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Before you read this paper, please check out these attachments! It will help provide a basis for the paper. Please leave any comments, reactions, feedback is always appreciated!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDKEI4QKI
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/should-we-fix-intersex-children/373536/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/02/male-and-female-what-is-it-like-to-be-intersex
Throughout the semester, sexuality, identity, and gender have all been topics of discussion, especially how these identities intersect to create privilege for some while oppressing and marginalizing others. What is now known, as normal/natural, is actually a product of politics power set in place to maintain the ‘invisible’ hierarchies within society. Once something ‘normal’ has been created, it simultaneously creates a deviant or ‘other’, one side is defined by the other and is valued higher. This paper will focus on intersex individuals and how societal norms, science and society impact the course of their life.
Firstly, the term intersex must be explained, intersex is a general term that is used for a variety of ‘conditions’ in which an individual is born with sexual or reproductive anatomy that does not fit the ‘normal’ criteria given for male and female bodies. Due to this, they are deemed as abnormal or unnatural as they do not fit in societal norms of sex and gender. This then causes the individual to be oppressed or marginalized in society, as the politics of power have created a discourse of who is allowed to exist within society.
Now this paper will examine how structures in society that are rarely questioned, in this case science, have been socially constructed and influence society through the use of it’s supposed all knowing power. Science has been known to teach society that the boundaries of gender and sex are unmovable, which results in science as a conceptualized truth, while appearing to produce an objective truth. Therefore, science is extremely influential in the topic of intersex individuals as it is the basis of how female and male sexes are defined. This also means that when an individual is birthed as intersex, science is used to determine which sex the individual has more sexual characteristics of, and the current recommended “treatment for an infant born with an intersex condition is genital reconstruction surgery to render the child as clearly sexed either male or female” (Haas 138), this surgery is also known as ‘normalizing’ surgery. As infants are too young to be able to advocate for themselves, it falls on to the shoulders of parents to make the decision for their children. Often times, the parent is told by doctors that the parents must choose one sex and have the surgery to ‘correct’ the anatomy of their child. Throughout most research in intersex individuals and the medical community, it is apparent that the medical professionals often mislead the parents by telling them that if they do not conform to the gender binary and have the opposite gendered organs removed they will cause cancer. When Dr.Klement says that the choices we make are “constrained by modern discourses, institutions and technologies of sexuality” (Klement5), it really brings to light the impact that the medical ‘professionals’ and science have in shaping people’s lives right from birth. From a neoliberalist perspective, it is important to recognize the economic prosperity that doctors can achieve through performing reconstruction surgeries.
This is problematic as the gender and sex binary coerces people into fitting themselves under categories that do not fit them. Dr. Klement supports this when she speaks of how the problem does not come from the actual crossing of the binary, but rather the problems arise from “the way that these binaries are policed in our culture by violence, discrimination, and harassment” (Klement 7). When parents are forced into choosing the sex of their child, their decision will be like a consensus of how many points are awarded in a game- and it “will be a sporting decision, not a natural one, about how we choose to play the game of sex” (Dreger 124). In the Greenfield article, there are real stories from parents of intersex children as well as intersex people who have been forced into genital reconstruction at birth and then grow up as the incorrect gender role as pertains to their sexual anatomy. They then go on to say that “an experiment that claimed to prove a child’s gender could be reassigned with surgical ‘reinforcement’ was revealed to be a failure” (Greenfield). This further reinforces the fact that gender and sex are socially constructed and the boundaries of sex and gender are in fact moveable and not just black and white.
The mechanism of sex was to establish a hierarchy to create a dominant and non-dominant group. Without an individual being directly related to a sex, they can then not be gendered, hierarchialized, oppressed or privileged which would cause distress within societal norms and the small boxes that people are forced into. This is a form of societal policing and is used to police which space individuals are able to take up within society.
When speaking of this, it is imperative to consider how identities intersect to privilege some and oppress others. For example, one must consider the role that culture plays in an intersexed persons life and how their ‘condition’ will be treated. If an intersexed individual belongs to a certain culture, they may not be accepted into their culture or family as their culture may prohibit individuals who are not clearly defined as male or female, leading to the killing or extradition of the individual. Another example of how intersecting culture and intersex individuals can be significant is within communities that place a higher value for males over females, which may influence the anatomy chosen. There are many more examples of how intersecting identities directly influence the experiences that an intersex individual may have, Dr. Klement supports this when she says that sexuality has a history that is rooted in white hegemonic nationalism through the regulation of individuals and sexual practices, which aimed to maintain a particular power structure (Klement 5). This hierarchy creates oppression because if you take one as the standard and define the other as “less than”, you take the difference and make it into an inequality, which results in the marginalization of that individual.
Often times, people who are speaking of intersex are not actually intersex themselves and may be perpetuating incorrect discourses, to stop this, society must listen to the lived experiences of intersex individuals. Throughout the video attached, one is able to see that intersex children are often told not to talk about it; this only perpetuates the shame and stigma surrounding intersex people. Also, if they do not fit societal norms they are often told to “fit in, conform, and belong in society” (Saifa Wall et Al.), this can cause confusion in people at any age as they are then made to feel as though they are abnormal and should ‘fix’ themselves to assimilate with ‘normal’ society. When Juliet says, “there is no option to be genderless in this society” (Kleeman), it shows how society and science have socially constructed society into conforming and assimilating themselves to the societal ‘norms’ to be able to remain in power at the top of the hierarchy, and keep the privileges that society awards.
In conclusion, it is imperative to make oneself aware of the inequalities, oppressions, and marginalization that occur in every day life and to question why they were constructed and how they have remained in power. While also acknowledging that our identities are both personal and public, and they are a product of discourses, institutions and technologies.
Work Cited
Dreger, Alice. “Where’s the Rulebook for Sex Verification?” Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain. Eds. Margaret Hobbs and Carla Rice. Toronto, 2013. 123-124. Print.
Greenfield, Charlotte. “Should we ‘Fix’ Intersex Children.” Web Blog Post. The Atlantic. Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism, 8 July 2014.
Haas, Kate. “Defining Genitals: Who Will make Room for the Intersexed?” Gender and Women’s Studies in Canada: Critical Terrain. Eds. Margaret Hobbs and Carla Rice. Toronto, 2013. 138-139. Print.
Kirkey, Sharon. “Supermodel comes out as Intersex.” National Post. Postmedia, 24 January 2017. Web.
Kleeman, Jenny. “We Don’t Know if your baby’s a Boy or a Girl’: Growing up Intersex.” The Guardian. 2 July 2016. Web.
Klement, Kristine. “Term 1: Lecture 3 The Social Construction Approach: Deconstructing Binaries.” York University, GWST 1501 9.0C, May 8, 2017. Lecture Notes.
Klement, Kristine. “Term 2: Lecture 7 Trans/Gender Politics.” York University, GWST 1501 9.0C, July 10, 2017. Lecture Notes.
Klement, Kristine. “Term 2: Lecture 5 The Social Construction of Sexuality.” York University, GWST 1501 9.0C, July 3, 2017. Lecture Notes.
Saifa Wall, Sean, Pidgeon Pagonis, Emily Quinn, and Alice Alvarez. What It’s Like to be Intersex. Online Video: YouTube, 28 March 2015. YouTube. 
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