Pidgeon Pagonis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1986 (age 37–38) [1] Chicago, Illinois, US [2] |
| Alma mater | DePaul University [3] [1] |
| Occupation(s) | Activist Writer Artist |
| Known for | Intersex activism |
| Website | pidgeonismy |
Pidgeon Pagonis (born 1986) is an American intersex activist, writer, artist, and consultant. [4] They are an advocate for intersex human rights and against nonconsensual intersex medical interventions. [2]
Pagonis was born in 1986 in Chicago, Illinois, [1] and has Mexican and Greek ancestry. [4] As a child, Pagonis, a queer and non-binary person who uses they/them pronouns, [5] [6] was diagnosed with androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS). [7] They were not told of this intersex variation, were assigned female at birth, told that they had ovarian cancer (when they in fact had internal testes and no ovaries), and subjected to a series of cosmetic surgeries to remove sections of their genitalia, which their doctors justified as being necessary to facilitate "sexual relationships with men." [2] [7] [5]
They learned about intersex traits during their freshman year in college, while attending a lecture at DePaul University. They subsequently accessed their own medical records, and learned the truth about their variation. [7] [5] In 2020, they learned that their AIS diagnosis was incorrect and that they have another intersex variation known as NR-5A1, as their low levels of estrogen and osteopenia might have indicated. [8] [9]
Pagonis graduated from DePaul with bachelor's and master's degrees in women and gender studies. [1]
Pagonis joined the advocacy organization interACT a few years after discovering they were intersex. [7] They became the leadership coordinator of the youth program at interACT. [7] In 2013, Pagonis testified with Mauro Cabral, Natasha Jiménez and Paula Sandrine Machado before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about the medical interventions they were subjected to as an intersex child. [10] [11] They were also featured in the 2012 documentary Intersexion . [1]
In 2014, Pagonis created a documentary of their own, The Son They Never Had: Growing Up Intersex, which they tour around the country, advocating against nonconsensual "corrective surgeries". [1] [12] This work was published in a bioethics journal, Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics . [13] [14] The Son They Never Had was also shown at the Leeds Queer Film Festival in the UK in March 2017. [15]
In 2015, Pagonis created the hashtag campaign #intersexstories for Intersex Awareness Day. The campaign attracted a huge following, with many intersex people sharing their stories. [2] [16] Pagonis also appeared in a BuzzFeed video about intersex bodies, identities and experiences. [17] [18]
Pagonis is a writer for Everyday Feminism, where they have addressed subjects including anti-black racism in the intersex community, interviewing Sean Saifa Wall and Lynnell Stephani Long, [19] and debate over the inclusion of intersex people in the LGBTQA acronym. [6]
Pagonis appeared in a 2016 episode of the television series Transparent . Pagonis’ supervisor and the coordinator for interACT, Kimberly Zeiselman, nominated them for the role. [20] They lobbied for the part when meeting show creator Joey Soloway at a White House awards ceremony. Pagonis was featured in season 3, episode 1 of Transparent and made a cameo as the intersex character of Baxter to increase the representation of intersex people. [21] The role of Baxter involves them working as a volunteer at the Los Angeles LGBT Center hotline along with Maura. [22] In the episode “Elizah,” Baxter is introduced and mentions both the phrase “ambiguous genitalia” as well as referencing the Oprah episode on intersexuality. [23] Pagonis cites the reason for participating in Transparent as creating “a positive instance of representation” for intersex people, increasing the “notoriety” of the intersex movement. [21] The episode was acclaimed and had a positive impact on the visibility of the intersex community, with season 3 of Transparent being considered possibly the most ambitious season by critics. [24] Pagonis considers this role to be a way of advocating for human rights. [25]
Pagonis appeared on the cover of the January 2017 National Geographic "Gender Revolution" issue. They were one of the intersex activists who wrote in expressing concern that being intersex was defined by the magazine as a disorder. National Geographic responded to reader pressure by updating the definition in the online issue. [26] [27]
In June 2017, Pagonis appeared in a video for Teen Vogue alongside fellow intersex advocates Emily Quinn and Hanne Gaby Odiele, explaining what it means to be intersex. [28]
Pagonis also co-founded the Chicago-based Intersex Justice Project with activists Sean Saifa Wall and Lynnell Stephani Long. Wall and Pagonis organized protests and demonstrations outside of Lurie Children's Hospital, where Pagonis was operated on as a child. Intersex Justice Project carried forth the #endintersexsurgery campaign against Lurie for three years. On July 28, 2020, Lurie Children's Hospital issued a formal public apology to intersex patients for past surgeries and ceased performing cosmetic surgeries on infants, becoming the first hospital in the United States to do. [29] [30]
In May 2021, Pagonis reported that for the second time the intersex hashtag was removed on TikTok and demanded its return. [31] A poster could not click the tag on their own post and trying to search for intersex pulled up a “null” page. [31] TikTok told TheVerge that in both of the instances Pagonis noticed, the tag had been removed by mistake and was subsequently restored. [31] But because there was no public statement about the accidental removal, Pagonis and others were left to speculate about whether it was being intentionally censored. [31]
After growing up with secrecy, lies, and shame around being intersex, Pagonis sees TikTok and other platforms as spaces where intersex people “can connect with each other and also advocate for ourselves and each other, and then other people can learn about intersex.” [31]
But when the easiest way to discover intersex content on TikTok disappears, that erasure follows the historical mistreatment of intersex people. [31] “My community is erased with a scalpel, and with words and linguistics,” said Pagonis, “but this time they’re literally erasing the word.” [31]
Pagonis was one of nine LGBT artists honored as an Obama White House Champion of Change in 2015. [32] They were also one of "30 Under 30" honored by the Windy City Times in 2013. [3]
The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) was a non-profit advocacy group founded in 1993 by Cheryl Chase to end shame, secrecy, and unnecessary genital surgeries on intersex people. Other notable members included Morgan Holmes, Max Beck, Howard (Tiger) Devore, Esther Morris Leidolf and Alice Dreger. The organization closed in June 2008, and has been succeeded by a number of health, civil and human rights organizations including interACT.
Intersex Awareness Day is an internationally observed awareness day each October 26, designed to highlight human rights issues faced by intersex people.
Advocates for Informed Choice, dba interACT or interACT Advocates for Intersex Youth, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization advocating for the legal and human rights of children with intersex traits. The organization was founded in 2006 and formally incorporated on April 12, 2010.
Hida Viloria is an American writer, author, producer, and human rights activist of Latin American origin. Viloria is intersex, nonbinary, and genderfluid, using they/them pronouns. They are known for their writing, their intersex and non-binary human rights activism, and as one of the first people to come out in national and international media as a nonbinary intersex person. Viloria is Founding Director of the Intersex Campaign for Equality.
Intersexion (2012) is a documentary about intersex people. The film was researched and presented by activist Mani Mitchell, New Zealand's first "out" intersex person. It was written, directed and edited by Grant Lahood and produced by John Keir.
Mauro Cabral Grinspan, also known as Mauro Cabral, is an Argentinian intersex and trans activist, who serves as the Senior Officer for Gender Justice and Equity at the Global Philanthropy Project. Before that, he was the Executive Director of GATE. His work - as a signatory of the Yogyakarta Principles - focuses on the reform of medical protocols and law reform. In July 2015, Cabral received the inaugural Bob Hepple Equality Award.
Georgiann Davis is an associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico and author of the book Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis. Davis formerly held similar positions at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Born with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, she writes widely on intersex issues and the sociology of diagnosis.
Intersex, in humans and other animals, describes variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies".
Natasha Jiménez is a trans and intersex activist and author who is currently the General Coordinator for MULABI, Latin American Space for Sexualities and Rights, the first host of the Intersex Secretariat for ILGA. She is an advisory board member for the first intersex human rights fund and participated in the first intersex hearing on human rights before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
Kat Blaque is an American YouTuber and LGBT rights activist.
Sean Saifa Wall is an African-American researcher, and long-time advocate for intersex rights. He is a queer, transgender, and intersex man of color and former president of Interact Advocates for Intersex Youth. He approaches his work to end intersex oppression through an intersectional lens.
Intersex people are born with sex characteristics that "do not fit the typical definitions for male or female bodies". They are substantially more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) than endosex people. According to a study done in Australia of Australian citizens with intersex conditions, participants labeled 'heterosexual' as the most popular single label with the rest being scattered among various other labels. According to another study, an estimated 8.5% to 20% experiencing gender dysphoria. Although many intersex people are heterosexual and cisgender, this overlap and "shared experiences of harm arising from dominant societal sex and gender norms" has led to intersex people often being included under the LGBT umbrella, with the acronym sometimes expanded to LGBTI. Some intersex activists and organisations have criticised this inclusion as distracting from intersex-specific issues such as involuntary medical interventions.
Intersex people in the United States have some of the same rights as other people, but with significant gaps, particularly in protection from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions and violence, and protection from discrimination. Actions by intersex civil society organizations aim to eliminate harmful practices, promote social acceptance, and equality. In recent years, intersex activists have also secured some forms of legal recognition. Since April 11, 2022 US Passports give the sex/gender options of male, female and X by self determination.
In Mexico there are no explicit rights reserved to intersex persons, no protections from non-consensual cosmetic medical interventions on intersex children and no legislative protection from discrimination. Intersex persons may have difficulties in obtaining necessary health care.
Kimberly Zieselman is an attorney, human rights advocate, author, and intersex woman, with androgen insensitivity syndrome. She currently serves as executive director of interACT, and is a signatory of the Yogyakarta Principles plus 10. In 2020, her memoir XOXY was published.
Kitty Anderson is an Icelandic intersex activist. She is a co-chair of European intersex organization OII Europe, a co-founder of Intersex Iceland, and chairman of the board of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre. She has been described as a "leading voice of the intersex movement in Europe."
Ellie Kim, artist name SuperKnova, is a singer, activist, physician and musician. She has released two studio albums, American Queers and, most recently, superuniverse. She is noted for speaking out publicly against non-consensual intersex surgery in infants while working at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
