Schematic representation
The Phall-O-meter is a satirical measure that critiques medical standards for normal male and female phalluses. [1] [2] [3] The tool was developed by Kiira Triea (Denise Tree) based on a concept by Suzanne Kessler and is used to demonstrate concerns with the medical treatment of intersex bodies.
The Phall-O-meter was developed by Kiira Triea [4] [5] based on a concept by professor of psychology Suzanne Kessler. Kessler summarized the range of medically acceptable infant penis and clitoris sizes in the book Lessons from the Intersexed. [6] Kessler states that normative tables for clitoral length appeared in the late 1980s, while normative tables for penis length appeared more than forty years before that. She combined those standard tables to demonstrate an "intermediate area of phallic length that neither females nor males are permitted to have", that is, a clitoris larger than 9mm or a penis shorter than 25mm. [6]
The meter was printed by the now-defunct Intersex Society of North America as a means of demonstrating concerns with the medical treatment of intersex people. [5] [7] [8] [9]
In her 2000 book Sexing the Body , Anne Fausto-Sterling describes how members of the intersex rights movement had developed a "phall-o-meter". [10] Fausto-Sterling notes that, despite the existence of normative tables, clinicians' practices are more subjective: "doctors may use only their personal impressions to decide" on an appropriate clitoris size. [11] Similarly, in a paper presented to the American Sociological Association in 2003, Sharon Preves cites Melissa Hendricks, writing in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1993 on subjective clinical norms and their relationship to surgical management: [12]
In truth, the choice of gender still often comes down to what the external genitals look like. Doctors who work with children with ambiguous genitalia sometimes put it this way, "You can make a hole [vagina] but you can't build a pole [penis]." Surgeons can decrease the size of a phallus and create a vagina, but constructing a penis that will grow as the child grows is another matter [...]
Copies of the Phall-O-Meter are now held by the Wellcome Library in London, [13] and the Smithsonian Institution. [14]
While the scale as used by the Intersex Society of North America was a satirical tool for activism, numerous clinical scales and measurement systems exist to define genitals as normal male or female, or "abnormal", including the orchidometer, [15] Prader scale [16] and Quigley scale. [17]
Clitoridectomy or clitorectomy is the surgical removal, reduction, or partial removal of the clitoris. It is rarely used as a therapeutic medical procedure, such as when cancer has developed in or spread to the clitoris. It is often performed on intersex newborns. Commonly, non-medical removal of the clitoris is performed during female genital mutilation.
Anne Fausto-Sterling is an American sexologist who has written extensively on the social construction of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, gender roles, and intersexuality. She is the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emerita of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University.
The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a non-profit advocacy group founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries. Other notable members included Morgan Holmes, Max Beck, Howard (Tiger) Devore, Esther Morris Leidolf and Alice Dreger. The organization closed in June 2008, and has been succeeded by a number of health, civil and human rights organizations including interACT.
Sex assignment is the discernment of an infant's sex, usually at birth. Based on an inspection of the baby's external genitalia by a relative, midwife, nurse, or physician, sex is assigned without ambiguity in 99.95% of births. In the remaining cases, additional diagnostic steps are required and sex assignment is deferred. Sex also may be determined prior to birth through prenatal sex discernment.
Genital reconstructive surgery may refer to:
Intersex medical interventions, also known as intersex genital mutilations (IGM), are surgical, hormonal and other medical interventions performed to modify atypical or ambiguous genitalia and other sex characteristics, primarily for the purposes of making a person's appearance more typical and to reduce the likelihood of future problems. The history of intersex surgery has been characterized by controversy due to reports that surgery can compromise sexual function and sensation, and create lifelong health issues. Timing, evidence, necessity and indications for surgeries in infancy, adolescence or adult age have been controversial, associated with issues of consent.
The history of intersex surgery is intertwined with the development of the specialities of pediatric surgery, pediatric urology, and pediatric endocrinology, with our increasingly refined understanding of sexual differentiation, with the development of political advocacy groups united by a human qualified analysis, and in the last decade by doubts as to efficacy, and controversy over when and even whether some procedures should be performed.
Pseudohermaphroditism is a condition in which an individual has a matching chromosomal and gonadal tissue sex, but mismatching external genitalia.
A hermaphrodite is a sexually reproducing organism that produces both male and female gametes. Animal species in which individuals are of different sexes, either male or female but not both, are gonochoric, which is the opposite of hermaphroditic.
Intersex people are individuals born with any of several sex characteristics including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
The Prader scale or Prader staging, named after Andrea Prader, is a coarse rating system for the measurement of the degree of virilization of the genitalia of the human body and is similar to the Quigley scale. It primarily relates to virilization of the female genitalia in cases of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) and identifies five distinct stages, but in recent times has been used to describe the range of differentiation of genitalia, with normal infant presentation being shown on either end of the scale, female on the left (0) and male on the right (6).
Levi Suydam was a property-holding intersex person who lived in the 19th century. In 1843, at a local election in Salisbury, Connecticut, Suydam was presented to the town selectmen as a male property holder, the requirements for being validated as a voter. This was called into question and he was subjected to repeat examinations and questioning of his sex.
Hermaphrodites with Attitude was a newsletter edited by Cheryl Chase and published by the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) between 1994 and 2005. The full archives are available online. In 2008, ISNA transferred its remaining funds, assets, and copyrights to Accord Alliance and then closed.
Morgan Holmes is a Canadian sociologist, author, and a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario. She is also an intersex activist and writer, and former member of Intersex Society of North America. Holmes participated in the first public demonstration by intersex people, now marked by Intersex Awareness Day.
Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". Intersex people were historically termed hermaphrodites, "congenital eunuchs", or even congenitally "frigid". Such terms have fallen out of favor, now considered to be misleading and stigmatizing.
Max Beck was an American intersex advocate, who was active in the now-defunct Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). On October 26, 1996 in Boston, Beck participated in the first known public demonstration against human rights violations on intersex people. The event is now annually commemorated and recognized as Intersex Awareness Day.
Intersex people in the United States have some of the same rights as other people, but with significant gaps, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition. Since April 11, 2022 US Passports give the sex/gender options of male, female and X by self determination.
Suzanne Kessler is an American social psychologist known for the application of ethnomethodology to gender. She and Wendy McKenna pioneered this application of ethnomethodology to the study of gender and sex with their groundbreaking work, Gender an Ethnomethodological Approach. Twenty years later, Kessler extended this work in a second book, Lessons from the Intersexed.
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