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from Social Issues
Intersexual/Transgender Advocate
Urges New Understanding of Normality
August 5, 2004 - Dr. Alice Dreger, a medical historian and ethicist at
Michigan State University, is currently promoting her latest book, One of Us,
Conjoined Twins and The Future of Normal, published by Harvard University Press.
Dreger's previous book was Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex. She
is a leader in the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), a group dedicated
to the view that children born with genital malformations should not be assigned
a sex as infants. These children should be free to choose what sex they wish to
be when they are older.
Dreger's "10 Myths About Intersex" was published in the ISNA booklet,
Introduction to Intersex Activism: A Guide for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans
Allies.
In dealing with the issue of conjoined twins, Dr. Dreger told a reporter with
Knight-Ridder that she favors waiting to obtain informed consent from the
conjoined twins themselves, rather than separating them when they are young.
Dreger claimed, "It sounds strange, but I came to appreciate that it's [being
conjoined] not all that different from being married, having a roommate or a
child."
In another article written by Kristina Latham, Dreger observed: "The transgender
and intersexual movements are similar because they both attempt to make people
understand gender and sex as fluid. People need to think more carefully about
their bodies and their naïve and convenient myths about gender."
Updated: 8 February 2008
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