Urban Legends Site

[ADimple]

I was reading through some of the urban legends on this site, and happened across this:
http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/ciara.asp

They may have intended well, and considering the link to ISNA at the bottom they may have even talked with someone there, but the information they put in this article just makes me uneasy...
First of all their use of "intersexual" instead of "intersexed person" or "person with an intersexed condition" or something of that nature. Then there's the part further on about surgery...
Read it for yourselves, maybe someone here could write them something? I'm not exactly the most eloquent with words...

-Adimple

[Peter]

I read the urban legend link that refers to rumors surrounding Ciara having once been a man. What surprises me is the number of contradictory versions of the rumor.

1) She is MTF at her parent's request.
2) She is MTF at her own request.
3) She was the victim of a botched circumcision like David Reimer.
4) She was born intersex.

I think the writer did a good job of debunking these rumors. I like the expose that although Ciara is rumored to have opened up to Oprah on national television about once being a man, the singer has never even appeared on the show. The writer then quotes a NY Daily News piece, where Ciara confirms than she was never a man, and was never on Oprah. I quote:

"R&B sensation Ciara just wants everyone to know: She's all woman. "You know what's funny? The rumor that I used to be a man," she told us at the launch party for Vibe Vixen magazine at Frederick's.

"They said Oprah said that on her show," she laughed. "I've never been on Oprah in my life — we all know I have years before I go on Oprah, so come on!""

I too prefer the term "intersex person" to "intersexual", but on the whole, I think the writer, Barbara Mikkelson, did a pretty good job of exposing the urban legend. She mentions both Dr. Fausto-Sterling and ISNA, and notes that people are born intersex in about 1 out of 2000 births. Now some of the wording sounds like she has only recently learned about intersex conditions, and it seems like she is only beginning to understand what intersex lives are about. I like that the writer signed her name Barbara "Mixed Message" Mikkelson. She does not come across as snobbish or as putting down intersex people.

Peter

[ADimple]

Like I said, I think she had good intentions when she wrote it. The other part that I didn't like was saying that surgery was the main "treatment" for intersexed conditions, and I was under the impression that that was changing. So I guess I just was wondering what somebody who didn't know about intersex would think when they read that because the way it was worded kind of made it sound like the anomalies should be surgically corrected. Is that just the way I was reading it, or did somebody else get that out of it too?

-Adimple

[Peter]

Hi Adimple,

I now have a better understanding of your concerns about the urban legend link for Ciara. I just wrote Barbara Mikkelson the following note, in the feedback section for her site:

Hello Barbara,

My name is Peter Trinkl, and I am a board member with an on-line support forum for people with intersex conditions. On the forum, regarding your recent post on the Ciara urban legend, I have seen complaints that some of your readers may get the mistaken impression that genital surgery is the preferred treatment for intersex conditions. If possible for you to give a more balanced view, I would add language in the first paragraph explaining intersex conditions along the lines of:

"The surgical treatment of sexually ambiguous genitals and involuntary hormone treatments are increasingly controversial. Many intersex people are unhappy with the medical treatment that they received, and are angry that the treatments went forward without their own informed consent. For more information on the views of intersex people regarding the medical treatment of intersex children, please see the Bodies Like Ours website at www.bodieslikeours.org"

I generally liked your debunking of the urban legends around Ciara, and I think that you meant well. One last comment that we received is that we like to be referred to as intersex people or people with an intersex condition. we generally don't like the term intersexual, because it implies that we have an unusual sexuality.

Thanks,

Peter Trinkl
Bodies Like Ours

[ADimple]

Thank you Peter, that's a lot better than what I could have come up with.

:-D

-Adimple