I was interested to find out that people like Dreger are warning others not to speak to OII, because we are 'unreasonable'. What does that mean, exactly? People come to a view on something by excluding from discussion those who might have a different view? Then they call that a consensus? It is a consensus of people who agree! Big deal.
Unreasonable, then, must mean anybody who disagrees with you, but whose arguments you cannot refute so do not engage with. So, this must be why we are not given access to discussions, and why people go quiet, and why people are told untruths about us.
Is that reasonable? I think that the words that should have been used were 'not compliant' - we are very reasonable people, but that does not mean we automatically comply with what we are told is good for us.
I don't think that the political methods that have been used to undermine and discredit OII are at all reasonable. What is unreasonable is that they know they cannot counter our reason, and instead hope we will just go away.
Why is calling intersex a disorder a problem?
95% of those 2-3% of couples who are told about a 'chromosomal abnormality' choose to terminate the pregnancy.
Roberts, Christy D.; Stough, Laura M.; Parish, Linda H.
The Journal of Special Education, Number 1, Spring 2002 , pp. 48-55(8)
Pro-Ed
In this study, 69 women were surveyed who, as a result of prenatal screening, knew they were at risk for carrying a fetus with a disability. Results indicated that most women were referred by their physicians for genetic counseling either because of their age or because of an abnormal blood test. The majority of women indicated they would choose to terminate a pregnancy that tested positive for a disability, but the type of disability of the fetus, either Down syndrome or spina bifida, made no difference in the decision that women believed they would make. The women's intention to terminate a pregnancy appeared to be unrelated to their overall knowledge about disabilities but was negatively related to their knowledge of disability-related services. Although women reported that genetic counseling was helpful, they revealed that they were not given information about future-quality-of-life issues for individuals with disabilities nor provided with the positive as well as the negative aspects of giving birth to a child with disabilities.
The DSD clinical guidelines emphasise the need for genetic counselling following an intersex birth - but what about the issue of screening and genetic counselling?
The evidence is that the majority of couples (95%) on being told of a child with any congenital abnormality, physical or genetic/chromosomal, will select to terminate that foetus. So, following pre-natal screening and detection, simply calling intersex a disorder of sex development with a genetic component will make termination almost inevitable in most cases; this is because couples tend to terminate regardless of what the 'abnormality' is.
Calling intersex a disorder will result in the virtual elimination of intersex through termination. OII has opposed this, and we are seen as being unreasonable because of this. Whereas Alice Dreger and ISNA and others who are directly responsible for either bringing this about or going along with it (depending whether they feel like taking credit or claiming they had no choice) are the reasonable ones.
That is it; the intersex movement is now closed. Educate all you want, once we are all dead, there will be very few to follow, just 5% of those that are detected, and those without genetic or chromosomal markers to be detected. This is because parents are most likely to terminate disordered foetuses - and genetic counselors tend to focus on the negative aspects of disorders.
If this seems unreasonable - well, don't shoot the messenger. Speak to the reasonable people about it.
Michelle O'Brien
