This page provides links to some of what I’ve written and done with regard to activism. I don’t mean to imply this is the only stuff on activism worth consulting! It just provides some organization by topic to help my web visitors find material of interest.

On the practice of activism:

Ever since early in my involvement with the Intersex Society of North America, I’ve been essentially doing activism and advocacy from an academic base. I’ve worked to change the social and medical treatment of children born with body types that are often treated with “normalizing” surgeries and medicines. (This has included children born with intersex, conjoinment, dwarfism, and so on.) Along the way, I’ve learned quite a bit about what works and what doesn’t.

My “top ten tips” for doing activism from an academic base are available at this site and at Bioethics Forum. At Bioethics Forum you can also read my criticism of the practice of many of my fellow bioethicists who come across a bioethical dilemma to only stare, think, speak, and move on. For some specific ideas about how to change medical practice, see Get Thee to a Hospital and Sleeping with the Enmity (see page 12 of the link). For a bit on why I do activism, see My Identity/Politics or My Mystique. For why you have to be an educated activist, see Informed Dissent.

Some inspiration:

Activism can work if it’s done well--that is, if it is done effectively and morally. (And if it isn’t done effectively and morally, it backfires.) Really, activism is not as scary as a lot of academics considering it think it will be. If you’d like to read about how I made activism an integral part of my academic career, see my autobiographical essay on being one of the leaders in the intersex rights movement. (I’m also working on a memoir about this work, but I’m not sure when I’ll get it finished--still too much to help with!)

I think it is absolutely critical for activists to turn to their forerunners for inspiration and insight. I remember how energizing and educating it was for me to visit, with Cheryl Chase, the Smithsonian Institution exhibit on the civil rights movement in the U.S. (We were in Washington together to speak about intersex and “same-sex” marriage prohibitions.) I felt both humbled and renewed confidence in what we were doing.

Last winter, at his suggestion, I went with my good friend Paul Vasey to visit the former Chicago home of Henry Gerber, one of the first people to publish humanizing, non-pathologizing material about people who are queer. Again I felt both humbled and renewed. See the photos of our visit.