I think we all know that when they say gender identity, they mean that special gender identity that doesn't match the person's sex, but yes, it's an interesting idea.
I didn't know that a:gender has existed since 2003. That explains the trans/intersex conflation, it appears to have been one of the main strategies of trans activists around that time.
From thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007?pg=5
14 May 2000 - AISSG UK's 'GIRES Statement'
A Position Statement Concerning GIRES (Bernard Reed) by the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group UK (AISSG UK):
Summary
After extensive email correspondence with Bernard Reed of GIRES during mid March to early April 2000, we decided not to work with GIRES at the present time. Overall, we wish to disassociate ourselves from GIRES and to state that they do not represent us.
We have already established mutually beneficial relationships with several groups of clinicians and are working with them on AIS-related research projects and the provision of multi-disciplinary patient care. We collaborate on joint projects with other related support organisations (e.g. the UK Turner Syndrome Society, the Anorchidism Support Group) via a consortium set up by the Genetic Interest Group. Within this consortium (set up in 1999) we have recently published a leaflet for clinicians to give to parents on receipt of a 'genetic diagnosis' and have obtained a grant from the Baring Foundation to enable one of the clinical psychologists with whom we work to carry out counselling skills training for the three groups' helpline volunteers. We also work very closely on an informal basis with the UK's Adrenal Hyperplasia Network (AHN) and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) Group.
We do not foresee that an association with GIRES would follow the same spirit as those above, so do not wish to join forces with Reed. We believe that Reed's desire to change the medical management of intersex, although reasonable in itself, is based firmly on the discourse of gender dysphoria (transsexualism/transgender, often referred to as 'trans') and moreover masks an underlying attempt to exploit physical/biological intersex so as to provide an authenticity to that scenario, an authentication that it doesn't need.
The historical perspective is as follows:
GIRES Approaches AISSG in 1999
Reed emailed us in July 1999 introducing a UK organisation called the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) of which he is chairperson and wanting us to enter into a working relationship with his organisation. We read the hardcopy information that he sent and were put off by several things, but mainly by the fact that:
a) GIRES's heritage seemed to be as a trans, rather than an intersex organisation.
a) Reed seemed to be making a case for trans to be considered as a biological intersex condition. We felt we did not have enough scientific information to know whether this was valid.
While generally agreeing with GIRES's wish to change the medical management of intersex (including childhood 'corrective' surgery), we weren't sure about their claims that transsexualism was "an intersex disorder of the brain" and that the term 'transsexualism' should be abolished and it should be considered as an intersex condition. They also seemed keen on lobbying government to allow birth certificate changes for post-operative transsexuals (not an area of great concern to us, although some of our members would like to have a category of 'I' for 'sex' on official forms/documents in general). It all seemed rather political and we as a group are wary of taking political stances. We did not communicate with Reed further, other than to thank him for his information.
Approached Again March 2000
In March 2000, the person who runs our helpline received a phone call from Reed and, having forgotten about our reservations about GIRES, agreed that he could attend an AISSG group meeting a week or so later.
We emailed him to ask why he wanted to attend and it seemed from his response that he wanted a) to see what happens at our meetings, b) to do a presentation, with slides, on GIRES, and c) to discuss possible joint ventures. We explained that our agenda was already fixed (and full), that our support meetings were not the forum for all this anyway, and asked him not to attend (but suggested we might meet on another occasion). At that time he also urged us somewhat insistently to collaborate with him a) to influence what was to be covered in a TV documentary that the BBC wanted to make for the Horizon series, and b) to form a joint policy, along with the UK's Adrenal Hyperplasia Network (AHN), on what we would all present at a British Association of Paediatric Urology meeting in Sept 2000, to which all three organisations had been separately invited by the association (we accepted our 'invitation to speak' in October 1999). He was also excitedly recommending organisations like the Intersex Society of N. America (ISNA) to us, as if wanting to act as a catalyst between us, and possibly not realizing we'd already been in touch for some years.
The Dialogue Starts
We started asking questions about GIRES's policies and aims, about the nature of its membership and its credentials as a mouthpiece for intersex people. There followed a number of emails from Reed giving information about GIRES and asking for our comments on some GIRES guidelines for the medical management of intersex and on a draft synopsis of the issues that GIRES thought the BBC programme should cover.
Throughout his emails, and in his guidelines/synopsis, Reed would employ the phrase "gender identity and intersex conditions" as a means, it seemed to us, of slipping gender dysphoria into the picture without explicitly saying so. While many of the points in GIRES's management guidelines made sense at first sight in terms of intersex, we were wary of this "Trojan horse" approach to including trans within these recommendations because whatever aetiological considerations might link these, in terms of medical treatment there is a world of difference between purely gender issues and the issues faced by intersex children.
(continues)