ABSTRACT
This chapter by the pseudonymous Cheryl Chase, founder of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), explores the intersections of trans and intersex activism. The insistence on two clearly distinguished sexes has calamitous personal consequences for the many individuals who arrive in the world with sexual anatomy that fails to be easily distinguished as male or female. Many people familiar with the ideas that gender is a phenomenon not adequately described by male/female dimorphism and that the interpretation of physical sex differences is culturally constructed remain surprised to learn just how variable sexual anatomy is. Traditional African practices that remove the clitoris and other parts of female genitals have lately been a target of intense media coverage and feminist activism in the United States and other industrialized Western societies. Feminism represents itself as being interested in unmasking the silence that surrounds violence against women.
