This item is from InYourFace on-line news. For prior press releases, check the GenderPAC website at: http://www.gpac.org

[Washington, DC: 21 Apr 98] A dozen members of Hermaphrodites With Attitude and Transexual Menace picketed outside the George Washington University Hospital, protesting GWU's cutting of intersexed infants' genitals to make them resemble 'normal' male and female genitals. Hermactivists call this medical intervention Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM).

"Not only are American doctors cutting into 7 intersexed infants every working day, but people like GWU's Dr. Barry Belman are telling parents they have to do it for the good of the infant," said Cheryl Chase, founder of HWA. "Mutilating my genitals wasn't for my good; it was to make the doctors and my parents more comfortable with my body."

After the demo, several protestors visited GWU Hospital departments that take part in IGM--OB/GYN, Endocrinology, Pediatrics and Plastic Surgery--to discuss their concerns with caregivers and, as one hermactivist put it, to speak for the infants who cannot speak for themselves.

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