They/Them (T. T. Perry)

@ttpphd.bsky.social

Applied and translational sensory scientist. https://ttpphd.com https://mastodon.social/@ttpphd PFP: Sculpture of a distorted face and neck

Often in mainstream (predominately white) intersex rights and trans rights movements solidarity is imagined in terms of “natural allyship” based on common experiences of subjugation due to being situated outside of the gender binary and common interests in addressing stigma and establishing bodily autonomy. Despite these commonalities, however, intercommunity tensions over cissexism in many intersex communities, conflation in some trans communities, and the erasure of trans and intersex people of color are apparent. Meanwhile, the scholarly literature on intersex and trans communities tends to only address either trans or intersex issues with a narrow with a white bias, leaving little that addresses intercommunity relations and the tensions and possibilities for solidarity therein. In this research, Meyers articulates a reimagining of solidarity based on the theories and written narrated experiences of trans and intersex people of various backgrounds via textual methods. This reimagining of solidarity challenges the idea of “natural allyship” based on commonality in favor of a conception of solidarity that is intentional and accounts for differences as well as commonalities. Over the course of this reimagining, Meyers also calls for the transformation of Transgender Studies and Intersex Studies to form Intersex and Trans Studies with an emphasis on BIPOC, intersectional feminist, queer, and disabled critiques.

6. Relativizing the norm violation

People employ the technique of relativizing the norm violation when they acknowledge that they have breached a norm but that it is not “that” bad. We have identified five arguments by which the relativization takes place: others (as long as others are as bad or even worse), the frequency (as long as it is not too often), the seriousness (as long as it could be worse), the good deeds (as long as it is in balance), and regret (as long as there is remorse). These subtechniques are arranged according to decreasing number of arguments available for neutralizing: relativizing has less depth and are less persuasive and thus closer to the admission of deviant behavior.

Even when the facts are proven, people can nuance them by suggesting that they should first observe the facts themselves before it can be true. As long as they have not observed the facts themselves it is not real, and judgment has to be suspended (cf. Hewitt and Stokes Citation1975). Kooistra and Mahoney (Citation2016) found that this technique is extremely important in war where soldiers justify their killing by believing that their actions harm no one. Solders can deny the existence of their victims and their victims’ injuries because they do not see their faces and bodies. Rhodes and Cusick (Citation2002) found that people justified unprotected sex even when they were diagnosed to be HIV-positive; they thought that because they did not fell ill then they had beaten the disease.

No one is more affected by unwanted genital cutting than the person whose genitals are forcibly cut, and no one is better positioned to make decisions that go to the heart of a person’s identity than the person themselves. Parents or clinicians who express defensiveness about forced genital cutting or deny that harm has occurred are engaging in rationalizations that disenfranchise children and compound their pain (Kaptein and van Helvoort 2019)

is neither necessary, nor useful, to insist that the religious belief is false and, hence, that it should be excluded from decision-making in medical spaces. Rather, there are limitations to the extent to which it can guide (some) treatment decisions. In other words, we can identify a useful mid-level principle for the kinds of refusal cases that concern Brummett: the child’s life and physical and psychosocial well-being outweighs the child’s metaphysical well-being if and when the two come into significant conflict.

The need for P2+ is demonstrated by analyzing and rejecting three standards (the best interest or harm principle, internal reasonability, and the child’s right to an open future) used by P2 to justify overriding religiously motivated refusals of treatment for children. These approaches fail because each maintains a neutral stance regarding the truth of religious belief. This paper drives at the broader thesis that the proceduralism of secular clinical ethics requires some moral and metaphysical commitments.

Seven Things to Know about
Female Genital Surgeries in
Africa
1. Research by gynecologists and
others has demonstrated that a high
percentage of women who have had
genital surgery have rich sexual lives,
including desire, arousal, orgasm,
and satisfaction, and their frequen-
cy of sexual activity is not reduced.9
This is true of the 10 percent (type

MacClymont: Some argue that pursuing equal rights litigation to protect all children from genital cutting harms girls by detracting from the issue of female genital cutting or minimizing its severity. How do you respond to that?

Robinett: It’s actually contradictory to have laws that protect girls from genital cutting while still allowing it for boys and intersex children. You have to ask yourself: Would it be acceptable if someone argued to legalize female genital mutilation because, for example, many Muslims believe it’s part of their religious practice or claim it has similar health benefits to male circumcision? Would we be willing to reverse our laws and start allowing the mutilation of girls for these reasons?

Screenshot snippet. Submission files, dated February 1, 2025.

It is a non-therapeutic procedure. If it can be called a preventative medicine, it is at the very weakest level. There is nothing wrong with the [uncircumcised] penis; you cannot recommend circumcision based on the medical benefit alone. Nothing about the potential benefits is communicable, so I don't see how it could be called a public health concern. ...Maybe the AAP should get out of the [circumcision] business, since it's not really a medical practice. It's only a 'medical procedure' in the sense that

medical professionals are performing it."

- Andrew Freedman, M.D., Bioethicist for the American Academy of Pediatrics 2012 Circumcision Task Force.

Buckler, Max. 2025. "As controversies mount, circumcision policies need a rethink". Journal of Medical Ethics

$our findings suggest that circumcision may somehow trigger the development of ASD in a small fraction of young boys. These findings obviously do not prove the suggested associations. However, in combination with recent animal studies showing lifelong deficits in stress responses following exposure to just one single neonatal insult, the observed strong correlation between circumcision and ASD prevalence, and clinical observations of long-term changes in pain perception in circumcised infants, our population-based findings should prompt other researchers to examine the possibility that circumcision trauma in infancy or early childhood might carry an increased risk of serious, yet hitherto unappreciated negative neurodevelopmental and psychological consequences.$