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About

Contact ISNA- Please note that ISNA is closed.
Disclaimer- Information contained at ISNA's website is intended to provide a broad understanding and knowledge of intersex conditions and efforts to change medical and social treatment. This information is for informational purposes. For medical advice, please consult your physician or other health-care provider. Links from this website do not represent endorsements.
ISNA Transforms Itself- ISNA has been extraordinarily successful in its work to effect systematic reform in the social and medical treatment of people with intersex conditions. With the financial assistance of our donors, we have made substantial strides towards building a world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with atypical reproductive anatomies. ISNA was founded in 1993, and we enjoyed rapid growth especially in the last several years. But with that growth, we paid a high price in terms of exhausting our core staff and volunteers. We realized late in 2003 that we needed a new system, one which would be truly sustainable—one which would keep ISNA going until its work is done.
Meet the people who make ISNA work- ISNA is our staff members, board members, Medical Advisory Board, and funders.
What is the agenda of the intersex patient advocacy movement?- Presented at the First World Congress: Hormonal and Genetic Basis of Sexual Differentiation Disorders, Tempe Arizona, May 17-18 2002 Chase, Cheryl. "What is the Agenda of the Intersex Patient Advocacy Movement?" Endocrinologist. 13(3):240-242, May/June 2003. Download pdf version. Today, almost a decade after the Intersex Society of North America was founded, many people still misunderstand what criticisms the intersex patient advocacy movement makes of standard practice, and what reforms we are asking for. I’m pleased to have this opportunity to provide a summary of our recommendations for patient-centered care, and to contrast them with the current state of medical practice.

Subcategories of About

Funders

Arcus Foundation Awards ISNA $150,000- We are thrilled to announce that the "Arcus Foundation":http://www.arcusfoundation.org has renewed funding for ISNA with $50,000 per year to help cover our 2006-2008 operating expenses! Arcus Foundation has been a key supporter of ISNA's work since 2001, but this is the first time ISNA has secured ongoing funding from the Arcus Foundation. Created in 2000 as a family foundation, the Arcus Foundation seeks to contribute to a pluralistic society that celebrates diversity and dignity, invests in youth and justice, and promotes tolerance and compassion. Initiated by Jon L. Stryker and Robert E. Schram, the foundation was formed in the belief that all individuals have a right and responsibility to full participation in our society and with the conviction that education and knowledge can be an antidote to intolerance and bigotry. Arcus has been ISNA's strongest foundation sponsor since 2000.
Funding Exchange- The Funding Exchange awarded $5,000 to ISNA in 2003. The Out Fund for Gay and Lesbian Liberation supports radical organizing projects working to build community among lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transexuals, and transgender and intersex people.
Gill Foundation- The "Gill Foundation":http://www.gillfoundation.org, a key supporter of ISNA's work since 2000, awarded $15,000 to ISNA in 2005. The mission of the Gill Foundation is to secure equal opportunity for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
Individual Donors like you!- Did you know that individual donors (like you!) are ISNA's most important source of financial support? The strongest support that you can give us is a monthly pledge, automatically deducted from your credit card. Even $10 or $20/month amounts to a strong investment in creating a world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgery. Click here to make your gift (monthly or one time).
Kicking Assets (a Tides Foundation fund)- Kicking Assets, a donor-directed fund of the Tides Foundation, has supported ISNA's work since 2004. In 2005, Kicking Assets granted us $5,000 to support general operations. Thanks, Kicking Assets! Why not join them? Every donation helps. ISNA runs mostly on small, individual donations that together can add up to buckets of support. Click here to donate to support our efforts and to get a copy of our new video, "First Do No Harm: Total Patient Care for Inter

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Speakers

Barbara Jones- [image:1072 class=bio_image] I decided to become a speaker on behalf of ISNA due to my diagnosis of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome at age 26. This was not the first revelation which came about when I was 19 years of age and trying to find out why I hadn't had the normal female rites of passage at the onset of puberty. I had secretly gotten my physician father's textbook on gynaecology and began turning page after page. I remember sitting cross-legged on my bed and seeing a picture of a nude woman with the black bar across her eyes. She looked just like me with the absence of body hair. There was only a page and a half of information but from what it described, I knew who and what I was -- finally.
Carolyn Parsons- [image:1018 class=bio_image] On a small mission in the heart of the central Angola highlands, Carolyn Parson's grandfather delivered her, introducing a healthy girl to a growing family. A healthy and happy baby, she grew to be a bright, curious, and easy going child. As an energetic 11 year old, Carolyn began a journey that would radically change her life. Her apparently female body started to change. Her muscles began to develop, hair started growing on her body, her clitoris and labia began enlarging. She began to be very shy of her body and never let anyone know what was happening.
Cheryl Chase (Bo Laurent)- *Cheryl Chase* was our founder. Her ongoing efforts to improve the social and medical treatment of intersexed people have been recognized with the year 2000 Felipa de Souza Human Rights Award, and in diverse publications and numerous television and radio programs including __Newsweek__, the __New York Times,__ NPR's __Fresh Air,__ NBC __Dateline__, ethicist Alice Dreger's "Intersex in the Age of Ethics":/books/age_of_ethics, social psychologist Suzanne Kessler's __Lessons from the Intersexed__, molecular biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling's __Sexing the Body,__ and Pulitzer Prize winning medical writer Natalie Angier's bestseller, __Woman: An Intimate Geography.__
Cindy Stone- [image:1004 class=bio_image] *Cindy Stone* earned her bachelor’s and masters degrees in Education from Indiana University. She has worked at her alma mater as an administrator and instructor for the past 26 years. Cindy was born looking like other baby girls, and her intersex syndrome was not fully diagnosed until she was an adult in her 30’s. She has the complete form of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome passed on genetically from her mother. Had she not become inquisitive on her own at age 34 about her medical needs, she might have developed gonadal cancer. She was unaware that her doctors lied to her as a teenager withholding critical information about her syndrome.
Debbie Hartman- [image:888 class=bio_image] *Debbie Rode Hartman* is a single mother raising her intersexed child who had gender re-assignment surgery at 11 weeks. She is an active advocate for ISNA and has participated in numerous panels about intersex including presentations to the National Organization of Women and the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Piscataway New Jersey. She was interviewed in Canada SexTV's full-length feature on intersex Redefining Sex and has been interviewed by numerous publications including the San Francisco Chronicle and the New Haven Advocate. She is featured in Total Patient Care, ISNA's video on the practical application of new methodologies in the treatment of intersexed children. Visit her website on intersex and other special needs.

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Emeritus

Adam Mathias- [image:864 class=bio_image] *Adam Mathias* joined the board of ISNA with an impressive list of credentials and passion for our mission. Adam first learned of ISNA's work when his sister, Robin, fell in love with ISNA founder Cheryl Chase. Having Cheryl as a family member, witnessing the progress ISNA has made over the years, and having a deep and personal understanding of the struggles sexual minorities face because of his own identity as a gay man, Adam decided to volunteer his energy and skills toward advancing ISNA's mission. An accomplished playwright and fundraiser, Adam has produced and managed advertising and media for his own play and helped many non-profit theater groups raise funds.
Alice Dreger, PhD- [image:1060 class=bio_image] "Alice Dreger,PhD":http://www.alicedreger.com began her association with ISNA in 1996 in response to Cheryl Chase’s request for help changing the medical treatment of people born with intersex. One of the few non-intersex people to become a pillar of the intersex rights movement, Alice served ISNA for nine years, acting as Chair and President of the Board for six years, Chair of the Fundraising Committee for one year, and as the first Director of Medical Education. These titles do not capture the extent to which Alice often functioned as behind-the-scenes glue helping to hold ISNA together. She wrote, ghost-wrote, and edited countless articles, grants, letters, hand-outs, and blogs for ISNA, recruited and aided allies, directed numerous major fundraising campaigns, and played a central role in policy development and advocacy strategizing. She and her husband, Aron Sousa (a member of ISNA’s "Medical Advisory Board":http://www.isna.org/about/medicalboard/) have also been major financial donors to ISNA.
Angela Moreno Lippert- [image:885 class=bio_image] *Angela Moreno Lippert* has been involved with the Intersex Society since 1996 when she appeared in ISNA's first video production, Hermaphrodites Speak! Since then, her intersex activism has been featured in such diverse venues as the __Chicago Tribune__, __FOX News Chicago__, __On the Issues__, __Ms. Magazine__ and __Mademoiselle__. She has spoken publicly on the subject of improving treatment for people with intersex conditions and their families, including an appearance as keynote speaker at GenderPAC's 2001 National Conferenc
April Herndon, Ph.D.- [image:867 class=board] *April Herndon, Ph.D.* served as ISNA's Director of Programming from June 2005-June 2006. Along with ISNA's Executive Director Cheryl Chase and former Director of Medical Education Alice Dreger, Dr. Herndon helped to administer our Clinicians' and Parents' Handbooks Project, funded respectively by the California Endowment and the Arcus Foundation. Dr. Herndon also helped administer public outreach work, production and distribution of educational materials, and research related to ISNA's mission-based programming. She helped establish ISNA's Speakers Bureau, edited ISNA's newly revised "Teaching Intersex Issues," wrote blogs, co-authored grants, helped upkeep ISNA's website, and forged and fostered relationships with ISNA volunteers.
Arlene Baratz, M.D.- [image:1046 class=bio_image] *Arlene Baratz, M.D.* has been a medical advisor to the "Androgen Insensitivity Support Group":http://www.indiana.edu/~ais/html/home.html for seven years and joined the "ISNA Medical Advisory Board":http://www.isna.org/about/medicalboard/ earlier this year. Prior to joining the board, Baratz was a contributor on the "Handbook for Parents and the Clinical Guidelines":http://www.dsdguidelines.org/, new publications for both families and health care providers dealing with DSDs produced by ISNA and the DSD Consortium. When asked how her previous experience as a radiologist working with breast cancer prepared her for her work with ISNA, Baratz says, "I have been practicing in the specialty of breast radiology for 16 years.

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directory

Categories

About

Subcategories of About

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Speakers

Emeritus