The Tale of Tea with Jim the Third

It was one of those messages I get occasionally, this time from a man who had suddenly realized we were just a few blocks away from each other. The writer's father was at a nearby Northwestern hospital, suffering from a terminal cancer.

"While trying to pass some time I went to ISNA's Web site only to discover that it was no more. [The Intersex Society of North America] basically saved my life. Wonderful people such as yourself, Cheryl Chase, Anne Fausto-Sterling, etc., have no idea how much of a difference [you made] and how many lives you have deeply affected. THANK YOU! It would be an honor meet you and shake your hand."

I offered to meet the next morning at the local tea place. And then I started wondering, as I often do with these out-of-the-blue communiqués, if this message was a fake. Was I being set up?

Olympic Problems with Sex Testing

When will the International Olympic Committee learn that you can't fool with Mother Nature?

Ah, Beijing, where men are men and women are… women until proven otherwise. As reported in the New York Times, “Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have set up a sex-determination laboratory to evaluate ‘suspect’ female athletes.” According to the Times, “only athletes whose gender has been questioned will be tested in Beijing.” This approach betrays fuzzy-headed thinking of – well, of Olympic proportions. So I’m laying out here my questions to the Olympic officials involved in this business, in the hopes someone on the inside will send them along.

But first, let’s get the language straight.

Products of Conception

Deborah Costandine and I met in June of 2004, but she didn’t send me the autopsy report of her baby for another year and a half. So I didn’t start looking for more information about what had happened to her until January of 2006. That’s when Deb wrote to say she was wanted some help, so that’s when I went into the basement of my medical school’s library and started looking for her conjoined twin.

The Federal Marriage Amendment and the New 'One Drop of Blood' Rule

Intersex messes with the opponents of gay marriage.

As anti-miscegenation laws took hold in an effort to stop blacks and whites from marrying, by necessity courts had to start deciding who counted as white or black. The standard that ultimately emerged – namely the “one drop of blood” rule of blackness – dictated that any trace of black heritage, no matter how remote or invisible, made you black.

Although a legal necessity, the rule amounted to a biological and social absurdity, one that thrust upon many people an identity that made no sense in terms of their bodily appearances and their lives. For example, Susie Phipps grew up, lived, and married twice as a white woman, but was informed in 1983 by the Louisiana courts (in response to a passport application dispute) that she was really “colored” because she had had one black ancestor six generations back.

As conservatives continue to push the Federal Marriage Amendment and similar state-level same-sex marriage prohibitions, there are signs that a new one drop of blood rule is about to emerge – but this time it will be about sex instead of race. Soon, the way this sort of legislation is going, against their will some men will legally become women, and vice versa. It’s already happening in Texas.

Let me back up a bit.