Intersex Society of North America - Emeritus

Adam Mathias

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:32:18 -0800

Adam Mathias joined the board of ISNA with an impressive list of credentials and passion for our mission. Adam first learned of ISNA’s work when his sister, Robin, fell in love with ISNA founder Cheryl Chase. Having Cheryl as a family member, witnessing the progress ISNA has made over the years, and having a deep and personal understanding of the struggles sexual minorities face because of his own identity as a gay man, Adam decided to volunteer his energy and skills toward advancing ISNA’s mission. An accomplished playwright and fundraiser, Adam has produced and managed advertising and media for his own play and helped many non-profit theater groups raise funds.

Alice Dreger, PhD

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 20:28:49 -0700

Alice Dreger,PhD began her association with ISNA in 1996 in response to Cheryl Chase’s request for help changing the medical treatment of people born with intersex. One of the few non-intersex people to become a pillar of the intersex rights movement, Alice served ISNA for nine years, acting as Chair and President of the Board for six years, Chair of the Fundraising Committee for one year, and as the first Director of Medical Education. These titles do not capture the extent to which Alice often functioned as behind-the-scenes glue helping to hold ISNA together. She wrote, ghost-wrote, and edited countless articles, grants, letters, hand-outs, and blogs for ISNA, recruited and aided allies, directed numerous major fundraising campaigns, and played a central role in policy development and advocacy strategizing. She and her husband, Aron Sousa (a member of ISNA’s Medical Advisory Board) have also been major financial donors to ISNA.

Angela Moreno Lippert

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:33:39 -0800

Angela Moreno Lippert has been involved with the Intersex Society since 1996 when she appeared in ISNA’s first video production, Hermaphrodites Speak! Since then, her intersex activism has been featured in such diverse venues as the Chicago Tribune, FOX News Chicago, On the Issues, Ms. Magazine and Mademoiselle. She has spoken publicly on the subject of improving treatment for people with intersex conditions and their families, including an appearance as keynote speaker at GenderPAC’s 2001 National Conferenc

April Herndon, Ph.D.

Mon, 22 May 2006 13:18:37 -0700

April Herndon, Ph.D. served as ISNA’s Director of Programming from June 2005-June 2006. Along with ISNA’s Executive Director Cheryl Chase and former Director of Medical Education Alice Dreger, Dr. Herndon helped to administer our Clinicians’ and Parents’ Handbooks Project, funded respectively by the California Endowment and the Arcus Foundation. Dr. Herndon also helped administer public outreach work, production and distribution of educational materials, and research related to ISNA’s mission-based programming. She helped establish ISNA’s Speakers Bureau, edited ISNA’s newly revised “Teaching Intersex Issues,” wrote blogs, co-authored grants, helped upkeep ISNA’s website, and forged and fostered relationships with ISNA volunteers.

Arlene Baratz, M.D.

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:04:57 -0700

Arlene Baratz, M.D. has been a medical advisor to the Androgen Insensitivity Support Group for seven years and joined the ISNA Medical Advisory Board earlier this year. Prior to joining the board, Baratz was a contributor on the Handbook for Parents and the Clinical Guidelines, new publications for both families and health care providers dealing with DSDs produced by ISNA and the DSD Consortium.

When asked how her previous experience as a radiologist working with breast cancer prepared her for her work with ISNA, Baratz says, “I have been practicing in the specialty of breast radiology for 16 years.

Aron Sousa, M.D.

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:27:56 -0800

Aron Sousa was a founding member of the ISNA board. He received his medical degree from Indiana University in 1996 and is currently Acting Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and faculty in the Department of Medicine at Michigan State University. He is a general internist by training and has particular interest in evidence-based medicine (including the lack thereof in intersex care). He is also interested in how the medical community can help adult intersex people. He has used his access to medical education to help trainees understand the illogic of the surgic

Barbara Jones

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:26:59 -0700

I decided to become a speaker on behalf of ISNA due to my diagnosis of complete androgen insensitivity syndrome at age 26. This was not the first revelation which came about when I was 19 years of age and trying to find out why I hadn’t had the normal female rites of passage at the onset of puberty. I had secretly gotten my physician father’s textbook on gynaecology and began turning page after page. I remember sitting cross-legged on my bed and seeing a picture of a nude woman with the black bar across her eyes. She looked just like me with the absence of body hair. There was only a page and a half of information but from what it described, I knew who and what I was — finally.

Barby Halstead-Worrell

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 17:59:44 -0700

Barby Halstead-Worrell served as educational consultant for Total Patient Care. Barby is a staff member with National Education Association.

Bruce Wilson, MD

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 10:49:57 -0700

Bruce Wilson received his M.D. from the University of Illinois Medical School in 1975 and is a board certified Pediatric Endocrinologist at DeVos Children’s Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Human Development at Michigan State University. As a physician working with the U.S. armed services from 1978 to 1988, Dr. Wilson served children and families around the world, including in Iran, Germany, and Washington, D.C. at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Today at DeVos Children’s Hospital he leads multidisciplinary teams caring for children with chronic illnesses (including diabetes) and children with intersex. Although he maintains a full practice and teaches through the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine educational programs, including serving as the Director of the Pediatric Endocrine Section from 1989 to 1999, Dr. Wilson also maintains an active research program into the etiologies and psychosocial effects of pediatric endocrinologic conditions. His studies of these subjects have been published in the Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science, Pediatric Cardiology, the Journal of Medical Genetics, and the Journal of Clinical Ethics. Dr. Wilson has presented papers at numerous professional conferences and parent conferences, and has received research grants from Eli Lilly, the Howard and Howard Foundation, and the BSRG. For his work in medical education he has three times been awarded the Residency Teaching Award at Michigan State.

Cade McCall

Thu, 6 Oct 2005 10:12:50 -0700

Cade McCall served as a gratis intern for ISNA and donated his considerable talents to managing our web page and several other projects. He is currently working on a PhD in social psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Carolyn Parsons

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:27:18 -0700

On a small mission in the heart of the central Angola highlands, Carolyn Parson’s grandfather delivered her, introducing a healthy girl to a growing family. A healthy and happy baby, she grew to be a bright, curious, and easy going child.

As an energetic 11 year old, Carolyn began a journey that would radically change her life. Her apparently female body started to change. Her muscles began to develop, hair started growing on her body, her clitoris and labia began enlarging. She began to be very shy of her body and never let anyone know what was happening.

Cheryl Chase (Bo Laurent)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:15:04 -0700

Cheryl Chase was our founder. Her ongoing efforts to improve the social and medical treatment of intersexed people have been recognized with the year 2000 Felipa de Souza Human Rights Award, and in diverse publications and numerous television and radio programs including Newsweek, the New York Times, NPR’s Fresh Air, NBC Dateline, ethicist Alice Dreger’s Intersex in the Age of Ethics, social psychologist Suzanne Kessler’s Lessons from the Intersexed, molecular biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s Sexing the Body, and Pulitzer Prize winning medical writer Natalie Angier’s bestseller, Woman: An Intimate Geography.

Christine Feick, MSW

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 11:32:51 -0700

Christine Feick, worked with ISNA as a social work intern to create educational materials for counseling professionals and less harmful medical protocols. Christine has since graduated from the MSW program at University of Michigan. She brought to ISNA clinical experience in outreach and support groups with the University of Michigan’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Affairs office, as a student residence advisor at University of Michigan, and a support group for sex workers created as an independent study.

Ciara Relyea

Tue, 13 Sep 2005 10:15:31 -0700

Ciara Relyea came to ISNA as an intern from the University of Michigan School of Social Work through the Triangle Foundation. She helped ISNA compile a bibliography on public policy issues related to intersex conditions.

Cindy Stone

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:26:20 -0700

Cindy Stone earned her bachelor’s and masters degrees in Education from Indiana University. She has worked at her alma mater as an administrator and instructor for the past 26 years. Cindy was born looking like other baby girls, and her intersex syndrome was not fully diagnosed until she was an adult in her 30’s. She has the complete form of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome passed on genetically from her mother. Had she not become inquisitive on her own at age 34 about her medical needs, she might have developed gonadal cancer. She was unaware that her doctors lied to her as a teenager withholding critical information about her syndrome.