Forwarded from ｅｍａｃｓ
October 26th is Intersex Awareness Day. https://intersexday.org/en/
https://autonomycollective.org/
Here is a good talk by an intersex person on childhood intersex gender assignment surgeries, which are almost never medically needed, and often very harmful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1rO3eDVM8
Here is another good video on the subject, by someone who had IGM performed on them as an infant, before they could consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHAYOvTdMI Being born intersex is about as common as being born a redhead.
"We need society, the medical field, and intersex communities themselves to acknowledge that nature provides humanity with a wide range of forms, so that all of our bodies can be recognized as valid. Unless there is an actual rare functional problem, our bodies should not be altered in infancy, and only those functional problems should be addressed. Our genitals should be altered only if we ourselves request it, to make ourselves comfortable in our own skin, not to make society comfortable by our medical erasure. Society must come again to embrace the diversity that is nature's gift to us." - https://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/2011/04/intersex-genitalia-illustrated-and.html
All children deserve to be protected from genital cutting without consent, no matter what genitals they are born with. Autonomy over your own body is a human right.
https://autonomycollective.org/
Here is a good talk by an intersex person on childhood intersex gender assignment surgeries, which are almost never medically needed, and often very harmful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A1rO3eDVM8
Here is another good video on the subject, by someone who had IGM performed on them as an infant, before they could consent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yHAYOvTdMI Being born intersex is about as common as being born a redhead.
"We need society, the medical field, and intersex communities themselves to acknowledge that nature provides humanity with a wide range of forms, so that all of our bodies can be recognized as valid. Unless there is an actual rare functional problem, our bodies should not be altered in infancy, and only those functional problems should be addressed. Our genitals should be altered only if we ourselves request it, to make ourselves comfortable in our own skin, not to make society comfortable by our medical erasure. Society must come again to embrace the diversity that is nature's gift to us." - https://intersexroadshow.blogspot.com/2011/04/intersex-genitalia-illustrated-and.html
All children deserve to be protected from genital cutting without consent, no matter what genitals they are born with. Autonomy over your own body is a human right.
Intersex Day
Intersex Awareness Day, 26 Oct, & Intersex Day of Solidarity, 8 Nov
For French-speaking people I'd also recommend looking up the Collectif Intersexe Activiste - OII France and Mischanomalie.
Destruction of Gaza heritage sites aims to erase –and replace– Palestine’s history | The Conversation
"Palestine has always been an area of great strategic importance, and it has been populated by various civilisations throughout history. Its emptiness can therefore only be explained by a false history, one that stems directly from the Israeli settler movement, which seeks to destroy the material traces of other cultures that point to a much more complex past than they would like to admit.
This complexity has been painstakingly proven in a Forensic Architecture report on an archaeological site known as Anthedon Harbour, Gaza’s old maritime port, which was first inhabited somewhere between 1100BC and 800BC.
[...]
The conflict [since Israel officially declaring a state of war] [...] has become an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe for 2.3 million Palestinians. The numbers are appalling: over 41,000 dead, including more than 14,000 children, almost 100,000 wounded and more than two million displaced.
A month after the outbreak of the war, UNESCO, at its 42nd General Conference, stated that “the current destruction and eradication of culture and heritage in Gaza is yet to be determined, since all efforts are now being concentrated on saving human lives in Gaza.”
[...]
Cultural property has been a target of the Israeli offensive since the beginning of the conflict and, as early as November, the devastation of the cities of northern Gaza far exceeded that caused in the infamous bombing of Dresden in 1945. We cannot forget that the Gaza Strip is just a narrow area of coastal land measuring some 365 km², rich in archaeological and historical sites, that the international community has recognised as occupied territory since 1967.
Research over the last century has counted at least 130 sites in Gaza that Israel, as an occupying power, is obligated to protect under international law along with the rest of the area’s cultural and natural heritage. These obligations are laid out in the following conventions : Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948); the Geneva Conventions (1949) and their annexes, and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954).
[...]
The destruction of Gaza’s cultural heritage is intertwined with the ongoing humanitarian crisis. This link is recognised by the International Criminal Court, which states that:
“Crimes against or affecting cultural heritage often touch upon the very notion of what it means to be human, sometimes eroding entire swaths of human history, ingenuity, and artistic creation.”
Many independent reports and articles have begun to break down specific elements of the destruction in Gaza, speaking not just of genocide, but also of cultural genocide, urbicide, ecocide, domicide and scholasticide.
[...] Israel is accused of attacking infrastructure to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people, with their attacks leaving some 318 Muslim and Christian places of worship in ruins, along with numerous archives, libraries, museums, universities and archaeological sites. This is all in addition to destroying the very people who created Palestine’s heritage.
[...]
The Israeli military arbitrarily links mosques, schools, UN facilities, universities and hospitals to Hamas, thus justifying their indiscriminate destruction. By declaring these buildings legitimate targets, it does away with any distinction between civilian and military targets.
[...]
The Israeli regime’s actions are driven by a genocidal logic, a logic that forms an intrinsic part of its colonisation project. Its ultimate aim is to expel the Palestinian people from their land, and to wipe away any trace of their culture and history."
An article by Pilar Montero Vilar, investigator of the Observatory of Cultural Heritage Emergencies, October 9 2024.
↠ Article link ↞
"Palestine has always been an area of great strategic importance, and it has been populated by various civilisations throughout history. Its emptiness can therefore only be explained by a false history, one that stems directly from the Israeli settler movement, which seeks to destroy the material traces of other cultures that point to a much more complex past than they would like to admit.
This complexity has been painstakingly proven in a Forensic Architecture report on an archaeological site known as Anthedon Harbour, Gaza’s old maritime port, which was first inhabited somewhere between 1100BC and 800BC.
[...]
The conflict [since Israel officially declaring a state of war] [...] has become an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe for 2.3 million Palestinians. The numbers are appalling: over 41,000 dead, including more than 14,000 children, almost 100,000 wounded and more than two million displaced.
A month after the outbreak of the war, UNESCO, at its 42nd General Conference, stated that “the current destruction and eradication of culture and heritage in Gaza is yet to be determined, since all efforts are now being concentrated on saving human lives in Gaza.”
[...]
Cultural property has been a target of the Israeli offensive since the beginning of the conflict and, as early as November, the devastation of the cities of northern Gaza far exceeded that caused in the infamous bombing of Dresden in 1945. We cannot forget that the Gaza Strip is just a narrow area of coastal land measuring some 365 km², rich in archaeological and historical sites, that the international community has recognised as occupied territory since 1967.
Research over the last century has counted at least 130 sites in Gaza that Israel, as an occupying power, is obligated to protect under international law along with the rest of the area’s cultural and natural heritage. These obligations are laid out in the following conventions : Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948); the Geneva Conventions (1949) and their annexes, and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954).
[...]
The destruction of Gaza’s cultural heritage is intertwined with the ongoing humanitarian crisis. This link is recognised by the International Criminal Court, which states that:
“Crimes against or affecting cultural heritage often touch upon the very notion of what it means to be human, sometimes eroding entire swaths of human history, ingenuity, and artistic creation.”
Many independent reports and articles have begun to break down specific elements of the destruction in Gaza, speaking not just of genocide, but also of cultural genocide, urbicide, ecocide, domicide and scholasticide.
[...] Israel is accused of attacking infrastructure to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people, with their attacks leaving some 318 Muslim and Christian places of worship in ruins, along with numerous archives, libraries, museums, universities and archaeological sites. This is all in addition to destroying the very people who created Palestine’s heritage.
[...]
The Israeli military arbitrarily links mosques, schools, UN facilities, universities and hospitals to Hamas, thus justifying their indiscriminate destruction. By declaring these buildings legitimate targets, it does away with any distinction between civilian and military targets.
[...]
The Israeli regime’s actions are driven by a genocidal logic, a logic that forms an intrinsic part of its colonisation project. Its ultimate aim is to expel the Palestinian people from their land, and to wipe away any trace of their culture and history."
An article by Pilar Montero Vilar, investigator of the Observatory of Cultural Heritage Emergencies, October 9 2024.
↠ Article link ↞
The Conversation
Destruction of Gaza heritage sites aims to erase – and replace – Palestine’s history
The destruction of Gaza’s historical, cultural and religious sites is part of an effort to wipe the Palestinian people out of history altogether.