Episode 7: Pidgeon ft. Dr. Cary Costello

Gender Blender

cw: nonconsensual medically unnecessary surgeries, suicide, medical trauma Tai talks to Pidgeon Pagonis about the interactions of intersex people with the medical industrial complex, their new film “The Son I Never Had,” the place of intersex people in the LGBTQI umbrella, and the need for support systems for intersex folks. Dr. Cary Costello from the University of Milwaukee also joins to talk about the words endo sex and ipso gender, and the opportunities for coalition building between trans and intersex communities. Pidgeon (Chicago, IL) is an intersex activist, educator, and filmmaker. They are a leader in the intersex movement’s fight for bodily autonomy and justice. Their goal is to deconstruct the dangerous myths that lead to violations of intersex people’s human rights, including common, irreversible medical procedures performed without consent to make bodies conform to binary sex stereotypes. Pidgeon has a decade’s worth of experience giving talks and facilitating intersex workshops around the globe. In 2015, they received the LGBT Champion of Change Award from the White House. They can be seen on the cover of National Geographic’s January issue titled, Gender Revolution. This past Spring, they instructed Introduction to LGBTQI Studies at DePaul University. Dr. Cary Gabriel Costello is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of LGBT+ Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. An intersex trans man, ze researches and teaches in the areas of gender, sexuality, sociology of medicine and sociology of the body. Costello engages in public sociology and education, and you can find zir blogs here: http://trans-fusion.blogspot.com/ and http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/. Links: - Writing by Julia Serano http://www.juliaserano.com/writings.html -Pidgeon’s Everyday Feminism article: http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/06/intersex-lgbtq-misses-the-point/ -I Want to Be Like Nature Made Me, Human Rights Watch Report: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/25/i-want-be-nature-made-me/medically-unnecessary-surgeries-intersex-children-us -Dr. Cary Costello blog post on the Ideology of Natural Sex: http://intersexroadshow.blogspot.ca/2016/08/the-problematic-ideology-of-natural-sex.html