ok, *these* people are on my must-sleep-with list now…
Intersex Genital Surgery as Torture, from a Perspective of the Imperative of Normality
“When we fall outside the norm, we fall outside the set of categories and concepts by which we can be understood and be made intelligible to others…[T]o the extent that we come to be identified with the anomaly, we simply are identified as someone who lacks value and even intelligibility.”[1]
“Normality, then, is the backdrop against which our individuality…becomes foregrounded.”[2]
“This is discrimination on the basis of social stigma. The unavoidable pain of surgery and the high risk of severe lifelong physical and mental suffering – from loss of sexual sensation and function, pain caused by scarring, infertility, castration, violation of bodily integrity, and irreversible surgical assignment to the wrong sex – would never be acceptable by doctors or parents if the child did not have an intersex body.”[3]
To what extent can a discussion of the imperative of normality inform our classification of particular acts as torture? On Feb. 1st, 2013, Juan E. Méndez filed a report entitled “Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” to the United Nations which focused on certain forms of abuses in health-care settings.[4] This report, which included a brief discussion of medical practices of genital surgery on intersex infants, drew from a report to the UN Special Rapporteur by Anne Tamar-Mattis, which extensively documented human rights abuses and harm against intersex individuals, which Tamar-Mattis claimed to be severe enough to be considered torture. What conclusions or implications from an analysis of the imperative of normality can be brought to bear on this characterization of genital surgery as torture?
At first glance it appears as if consideration of normality allows us to draw no conclusions whatsoever; indeed, it is a fact of a reality that genital surgery for intersex infants is the norm in most parts of the Western world, and certainly in the United States. And if torture is the classification in question, then we have normative definitions of torture, like the ones provided in both reports (which draw from various legal precedents, both national and international, regarding the legal definition of torture) which have been applied to intersex individuals (putting aside for the moment of their correct or incorrect application). Thus, it would appear that an analysis of normativity does little to inform this debate, as the question is simply a matter of whether or not the one norm properly confronts the other.
However, here we must distinguish between normative and prescriptive. Usually we think of “normative” with regard to claims that purport to be prescriptive, that demand obedience. However, in the context of social norms, normativity, and the imperatives of the normal, the normative is that which actually comes to bear on the freedom of action of individuals who operate within it. Thus, the UN definitions of torture (and the corresponding demands of cessation) would be merely prescriptive if in fact they did apply in this context, and have failed to be normative insofar as they continue to be ignored. Indeed, many other prescriptive norms which usually apply in medical or surgical contexts (the demand for consent, the demand for full disclosure of information, the demand that surgical operations follow a coherent and rational cost-benefit analysis, that follow up treatment be available, that we avoid actions on children that have similar psychological effects to child abuse, the principle of non-harming, that permanently life changing operations be approached cautiously and after much deliberation)[5] are blatantly ignored in the event of an intersex birth. The question is, then, why are such prescriptives ignored, and what does this tell us?
In fact, analysis of the imperative of normality can aid us in identifying populations who are the subject of torturous practices insofar as those populations fall outside of the norm. The reason for this is found in the above quotations: normality grounds the possibility for intelligibility. Those who fall outside the normal fall outside of our normal ways of perceiving the human person. Insofar as they lie outside the text of normality, they are seen as an exception, not only to the norms that they violate, but indeed the rules of behavior which normally govern our relationship and behavior towards them. The permissibility of non-normative actions is greatly increased when applied to non-normative subjects. If individuality is foregrounded in normality, as Kittay claims above, then individuals who fall outside of norms are not seen as individuals who are subject to normative values (such as human rights) at all, but are seen instead as a social emergency that needs to be eradicated. And since intersex infants are seen as a medical emergency, the medical apparatus that (re)produces their abnormality brings its full strength to correct it. A whole slew of norms, not just gender or sex, but heteronormative, patriarchal, and embodied norms (being able to urinate standing up for males, having an adequate sized penis that is capable of penetrative heterosexual intercourse for males, having a vagina that is receptive to penetration for females, discourses of masculinity and femininity, and having genitals that match gender assignment are frequently cited justifications for surgery by medical professionals)[6] are brought up in discussions of how to normalize. The willingness to bring intersex individuals within normative classifications no matter what the cost (mental, physical, spiritual, social, relational) should raise great suspicion about the legitimacy of normalization procedures. It could be argued that all populations which lie outside of normative frameworks which, nonetheless, have power over and come to bear on them ought to be considered at-risk populations for human rights abuses. Since falling outside of norms, and therefore outside of conceivability, elicits a visceral, emotional response and is considered an exception to normal regulations of behavior, the possibility and permissibility, and indeed the impunity of violence and abuse is magnified. This analysis of the imperative of the norm, and what falls outside it, informs our discussion of genital surgery on intersex infants and torture insofar as it forces us to consider intersex infants an at-risk group, and to take these claims of abuse extremely seriously.
[1] Kittay, Eva Feder, “Thoughts on the Desire for Normality,” Surgically Shaping Children: Technology, Ethics, and the Pursuit of Normality, p. 106
[2] Ibid., 108
[3] Tamar-Mattis, Anne, “Report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture: Medical Treatment of People with Intersex Conditions as Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” Dec. 10, 2012, p. 9
[4] Méndez, Juan E., United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Twenty-second session, Agenda item 3: “Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, including the right to development.” 1 February 2013
[5] The ignoring of all of these is well-documented in Tamar-Mattis’ report
[6] Tamar-Mattis’ report documents these concerns, but see also Kessler, Lessons from the Intersexed, Ch. 2-3
Häxan (Witchcraft Through the Ages), 1922
Medieval methods of torture used to force victims into the confessions necessary for execution.
(Source: dodsrike)
Kylie wouldn’t let me cum… and I had a very hard time being obedient on CrashPad
Comrade Qasem: We want dignity, freedom and self determination
The liberated prisoner Comrade Woroud Qasem called urgently for a popular movement to take action on behalf of Palestinian prisoners in the jails of the occupation, to uphold unity and resistance, and to unite to confront the occupation. In an interview on August 14, 2012 with the Voice of the People radio, she said “We are one people, with so many martyrs who have fallen in the cause of freedom for our land. We do not want chairs with no power, we want to live in dignity, freedom and self-determination. We have suffered from division for too long and must become one hand so as to prevent the enemy from exploiting the division.”
She said she was shocked to be released, saying she was accustomed to the manipulations of the occupation, and had been promised release more than one time only to then be told it would not happen, saying that this was an attempt to manipulate prisoners’ feelings and emotions. She said that all of the practices and policies of the Zionist occupation could not kill the will of Palestinian prisoners and that those who have been patient for many years can retain their patience again and again.
She said that her feelings at the moment of freedom were indescribable, and she wanted each prisoner to experience those feelings, and the joy of welcome by her family and community. “I did not believe that they were releasing me,” she said, “but when I left the door of the prison, and saw my family there, I felt I had actually been freed. It was a very strange feeling after long years of captivity, and the indescribable joy of seeing my father and mother, my sister, who had been denied visits for an entire year, and my brother and his children, who had been denied permission to visit.”
Comrade Qasem said that the prisoners remaining in the occupation jails suffer from extremely difficult circumstances, harsh measures of repression, and attacks on prisoners in units targeted for raids. She also called for action to save the life of prisoner Lena Jarboni, who is suffering from a serious health condition due to inflammation of the gallbladder because of medical neglect, saying that the occupation prisons deal with prisoners as guinea pigs and that Lena Jarboni was scheduled to receive surgery, which has now been cancelled.
EXCLUSIVE: A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh “enhanced interrogation techniques” the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.
People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.
The backers of such techniques, which include “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders.
One official said investigators found “no evidence” such enhanced interrogations played “any significant role” in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.
READ MORE: Senate probe finds little evidence of effective ‘torture’
人的最大特權是無條件地給自己以各種方式對婦女
人間の最大の特権は、女性にあらゆる方法で無条件に自分自身を与えることです
มีสิทธิ์ที่ยิ่งใหญ่ที่สุดของมนุษย์คือการให้ตัวของเขาเองโดยไม่มีเงื่อนไขในทุกวิถีทางเพื่อผู้หญิง
Đặc quyền lớn nhất của con người là để cung cấp cho mình vô điều kiện trong mọi cách để phụ nữ
आदमी की सबसे बड़ी विशेषाधिकार खुद को बिना शर्त हर तरह से महिलाओं को दे रहा है
(Source: the-alley)
The Scarlet Letter Returns - Fundies Force Child Rape Victim to Confess Her Sin
Do you wonder what the Fundamentalist Christians want? In the abstract it is easy enough to answer. They want to dominate us. Just read about the Seven Mountains Movement in their own words.
Yet, far more powerful is a real life story, one that forces us to bear witness to the atrocities they would visit upon us, if they could. And in the story of one 15 year old rape victim we can begin to get a taste for what they have in store for us, waiting to be released with a terrible vengeance on the people of America. They want dominion, over body and soul, dominion and power to punish anyone they can with a hatred that flows from the darkest recesses of their ugly little minds.
Here, read the story of Tina Anderson and tell me I am wrong, that the atrocity she was forced to endure is an anomaly and not part of the future that Dominionist Christians would wish to impose on us with their Biblical Law.
A 15-year-old rape victim was forced to stand terrified before her entire Baptist congregation in New Hampshire to confess her sin of having become pregnant.What Tina Anderson wasn’t allowed to tell the congregation was that she had become pregnant after she was raped by a church deacon, a man twice her age.
Are you surprised? I am not. Yet still reading the details of this confession she was required by her “faith community” to endure is horrifying and despite the fact I found her story believable, I still find it shocking that this is occurring now in our country, not in some theocratic dystopian future such as described in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid”s Tale, but here and now, in America, and has been for some time.
While being kept in seclusion at her pastor’s Concord home in 1997, Tina Anderson, then 15, was too afraid of the reaction from members of her church to tell the police she had been raped and impregnated by another parishioner, she said in an interview with the Monitor.Anderson, now 28 and living in Arizona, said Trinity Baptist Church members had told her not to report an earlier case in which she had been molested by a convicted sex offender who was also a member of the congregation, so she expected them to do the same if she told them she had been raped.
“They told me that to be a good Christian, I need to forgive, forget and move on in my life,” she said. “And they told me that a good Christian doesn’t press charges on another good Christian.”
And when she became pregnant, what did her forgiving Church and its Pastor require her to do? Did they ask her to forgive her rapist. Oh no. They were not the forgiving kind once it became apparent she was pregnant. They did not ask this child, who they knew had been previously sexually assaulted by a pedophile in their own ranks, who impregnated her, or under what circumstances. They “disciplined” her instead:
She says her New Hampshire pastor, Chuck Phelps, told her she was lucky not to have been born during Old Testament times when she would have been stoned to death.While questioning the girl before church officials crafted the speech she would deliver, Anderson said Phelps’ wife asked her, “Did you enjoy it?”
That was only the first step in Anderson’s “church discipline,” one of many ritual practices in the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB), which Anderson, now more than a decade later, says preys on the vulnerable.
“I was completely in shock, but too scared to go and tell anyone because I thought I would get blamed for what happened,” Anderson said.
“I truly believed that it was my fault,” she told ABCNews.com through tears.
Her mother sought help from the pastor and they agreed to send her thousands of miles away to Colorado to live with another Baptist family.
There, she reportedly was homeschooled and barred from seeing others her age until she gave her child up for adoption.
But in February 2010, after keeping her secret for 13 years, Anderson — a 28-year-old mother of three more children who lives in Arizona — was contacted by police and agreed to press charges.
There is not much I can add to her horrific story. I know rape victims get short shrift in America. I once was married to a woman who had been raped as a child by her father, and I know of other rape victims, dear to me, who suffered greatly at the hands of their oh so religious relatives for their “sin.” But I have never known a rape victim who was abused in quite this manner.
A fifteen year old girl who was called out before her congregation and forced to confess to a “sin” she did not commit. Publicly humiliated and shamed before family and friends. Torn from her family and shipped thousands of miles away to an unknown Baptist family in Colorado where she was essentially treated as a prisoner who had committed a crime. Forced to give up her child for adoption and never see her baby again.
And don’t think that wouldn’t be an option if a Theocratic state ever assumes power here in America, the “land of the not so free anymore.” They stone women in fundamentalist regions of certain Muslim countries, where those who murder the women believe in the same severe interpretation of God’s law that Pastor Phelps and many like him apparently also believe. Many fundamentalists of them openly admit they would welcome making homosexuality a capital crime requiring the death penalty, as has occurred in Iran.
They would return women to the status of chattels, under the control of men, mere property for a father or husband to do with as he wishes.
That is where they want to take this country and the rest of the world. That is the New Jerusalem they dream about and hope to bring to fruition in their lifetimes. That is why“The Family” on C Street is so insidious and a real and present danger to our democracy.
The churches are out there. Waiting, Biding their time. Longing for a nation governed by “God’s Law” where men are never blamed and women are always evil.
For a link to the preview of the ABC 20/20 report about these churches that abuse their female children go here (sorry the embed code for the video would not work).
This is the world these fundamentalists would make if they are ever given the chance. And as Pastor Phelps, Tina Anderson’s “spiritual guide” noted at the time, it could have been worse: they could have stoned her to death. And for fear of their retaliation against her she kept quiet, suffering who knows what psychological trauma and emotional trauma. Now, at long last her rapist is being brought to trial. But why wasn’t he dealt with years ago? Why did his church protect him and condemn her, a 15 year old child? Because that is the way these “Christians” wanted it.
Ernest Willis, now 51 and a former church member who lives in Gilford, N.H., is accused of raping Anderson twice — once at Anderson’s home where he showed up when her parents were away and a second time in the backseat of a car when he was teaching her to drive.In a seven-page statement to police obtained by ABCNews.com, Anderson said Willis offered to take her out of state where abortions for minors are legal, then asked if she wanted him to “punch me in the stomach as hard as he could” to trigger a miscarriage.
Willis has been charged with four felonies — two counts of rape and two counts of having sex with a minor. He was released on $100,000 personal recognizance bail and will be arraigned June 16 in Concord District Court. Calls to his house seeking comment were not returned.
“We just received the files and have not had a chance to review them,” said Assistant City Prosecutor Tracy A. Connolly, who would not say if there were more alleged victims.
Police have told the Associated Press that they are looking into obstruction of justice charges against the church for possibly sending the victim away so they could not prosecute.
“Without a victim, it makes it very difficult to have a case,” Lt. Keith Mitchell told the Concord Monitor newspaper. “That basically made the investigation very difficult.”
Police were alerted to the alleged crime after a group page went up on Facebook: “Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) Cult Survivors (And their Supporters).”
Matt Barnhart, a former member of Anderson’s church, left a simple message: “Trinity, New Hampshire, church hid 15-year-old getting pregnant from deacon. You can contact me privately.”
You see, even after 13 years, Tina did not come forward. The rape was only discovered because of an post on Facebook by a witness to what her church did to her. I am glad that Mr. Willis will finally be forced to pay for his crimes. I feel great sympathy and admiration for Tina Anderson for agreeing to cooperate with police and for agreeing to allow her story to be told, including an agreement to reveal her identity. That was a brave and courageous act.
But this is only one small victory, and the Dominion cultists and hard line fundamentalist Christian sects are still waging a secret war against our country, subverting our military and getting believers in their “mission” elected as officials at all levels of our local, state and even the federal government. It is easy to dismiss the danger because we do not see it everyday.
However, when we are confronted by the story of Tina Anderson and all the other women out there who have been abused by these communities of religious fanatics we should recognize the danger they pose is real. What happened to Tina Anderson is just a foretaste of what they have in store for us, if we refuse to recognize the threat they pose, if we refuse to defend this republic of ours against “all enemies foreign or domestic.”
Rape in Iran's prisons: the cruellest torture
“…rape is not just a blow to one person; it is a blow to the whole family. A victim of rape is never healed with the passing of time. With every look given by a father, the wounds open again.” - Bahareh Maghami, a victim of rape in Iran April 2010
Echoing earlier reports by human rights groups, the British media has recently highlighted the case of a young woman from Iran, “Leyla”, who was allegedly abducted, detained and raped by that country’s security forces because her fiancée was involved in the demonstrations that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election last year.
It’s a terrible story and sadly not a unique one. Following the post-election demonstrations, the Iranian authorities cracked down with astonishing severity on anyone perceived to be involved in criticism of the status quo. Thousands of people were arrested: students, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists and human rights campaigners were all targeted. Hundreds of people were subsequently tried unfairly in mass “show trials”, some of which led to executions. But as more people were released from detention, the details of abuse, including rape of both men and women, were repeated again and again.
The Iranian authorities acknowledged that some abuse took place in the Kahrizak detention centre – where former detainees emerged with stories of rape, torture and appalling conditions leading to at least three deaths – but that example aside, the Iranian government’s reaction has been to dismiss and repress all other allegations of abuse.
Ebrahim Sharifi, a 24-year-old student from Tehran, was seized by plainclothes security officials in June 2009 and held incommunicado for a week before being released. He told Amnesty that he was bound, blindfolded and beaten prior to being raped. He also endured severe beatings and mock executions.
When he tried to file a judicial complaint, intelligence agents allegedly threatened him and his family. The case judge said: “Maybe you took money [to say this]… [and] if you go through with this, you will surely pay for it in Hell.” The investigating Judicial Committee announced that his allegations of rape were fabricated and politically motivated.
Two members of the government-supported Basij militia, now in the UK, have also told the British media that they witnessed systematic rape on men and boys in a park in the southern city of Shiraz. Other Basij members had forced young men and possibly boys into a series of shipping containers in the park, where the rapes took place. The two complained, including to their superiors, which led to them having to leave Iran.
Women in detention have also frequently reported sexual insults and threats of rape being used against them. Zahra Kamali, a student arrested in July 2009, told Amnesty International that her interrogators taunted her with wanting to sleep with other men, and touched her breasts. She said that her then cellmate, a women’s rights activist held with her was treated the worst: “She told us that her interrogators had attached cables to her nipples and given her electric shocks. She was so ill she would sometimes faint in the cell.”
It is women who remain discriminated against more generally in Iranian law – a woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man’s, for example. Women’s rights campaigners continue to be harassed, intimidated and arrested. Amnesty is campaigning for Ronak Safazadeh, a women’s rights campaigner jailed in 2009 for five years on what appear to be trumped-up charges.
All acts of rape are grave abuses of human rights. But the abuse takes on an added significance when the rapist is a public official. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture states that rape constitutes torture when it is carried out by public officials or happens at their instigation. International and regional human rights bodies have ruled that rape by officials always amounts to torture, and cannot be considered to be simply a common criminal act.
The use of rape as a form of torture (or as a weapon of war) is certainly not unique to Iran. But that does not mean these reports can be ignored. Greater international scrutiny of Iran’s human rights has been rebuffed by the government: it has not allowed some eight UN human rights rapporteurs to visit the country and has used UN meetings to deny reports of human rights violations.
The human rights situation in Iran has become so dire that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organisations last week called on the UN Secretary General to appoint his own special envoy to investigate and report on the situation in the country, and to issue a more comprehensive report on human rights in Iran.
All this will be of little comfort to those like Leyla, Ebrahim and Zahra mentioned above. But the international community must ensure, for their sake and for those of countless other Iranians, that the focus on Iran is not restricted solely to its nuclear plans but also to the human rights of its people.
