Emi Koyama passed away recently. Emi worked at ISNA from 2001–2002, first as an intern and then as a staff activist. Her output during that period is among the most practically useful and intellectually rigorous content in the ISNA archive.
★ Primary Work: Teaching Intersex Issues (with Lisa Weasel, PhD)
Links: - PDF: https://isna.org/pdf/teaching-intersex-web.pdf
This is her most substantial ISNA contribution — a full teaching kit created with PSU biologist Lisa Weasel. It contains two one-week units with class plans, readings, discussion questions and activities; a Speakers Handbook with photos and stories from ISNA speakers and advice for fielding student questions; and helpful suggestions for writing about intersex issues usable by instructors and students alike.
The kit was presented by Koyama and Weasel in a workshop titled “Beyond ‘Five Sexes’: Centering Voices and Lives of Intersex People in Feminist Classrooms” at the annual National Women’s Studies Association conference.
The PDF is the real gem: it includes an annotated bibliography compiled entirely by Koyama, a classroom survey she conducted with Weasel, and her essay “From Social Construction to Social Justice: Transforming How We Teach About Intersexuality” — which includes her guidelines for instructors:
- Center intersex people’s own voices; use first-person narratives as well as academic writings by intersex authors.
- Don’t exploit intersex existence merely for gender/sex deconstruction — address real-life issues faced by intersex people.
- Treat intersex people as present in your classrooms rather than hypothetical.
Koyama, Emi, and Lisa Weasel. “From Social Construction to Social Justice: Transforming How We Teach about Intersexuality.” Women’s Studies Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 3/4, 2002, pp. 169–78. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003252. Accessed 16 June 2026. ***
★ Lecture: “Intersexions: Mapping Intersex Activism within Progressive Social-Change Movements”
URL: https://isna.org/node/4/
Koyama presented this lecture at Washington State University as part of their GLBT History Month. The title frames her central theoretical project: how intersex activism connects to and maps onto disability, queer, and feminist movements — a framework she developed throughout her ISNA years.
★ Press Release & Organizing: V-Day / Vagina Monologues Campaign
URLs: - Campaign response: https://isna.org/node/152/ - V-Day endorsement press release: https://isna.org/node/37/
Koyama spearheaded ISNA’s response to The Vagina Monologues, arguing that V-Day as a global movement against violence against women needed to hold itself accountable for the harms its “fairy tale” segment caused to intersex people. She also authored the joint press release announcing V-Day’s formal endorsement of ISNA’s mission to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries on intersex children.
This is strong organizing writing — clear, coalition-minded, and exemplary of her ability to bridge feminist anti-violence and intersex advocacy frames.
★ Curriculum: “Intersexuality: An Interdisciplinary Exploration” (Portland State)
URL: https://isna.org/node/53/
Koyama taught this course at Portland State University through its student-run Chiron program, believed to be the first college course on intersexuality. The syllabus was made available through ISNA. Worth examining for its pedagogical framework — it predates most academic intersex curricula.
★ Annotated Bibliography (standalone resource within the Teaching Kit PDF)
URL: https://isna.org/pdf/teaching-intersex-web.pdf
Even setting aside the curriculum unit, the annotated bibliography Koyama compiled is a standalone resource — a critical survey of the intersex literature as of 2002–2003, with her editorial voice throughout. Compiled and annotated by Koyama; survey data collected with Weasel.
Notes on the GitHub Repo
The thinktandem/isna-vuepress repo mirrors the full Drupal node structure of isna.org, with 536 numbered node directories under src/node/ plus named content directories including src/teaching_kit/, src/articles/, src/faq/, etc.
Koyama’s content lives primarily in:
src/teaching_kit/ |
Teaching Intersex Issues landing page |
src/node/4/ |
“Intersexions” lecture announcement |
src/node/37/ |
V-Day endorsement press release |
src/node/53/ |
PSU course announcement and syllabus |
src/node/96/ |
Teaching kit release announcement |
src/node/152/ |
V-Day / Vagina Monologues campaign response |
The site is preserved by interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth as a historical archive. The isna.org URLs above are stable.
Emi’s website Intersex Initiative remains a valueable historical resource.
For Emi’s residency at ISNA, we are grateful to Robin Mathias, who initiated, funded, and managed the ISNA intern program.
About Emi Koyama
Emi Koyama (1975-2026) was a Japanese-American activist, artist, and scholar. After her time at ISNA, she founded and directed Intersex Initiative (IPDX) in Portland, Oregon. With fellow activist Betsy Driver, she co-founded Intersex Awareness Day in 2003, commemorating the first official demonstration by intersex activists in North America. She is best known outside intersex activism for The Transfeminist Manifesto (2000), reprinted in multiple transgender studies anthologies. Her personal website and archive is at https://eminism.org/.