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Written for the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) newsletter.
Two years ago, I went to see the play "The Vagina Monologues" for the first time. It was held at a local university, and was for a good cause: the production was part of the V-DAY national initiative to end violence against women and girls. As a long-time activist against domestic and sexual violence, I was happy that V-DAY was raising awareness about these issues as well as funds for organizations that confront them.
But there was a problem with the script: while the play portrayed the ritualistic cutting of young women's genitals in Africa in a serious tone, it depicted the ritualistic cutting of intersex genitals in our society as a light-hearted "fairy-tale": "One girl in Oklahoma told me how she had been born without a vagina, and only realized it when she was fourteen. [...] On the way from the doctor, in a noble attempt to comfort her, [the father] said, 'Darlin', we've got an interesting situation. You were born without a vagina. But the good news is we're gonna get you the best homemade pussy in America. And when you meet your husbvand, he's gonna know we had it made specially for him.'" Later I found out that V-DAY specifically requested producers of the play to "be careful that the father is not portrayed as insensitive or ignorant," because the story was "meant to be sweet," according to the V-DAY document.
I felt invalidated by how the play's depiction trivialized negative consequences of "normalizing" surgeries performed on intersex children often without their informed consent, and offended by the sexist and heterosexist presumptions made about women's bodies. So on that evening two years ago, I went home crying and feeling alone. But in reality, I was not alone: many intersex activists and allies have written Eve Ensler, the play's author, to express their concerns, although there was no immediate reaction from her or from V-DAY.
Lacking reactions from Ensler, I coordinated a nationwide campaign last year in which I emailed all 500+ individual campuses participating in V-DAY to ask them to support the intersex movement's goal to end genital mutilation in our society as well. The reaction this time was enormous: not only did dozens of schools write back to thank us for the information and pledged to do something to raise awareness about intersex, but also I received a voicemail from the Executive Director of V-DAY suggesting that we work together. I called back, which eventually resulted in V-DAY's endorsement of Intersex Society of North America's mission to end shame, secrecy and unwanted genital mutilation.
Then later that year, I was informed by a third party that Ensler had apparently removed the entire section containing the "fairy-tale" from the 2003 version of the script, but without replacing it with a different intersex monologue. On one hand, I was happy to see that Ensler finally took our concerns seriously; on another, I felt that there was still a need for intersex stories in V-DAY, considering the fact that one of its missions was to end genital mutilation of girls and young women. Hence the second nationwide campaign to promote intersex awareness at campus V-DAYs began.
This year, we were able to take advantage of the change in the script that allowed additional monologues to be plugged in by campus producers: we provided them with two of our own monologues (written by Thea Hillman and Esther Morris), which were performed at several campuses. In addition, many schools distributed our fliers, showed ISNA's films, and/or donated their proceeds to ISNA. In fact, I went to see the play at Portland State University, which decided at the last minute to include Esther's monologue.
And as I was hearing her piece being performed, I was thinking, wow, what a difference two years of activism had made. And I also realized that this little success is a mirror of successes we've achieved in other areas. In medicine, academia, pop culture, and pretty much everywhere, we were once laughed or theorized about but never treated as whole humans. Some of that may still continue, but we are also telling our stories now. As the crowd applauded at the end of Esther's monologue, I thought about how much progress we have made, and was filled with appreciation for those who came before me and those who are still working with me. Needless to say, I cried through my way home this time again.