----- Original Message -----
From:
Curtis Hinkle
To: wpath@wpath.org
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:53 AM
Subject: [OII-Board] Open letter to members of WPATH about Whittle’s attacks on
the intersex community
Open letter to
members of WPATH about Whittle’s attacks on the intersex community
I have found that not confronting bullies
who attack other people unjustly and inaccurately is not healthy and
constructive, especially when the person is head of an organization which is
speaking both on intersex and trans issues.
On Whittle's blog:
http://whittlings.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html
1) He has used OII's logo without our
permission or even asking.
2) He has described me as having gone mad.
He has no proof of this. All my correspondence with him has been cordial and
factual. This is outrageous for the head of an organisation which speaks on
both intersex issues and trans issues.
3) He has humiliated me in front of the
board of OII by writing to almost all the board members and caused great damage
to our organisation as a result. I simply asked a very important question about
why Zucker was on the DSD committee and why the name of the committee was DSD
committee when there is almost NO support for this terminology and most
intersex people consider it offensive. That is a reasonable question from an
intersex organization which is truly international and the largest intersex
organization in the world.
4) He wrote an e-mail to Zucker himself
soon after receiving my open letter and in that e-mail he stated that they
could shut up these outside people and organizations. Well, it is clear to me
that he must have been talking about OII because he started his blog to
misrepresent OII and it does not take a lot of logic to figure out the outside
organization he is trying to shut up.
From: Stephen
Whittle <S.T.Whittle@MMU.AC.UK>
Date: May 29, 2008
5:52:50 AM EDT
To: WPATH-MEMBERSHIP@LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re:
[WPATH-MEMBERSHIP] Open response to Alice Dreger
Reply-To: Stephen
Whittle <S.T.Whittle@MMU.AC.UK>
Hi Ken
thank you for this
very thoughtful response to Dana - I wonder whether you might want to say this
more widely. I (both personally and in my role as President of WPATH) am being
currently overwhelmed by a huge number of outside people and organisations, as
you can imagine, to produce some response to the latest debacle re. the DSM V.
Currently all of these enquiries are being fielded with 'this is a complex
question - I'll get back to you some time in the distant future'. It's not
doing my reputation, or WPATH's much good.
I cannot help but
feel that with some judicious editing and a little more background, this could
really shut some people up and show the extent of some of their specious
claims. That does not mean to say that I do not recognise some of their
concerns, and would like to see a public summary of your clinical follow up
studies. Not many outsiders have access to the ASB - they are one of the more
expensive and more difficult journals to access, so instead people rely on what
they think you have said. I have often wanted to send out copies of your
papers, but of course, the ASB's copyrights prevent it.
However, I think
your response below has the beginnings of a much more serious statement that we
could all benefit from. I also believe it might become something WPATH might be
able to support and promulgate (subject to the board, of course).
all the best
Stephen
Professor Stephen Whittle,
OBE, PhD, MA, LLB, BA
Professor of
Equalities Law
Manchester
Metropolitan University
All Saints West
Lower Ormond Street
Manchester, M15 6HB
-------------------------
Vice President ,
Press for Change
www.pfc.org/uk
President, World
Professional Association for Transgender
Health
www.wpath.org
Executive Chair,
Transgender Europe, www.tgeu.org
5) If you want a sample of the type of
e-mails that he sends to people, just read this:
Letter from Whittle to Andrea Brown,
someone who is not a member of OII, who tried to get both sides of this story
From: Stephen
Whittle
Date: 2008/7/30
Subject: Re:
Whittle and OII arguement: Now we have both sides of the
arguement,
eventually. You can make up your own minds, who is telling
the truth.
To: Andrea Brown
Andrea (or whoever
you are)
I knew an Andrea Brown
in the early days of Press for Change, she was out, an activist and a kind,
sensible, realistic young woman. I presume you are not her. But, to the point,
my side of the argument was presented to OII at the end of June, within 3 weeks
of reading their mail.
What is there not
to believe in my reply - it is a simple outline of facts.
You really are
becoming a disgraceful pariah, feeding off other people's miseries, and
ultimately causing harm to those you profess to support. And you are vicious to boot.
This is not a
threat , this is a promise: if you once again repeat, in any forum, yours',
Sophia Seidlberg's or OII's defamatory lies and allegations, or anything else
that is untrue or defamatory about me, I will sue you for defamation, even if I
have to hunt you down to the ends of the earth. And I promise that - speak the
truth and you have nothing to fear, continue these lies and I will use the law
to obtain what is right and truthful.
Stephen
I would suggest you
crawl back into your closet (from where you have never actually left), behind
your wall of secrecy, and leave alone the rest of us who want to change the
world for the better.
Stephen
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I think that members of WPATH need to
confront Whittle about this. This is very unbecoming and I do not understand
how members can accept such outrageous behavior without lodging a complaint. I
do not merit this type of treatment and I resent this very much. I am not a
member of WPATH and certainly would never consider becoming one after this type
of treatment.
Kind regards,
Curtis E. Hinkle
Founder, OII
http://www.intersexualite.org/