl.com/2n8wbf

http://www.alternet.org/story/10672/