Marks & Spencer has defended yet another attempt by ‘gender critical’ activists to troll the store’s gender-neutral changing rooms.
The British retailer – which sells food, clothes and home goods – informed customers on social media in August they are welcome to use any changing room in stores as they are inclusive of all genders. This has, however, been company policy for several years.
The move, predictably, outraged people online who claim to be concerned about women’s safety and used the move to share anti-trans rhetoric about changing rooms.
A group calling itself “Women’s Rights Network” posted about the trans-inclusive campaign on Twitter on Saturday (26 November).
The account rallied against the retailer’s lack of single-sex changing rooms and cried out against a theoretical situation in which a male customer ‘opened the curtain’ while a young person was getting their “first bra fitting”.
Marks & Spencer changing rooms have lockable doors on private cubicles, the store confirmed.
Marks & Spencer allows customers ‘the choice of fitting room’
“In all of our stores, we have fitting rooms located within our womenswear and menswear departments and each is made up of individual lockable cubicles to ensure every customer feels comfortable and has the privacy they need,” the retailer wrote on Twitter.
“While they are mainly used by customers of that gender, as an inclusive retailer and in line with most other retailers, we allow customers the choice of fitting room.”
Marks & Spencer’s policy has been in place for three years, according to Retail Gazette. Also, the retailer’s response has been used before when the gender-neutral changing room policy was previously the subject of an anti-trans pile-on on social media.
In August, the official Marks & Spencer Twitter account replied to a tweet in which someone was concerned about the company’s fitting room rules. In response, M&S said they are an “inclusive” retailer that allows anyone to use their fitting rooms regardless of the sign on the door.
“While they are mainly used by customers of that gender, as an inclusive retailer and in line with most other retailers, we allow customers the choice of fitting room,” the official Marks & Spencer Twitter account wrote.
Marks & Spencer’s gender-neutral changing room policy has been around for three years. (Getty)
This sparked calls for a boycott with #boycottMarksandSpencer trending on Twitter. Many retailers with trans-inclusive policies have been threatened with boycotts, but the stores are still doing fine regardless of anti-trans voices declaring they will never use them again.
Another so-called women’s rights grassroots campaign Twitter account also took umbrage with the policy. WRN West Country claimed on Twitter to have “spotted” leaflets attacking the inclusive rules, which it described as an “access all areas” changing room policy, in the undergarments of mannequins at one M&S in Bristol.
Zooey Zephyr, the first out transgender woman elected to the Montana Legislature, was inspired to run after her state passed three pieces of legislation targeting the LGBTQ community.
“My goal has always been to be in the room where my voice can do the most good,” the Democrat told NBC News after her win this month.
Zephyr said she had been working with the city of Missoula to draft human rights legislation but came to the conclusion that real change would have to be made at the state level.
“It became clear that is where the bulk of the attacks and damage was happening, and that was the most valuable room to be in,” she said.
So far this year, at least 340 anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in state legislatures across the United States, with more than 140 targeting transgender rights specifically, according to Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.
Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and the founding director of the university’s LGBTQ+ Politics Research Initiative, said this wave of bills inspired an increasing number of queer candidates to run “to protect LGBTQ rights.”
“If you have so many more candidates, some of them are going to be strong candidates,” he added.
The historic number of bills targeting LGBTQ rights coincided with a record number of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer political candidates: At least 1,065 LGBTQ people ran for office this year, with an estimated 416 running for seats in state legislatures, according to an October report from the LGBTQ Victory Fund, an organization that supports queer people running for office. Of these 416 candidates, 281 made it to the general election, and 185 won — an Election Day win rate of 66%, its post-election analysis found.
The success of these candidates means that more openly LGBTQ people, including more transgender and nonbinary people, will hold office in state legislatures than ever before. Once all of the newly elected officials are seated, there will be nine transgender state legislators (up from eight this year) and nine nonbinary state legislators across the U.S., according to the LGBTQ Victory Institute, the group’s research arm.
The 26-year-old said he decided to run for office due, in part, to the wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation introduced in states across the country, including in New Hampshire.
“Especially as a trans person, seeing all of the new political action happening towards my community really kind of inspired me to be a voice for trans people to be visible and help be a concrete part of making these decisions,” he said.
Roesener’s platform included expanding nondiscrimination laws in health care, affordable housing, raising the state minimum wage to at least $15 per hour and legalizing marijuana.
“I think that people do care about others,” he said. “I think people are all concerned about really basically the same thing. It’s like, are we going to have enough food to eat? Do we have a roof over our heads? Am I going to have time with my family off of work? These are very unifying issues.”
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Another new state legislator will be Leigh Finke, who earlier this month became the first transgender person elected to the Minnesota state Legislature. She told the Minnesota Reformer in June that her decision to run was “largely in response to the building anti-trans movement and seeing bills introduced and laws starting to pass last year” in her home state and beyond.
“It suddenly became an absolute top-level priority for state-level Republicans to attack trans communities and not just to make it a talking point, but to actively take away rights from trans people and trans youth,” she said.
Finke specifically mentioned a bill proposed in Minnesota last year that, if it had passed, would have made participation in girls’ athletics or accessing a women’s locker room a misdemeanor for trans girls. The bill failed, but she told the Minnesota Reformer that it “really shook me and made me realize that someone has to be in the room.” StartingJan. 3, she will be that someone.
‘Real, tangible effects on trans people’
State legislatures have increasingly become battlegrounds over LGBTQ rights. Republicans began introducing legislation targeting queer rights at an increased clip in the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell vs. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationally.
This year, at least 340 such bills have been introduced in 23 states, with at least 25 bills becoming law in 13 states so far,according to the Human Rights Campaign.
More than 40% of these proposed bills specifically target transgender people, limiting trans people’s ability to play sports, use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity and receive gender-affirming health care. At least 17 of these bills have become law, the Human Rights Campaign said.
“The legislation has real, tangible effects on trans people and their families that love them and their communities that care for them,” Zephyr said. “I lost friends who fled the state, and I lost friends who ended their lives.”
A strategy that ‘probably backfired’
Whether or not bills targeting the LGBTQ community — particularly transgender people — pass, they act as a “wedge issue” to motivate right-wing voters in advance of an election, Magni said.
He said this strategy worked in the primaries by helping conservative candidates raise money and motivate their base to show up at the polls.
“But then in the general election, when you have a broader electorate, it didn’t really work. It didn’t convince moderate voters,” Magni said. “As an electoral strategy, it probably backfired.”
In addition to inspiring people such as Zephyr, Roesener and Finke to run for office, he said, this strategy may have also helped pro-LGBTQ candidates fundraise and may have motivated supporters to head to the polls.
Given the Democrats’ better-than-expected performance in the midterms, Republicans could change course with their legislation, though Magni and Zephyr said they expect to continue to see anti-LGBTQ bills for the time being.
“We are seeing pre-filed legislation in Tennessee, in Montana, in states across the country,” Zephyr said. However, she believes bills targeting LGBTQ rights are ultimately a losing strategy.
“My feeling is, the more the right pushes this, the more they will lose. People are standing up for us,” she added.
World AIDS Day. For most, it is a global event where we honor, memorialize, and celebrate the lives of those we have lost to HIV and AIDS since the pandemic began in 1981. For me it is so much more.
During those early years of the AIDS pandemic, many of us long-term survivors experienced nothing short of a catastrophic loss of life–losing friend, after lover, after friend, after lover, after friend within a very short period of time. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, there were many of us who were attending an average of four memorials a week, in some cases, six or more.
Psychologists call what we experienced “compounded grief,” something that can occur during and after a mass casualty event such as war or natural disaster. Entire communities were affected, and like other events that result in mass casualties, collective grief manifested. We felt powerless to control the crisis consuming us.
Years later, we feel anticipatory grief. We are scarred by our pasts, seeing the loss around us and the problems not yet fixed as we confront new pandemics (Covid-19, MPX) and crises.
What can we do to heal?
I’ve found comfort in these four steps, and I make sure to incorporate them into every day of commemoration, including World AIDS Day. They are: Acknowledge, Memorialize, Take a Break, and Take Action.
Last year, on December 1, 2022, I took a break from my daily life to focus on the grief that I normally tend to push down. This is normally an act of self-preservation: I push my grief away so that I can function. Most days, if I dwell on my grief, it would overwhelm and consume my very soul. On World AIDS Day, I let my emotions surface.
The day began with Inscribe. Created by George Kelly, in 2016, Inscribe began as a way to teach the students at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy about those early days of the AIDS pandemic. As a community–students, parents, teachers, neighbors, merchants, tourists, and community leaders–we inscribe the names of those we have lost along two full blocks of Castro Street sidewalks using chalk. By the end of the day, the sidewalks along Castro Street are a patchwork of chalk art, reminiscent of The AIDS Memorial Quilt. It is a powerful act of acknowledgement and a way to memorialize those we have lost.
The display–and the collective act of remembrance–brought tears to my eyes.
Later that day, closer to sunset, we held a Vigil1 on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, where we acknowledged the contributions of civic leaders and others, past and present who were essential in the creation the service and safety network that San Francisco sets as the standard of care for those living with and at risk for HIV.
Then we marched. Just like we did those early days we held candles in one hand and protest signs in the other. Reminding people that HIV and AIDS is not over.
By marching from the steps of City Hall to the steps of St. John the Evangelist Church, we reminded people that there are still 16,000 people in San Francisco living with HIV and that over seventy percent of them are over the age of fifty. We were led by Ms. Billie Cooper, who reminded us that even forty years later, there are still disparities among communities including among trans and Black and brown communities. Dr. Monica Gandhi, from Ward 86, called upon us to refocus our efforts on ending the HIV epidemic, marched with us. And afterward…
…we DANCED!
Under a sky of Quilt panels hanging from the ceiling of the church–made up of panels of parishioners lost to AIDS–we celebrated and memorialized all who were lost.
We danced to the music made popular by the Sunday Tea Dances popular in the early years of AIDS. I danced to honor Jerry, my first friend who died. I danced to honor Vincent, the love of my life who I had buried, not even three months earlier on October 14, 2021, a day before his forty-sixth birthday. I danced to honor those who stuck by us and cared for us over the years. I danced to honor those who lost not one, not two, but three partners and yet still continued to fight alongside us. I danced to honor those young people who continue to fight on my behalf so that I may continue to have access to the services that I need.
I laughed. I cried. And I was healed just a little bit more than I had been a day before.
And that’s the thing. Each World AIDS Day, when I am able to join my friends, my colleagues, my peers and so many others of my community and take a break, acknowledge my loss, memorialize those losses and take action by marching or by dancing, I am healed a little bit more.
–
1This event was thanks to the combined efforts of Ande Stone and the other members from the HIV Advocacy Network, Gregg Cassin from the Honoring Our Experience group at Shanti, John Cunningham, Joanie Juster and Michael Bongiorni from the AIDS Memorial & Quilt, the folx at Black Brothers Esteem and TransLife with the help from some good friends at City Hall and the Reverend Kevin Deal and the parishioners at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Evangelist, and Dr. Monica Gandhi, from Ward 86.
Today is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, to show support for people living with HIV, and to commemorate those who have died from an AIDS-related illness. Since 1983 Face to Face has been on the forefront of the AIDS crisis in Sonoma County. As we head into our 40th year we are reminded not only of those that we lost to HIV/AIDS but to all those living with HIV in our community. It is our mission to end new cases of HIV while supporting the health and well-being of those living with HIV/AIDS. Our Prevention program performed 678 HIV tests in 2022 alone while our Harm Reduction program has provided 840,000 Syringes to those in need while reversing 3,200 overdoses by supplying people with Naloxone. Our Care Services team has assisted 180 clients with financial assistance, case management, legal and medical advocacy support with 112 clients receiving housing benefit services. Today we take a moment to remember those lives lost and to all those that our team gets to help each and every day by being on the forefront here in Sonoma. Our work is not finished.
Twitter took longer to review hateful content and removed less of it in 2022 compared with the previous year, according to European Union data released Thursday.
The EU figures were published as part of an annual evaluation of online platforms’ compliance with the 27-nation bloc’s code of conduct on disinformation.
Twitter wasn’t alone — most other tech companies signed up to the voluntary code also scored worse. But the figures could foreshadow trouble for Twitter in complying with the EU’s tough new online rules after owner Elon Musk fired many of the platform’s 7,500 full-time workers and an untold number of contractors responsible for content moderation and other crucial tasks.
The EU report, carried out over six weeks in the spring, found Twitter assessed just over half of the notifications it received about illegal hate speech within 24 hours, down from 82% in 2021.
In comparison, the amount of flagged material Facebook reviewed within 24 hours fell to 64%, Instagram slipped to 56.9% and YouTube dipped to 83.3%. TikTok came in at 92%, the only company to improve.
The amount of hate speech Twitter removed after it was flagged up slipped to 45.4% from 49.8% the year before. TikTok’s removal rate fell by a quarter to 60%, while Facebook and Instagram only saw minor declines. Only YouTube’s takedown rate increased, surging to 90%.
“It’s worrying to see a downward trend in reviewing notifications related to illegal hate speech by social media platforms,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova tweeted. “Online hate speech is a scourge of a digital age and platforms need to live up to their commitments.”
Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment. Emails to several staff on the company’s European communications team bounced back as undeliverable.
Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last month fanned widespread concern that purveyors of lies and misinformation would be allowed to flourish on the site. The billionaire Tesla CEO, who has frequently expressed his belief that Twitter had become too restrictive, has been reinstating suspended accounts, including former President Donald Trump’s.
France’s online regulator Arcom said it received a reply from Twitter after writing to the company earlier this week to say it was concerned about the effect that staff departures would have on Twitter’s “ability maintain a safe environment for its users.”
Arcom also asked the company to confirm it can meet its “legal obligations” in fighting online hate speech and that it is committed to implementing the new EU online rules. Arcom said it received a response from Twitter and that it will “study their response,” without giving more details.
Tech companies that signed up to the EU’s disinformation code agree to commit to measures aimed at reducing disinformation and file regular reports on whether they’re living up to their promises, though there’s little in the way of punishment.
The mayor of Washington DC has won applause from activists after signing a “comprehensive” trans and abortion sanctuary bill.
Democratic mayor Muriel Bowser signed act 24-0808, better known as the “Human Rights Sanctuary Amendment Act”, on 21 November.
The amendment, shared on Twitter by trans activist Erin Reed, aims to uphold various rights to those who are either transgender or wish to have an abortion within the region.
“They can’t use ANY means to enforce anti-trans and anti-abortion laws against people fleeing states,” Reed said in a tweet. “No cops, no jails, no warrants, no subpoenas, not even ink to paper.”
The bill, initially introduced in May, aims to prevent district officials from cooperating with interstate investigations that would “infringe upon the exercise of reproductive freedom”.
It was sponsored by Washington DC officials after the controversial Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which essentially gutted nationwide protections on abortion.
Washington DC attorney general Karl A. Racine conducts a news conference. (Getty)
During a July testimony to a District of Columbia committee, attorney general Karl A Racine said: “The Supreme Court overturned a precedent that had stood for nearly half a century and eliminated the constitutional right of abortion.
“It is not enough to talk about equality on paper; we must enable it in practice,” Racine continued. “The sanctuary bill and related pending legislation seek to bolster the district’s longstanding policy of protecting civil and human rights.
“[This includes] the rights to make pregnancy decisions, access gender-affirming medical care, and engage in same-sex relationships.”
Activists applauded the bill, saying it will effectively turn Washington DC into a ‘human rights sanctuary’.
Another wrote: “It’s a crying shame this is needed, but well done to DC for doing this.”
Others weren’t so quick to applaud, pointing out that because it is not a state law, Congress is able to override bills such as these, with one saying: “They do have control over what DC can do.”
Treating HIV symptoms in “clusters” could help improve a patient’s overall quality of life, according to a study presented at the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care 2022 annual meeting.
The evidence, according to Medscape, showed that the four main symptom clusters for HIV include pain, body psychological, gastrointestinal, and body image. These symptoms were also more common in HIV-positive people older than 45.
Natalie Wilson, PhD, assistant professor of community health systems at the UCSF School of Nursing, and a group of colleagues performed a study that also suggested that the elderly population experienced more distress from their symptoms, with the exception of anxiety.
“The symptom burden is still high in people living with HIV,” said Wilson. “The medications got better but the symptoms remain.”
Higher symptom burdens are also linked to a lower adherence to antiretrovirals. Treating groups of symptoms together could lead to targeted interventions, Wilson said, “instead of treating one symptom at a time and increasing the pill burden for people living with HIV.”
In the full study, previously published in The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, 2,000 HIV-positive participants completed the 20-item HIV Symptom Index. They then reported their symptoms on their first visit to one of six national HIV Centers of Excellence, rating the presence of the symptom from 1 (doesn’t bother me) to 4 (bothers me a lot.)
The younger population reported more anxiety and were more distressed by it, where the older generation found stressors caused more by muscle aches and joint pain.
While this initial study paves way for further studies over time, the current findings have raised some important questions. One of the more important findings in the study was the accelerating aging process HIV-positive patients experienced.
Cheryl Netherly, an HIV nurse and clinical educator for CAN Community Health, said that people living with HIV and dying from age-related comorbidities is something “we never thought would happen. Unfortunately, now we’re losing them to the different things like kidney issues, heart disease, and diabetes.”
The ACLU and six other civil rights groups filed complaints Monday against two Texas school districts, asking the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate policies they say unlawfully discriminate against transgender students, The Hill reports.
The policies at the center of the complaint include one censoring books that discuss “gender fluidity” and another forcing trans students to use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender.
“The effect of the [book] policy, absent federal civil rights intervention, will be to stigmatize LGBTQ+ and particularly transgender, non-binary, gender diverse, and intersex students in Keller ISD, to uniquely deprive them of the opportunity to read books that reflect their identities, and to create an environment in which unlawful discrimination flourishes,” the complaint states.
Among the more than 40 books removed by the school district in response to the new policy were The Bible, a graphic novel depiction of The Diary of Anne Frank, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, and Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
Opponents of the bathroom policy say that it would allow districts to ignore the gender listed on a student’s legal documents, including amended birth certificates.
“This policy seemingly allows Frisco ISD and its teachers and administrators to ignore and erase students’ gender identities in violation of federal law,” the complaint states. “School districts have no right to question students’ sexual characteristics such as genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes.”
The ACLU of Texas is encouraging impacted students to reach out.
According to the Texas Tribune, the complaints are just the latest filed by civil rights groups in opposition to anti-trans policies in Texas school districts. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a similar complaint against the state’s Carroll Independent School District over concerns it failed to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, and race.
In the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, the school board recently adopted policies that effectively force teachers to deny the existence of transgender people. Its new guidelines prohibit discussion of “gender fluidity,” the use of gender-affirming pronouns, and the use of gender-congruent restrooms.
At the state level, Texas Republicans recently proposed creating a book rating system for school libraries. In a statement on the proposed legislation, PEN America called the system “a dangerous escalation in the movement to censor public education.”
In March, an investigation by the Texas Tribune and ProPublicaexposed the explicitly anti-LGBTQ motives behind one Texas school district’s attempt to remove books from school shelves.
The policies are part of a national trend pushed forward by coordinated action from right-wing activist groups like Moms for Liberty. Similar book bans have been proposed or adopted in Michigan, Florida, South Carolina, and other states. Many states have likewise considered policies prohibiting trans students from using facilities that align with their gender, or otherwise restricting their rights.
Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
Humans often want to fix things about ourselves that aren’t broken. From foot-binding to plain old circumcision, our species has historically been obsessed with altering our bodies — which I can’t help but think about today as it’s Intersex Awareness Day. The observance commemorates the first protest by intersex people — those of us born with atypical sex characteristics — against the practice of subjecting intersex infants and minors to cosmetic, sex trait-altering medical procedures, on October 26, 1996.
The impetus for fixing is so prevalent regarding the intersex population that it’s often come to define us, via statements such as “Intersex? You mean those people who are operated on as babies?” that I’ve heard countless times as a longtime advocate for the intersex community. While I’m thrilled that awareness about these nonconsensual medical procedures is growing, it’s notable that we don’t define other populations this way. For example, although circumcision is the most common surgery performed on males, imagine how weird it would sound to hear males defined as “people whose penises are operated on in infancy.”
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Given said weirdness, today I’d like to highlight the fact that intersex people are much more than just the medical procedures that we are often subjected to — and that we’ve been around way before they even existed. Take, for example, Gen. Casimir Pulaski, born in Poland in 1745 and known as the “Father of the American Cavalry.” As the Smithsonian documentary The General Was Female? details, when the monument marking Pulaski’s grave was temporarily removed, his remains were discovered to have certain female characteristics. After years spent analyzing his skeleton and DNA, a team of researchers concluded that Pulaski was probably born intersex, with XX chromosomes.
Despite his XX chromosomes, Pulaski appeared male at birth because of his intersex variation, Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), which often masculinizes genitalia, Pulaski was able to serve in the military, becoming an American Revolutionary War hero after relocating from Europe. He is believed to have saved George Washington’s life in the Battle of Brandywine and is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary American citizenship, along with notables such as Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa.
Pulaski’s story illustrates that intersex people have been thriving for centuries before the surgeries used to change us existed, and it’s also a stark reminder of the harms and limitations of our current “fix it” approach. For today, in situations like Pulaski’s — where an individual has XX chromosomes and a variation known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia — medical experts routinely recommend surgical reduction of the phallic structure and estrogen hormone therapy to feminize the child’s body and assign them female. The assumption is that, due to their XX chromosomes, these individuals are “really” girls and should thus be made to look it. Yet there’s Pulaski, a man more successful than most of his counterparts.
We can only speculate about the countless other intersex people throughout history because, as with other LGBTQI+ folks, most of our history has been lost due to the fact that we’ve only recently been able to live openly as who we are. For example, when the news broke that Hollywood film legend Rock Hudson was gay, my mother, like many, had a hard time believing it. Had it not been verified after Hudson became the first major celebrity to die of AIDS-related causes, in 1985, he would have lived and died being misperceived as heterosexual. Similarly, had Pulaski’s remains not been uncovered, we would have never known that the prominent military hero was intersex.
Today, the vast majority of intersex people are still living this way — with their intersex status publicly unknown. It’s easy for me to understand why because until I was 28 I’d been living the same way. Although I’d been “out” as a lesbian for a decade, since college, everyone but my lovers and a handful of friends believed I was a non-intersex female. I knew I was different because my physical differences are very visible, but coming out as intersex in a world that only acknowledged males and females just didn’t seem like an option in the 1980s and early 1990s.
I came out precisely when and because I was asked, in 1996, to do so by a survivor of childhood surgeries, sometimes referred to as intersex genital mutilation. She had learned that I like my intersex body and feel blessed that I wasn’t subjected to IGM, and she thought it would be useful for people to hear this perspective. Having learned about the lifelong physical and psychological harms that often result from IGM — which can involve involuntary sterilization or the loss of sexual sensation, I agreed. I wanted the world to know that doctors’ claims that intersex children need to be altered in order to be happy are, in my experience, false.
Those who’ve watched me explore my intersex-ness since my 20s have, like me, viewed it as a positive aspect of who I am — one friend just recently called it my “superpower.” While I reminded her that millions of intersex people have not been afforded these experiences due to IGM and that even for me it wasn’t always easy due to societal ignorance about intersex people, the irony of her statement wasn’t lost. For me, being intersex has been a beautiful adventure, full of unexpected sexual pleasure and a rich understanding of both male and female experiences that I feel privileged to have known — which is essentially the opposite of what doctors who promote IGM predict intersex people will experience.
Incidentally, proponents of IGM like to dismiss my experience as an exception. Perhaps I just want to be different, some speculate, which makes me laugh out loud. As the queer child of Latinx immigrants in a white neighborhood and school and having a name so unusual I grew up hearing, “Hida, what’s that?” I often longed to blend in. Or, some speculate, perhaps I’m just unusually self-confident, in a way that we can’t expect normal people to be. Far from it! As those close to me know, I suffer insecurities as much as everyone else.
The true reason I like being intersex is simple: When you don’t raise a child to believe they’re defective, they’re more likely to end up feeling good about who and what they are — and it’s my hope that all future generations of intersex people are given the chance to experience this. On that note, a growing number of medical associations have begun to listen to intersex people. They are honoring their oath to “first do no harm” by recommending that no cosmetic surgeries be performed unless intersex people seek them out for themselves, as other adults sometimes do, and we couldn’t be more grateful.
Hida Viloria is the author of Born Both: An Intersex Life and is a long-term intersex advocate.
Views expressed in The Advocate’s opinion articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, Equal Pride.
ONE, a condom and lubricant company, is distributing the first and only condoms approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in anal sex. After the approval, ONE partnered with Walmart on new packaging to highlight the FDA clearance.
Walmart stores in the U.S. will exclusively carry the ONE Backdoor pack, a condom kit that is a “butt stuff approved” sampler of the different styles available from ONE.
The pack will feature products like the ONE Vanish, which is 25 percent thinner than the standard ONE condom. It works best with the ONE Move lube, according to the company. The ONE Super Sensitive line — thin, smooth condoms with 50 percent more lubricant — will also be included in the kit. Also included are different samples from the MyONE Custom Fit, which includes condoms of various sizes to accomodate appendages of different shapes and girth.
The Backdoor Pack’s Vanish and Sensitive condoms are sized via the company’s MyONE size method, which is based on popular purchasing habits and is slightly shorter and wider than a regular condom. The included FitKit measuring tool will also help buyers find their perfect cut.
Walmart will also carry 12-count packs of ONE Vanish and ONE Super Sensitive condoms, both with packaging that highlights “FDA cleared for anal use.”
The popular ONE Move silicone lube and the Oasis Silk lubricating lotion are also available in Walmart stores.