Cultural Characteristics Of An Intersex Child

The documentary that I watched this week is called Intersexion. This documentary talks about different people who are intersexual. Intersex can be define as a abnormal condition of being intermediate between male and female. The individuals share their stories about growing up being intersex. Mostly all of their stories are the same. The individual is born and doctors do not know what they are because the individual as both male and female sexual anatomy. It depends if the individual grows up looking either like a male or female that they decide to do surgery. Many of these individuals were not aware of having this condition until later in life. A doctor called John Money had a theory that gender was the product of “nurture not nature”. In

In her article A Boy’s Life, Hanna Rosin gives us a glimpse at what some of these transgender children go through. As she follows the life of Brandon (later called Bridget), she unveils a range of hurdles that kids like him and his parents must overcome. Problems like social rejection, gender identification, and the anxiety that all of this creates becomes the usual for a family like Brandon’s. But even so, all of this is minimal in comparison to the huge decision that the parents must make in behalf of the child. In the article, Rosin reveals to us that scientists have come up with a way to prevent a kid’s development into

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community has never received as much attention as they are right now. Much of this attention is stemming from this population struggling to obtain the same rights given to the remainder of the population. The LGBT community faces many challenges in their personal system, social environment, and then in the public system. In working with the LGBT population, the social worker needs to examine how the individual views themselves, not only through sexual identity, but as an individual. We need to look at the prejudices and condemnation they have encountered which may have led to further uncertainty or confusion.

Homosexuality has been a sensitive subject in society for a long time. In recent years, it has sparked both support and controversy in areas such as legalizing gay and lesbian marriage and various other matters that have arisen surrounding the movement towards equality of treatment and integration into society. One of these matters that has garnered attention is gay parenting.

Intersexuality is the term used to describe a set of conditions which make it difficult to distinctly identify a person as biologically male or female [1]. This variation of human biology is used to describe people when genitals are ambiguous at birth and/or the genotype is mosaic—when some cells in the body have XX chromosomes while other cells have XY chromosomes [1]. An example of an intersex condition is congenital adrenal hyperplasia—in which the adrenal glands produce abnormal amounts of hormones that cause female embryos to develop a larger clitoris (clitoromegaly) and cause masculinizing characteristics later in life. Another example is micropenis—in which a genetically male person is born with a penis that 2.5 standard deviations or below normal penis length.

Babies are assigned genders at birth, if they don’t fit male or female they’re ether killed or hidden away( Assignment, Coming Out). They’re hidden away because they’re seen as bad omen.The only reason they’re considered bad omen is because they “can’t be cleansed”. Intersex people make up 2% of the world's population( Duggan). Having to hide away just because of how they were born can take a very heavy mental toll them.Even their families will start avoiding them and acting like they aren’t there.

Although sometimes it is hard to realize it, a lot of the ideas we believe in and the way in which we understand them falls under social ideals. Due to what we as a society have developed to be categorized as the right and normal sex, rather than one that does not perfectly fall into either of the two categories we have set up, it is difficult to understand the science portion of the reasoning as to why such "abnormalities" are actually not so easy to categorize. It has never really come to mind that there was science behind all of those that we labeled as "intersex", rather it has always been society telling us about all those people who apparently were born strange.

The difficulty of being intersex begins at infancy. Doubtful sex cannot be conclusively diagnosed at birth. No straightforward remedy can be learned by clinicians in remedying intersex infants but most rely on the histological appearance of the

Most children and youth find that the development of sexuality and gender identity is an extremely challenging process. For intersex youth, this issue is even more complex. On top of the emotional, psychological, social and physical challenges of puberty, intersex children are often at the mercy of their physicians to provide thorough, honest information and to guide their decisions. Traditionally, doctors have treated intersex children with a “concealment-centered” approach—one that devalues the significance of this medical condition sometimes to the point of deceiving their patients. Socially, many people have a hard time being told that sex is not black and white. Young people need to be able to discuss these issues with an educated support network.

Intersex is a term used to describe a person that is born with genital ambiguity. One in two thousand births result in an intersex baby. Children born with this condition were formerly known as a hermaphrodite. When a baby is born the first question parents are asked is boy or girl? Thus the pressure is on for doctors and the parents to identify a sex for the baby. This is an impossible task for the doctor or parent of an intersex baby. The answer that the baby is neither male nor female is not acceptable. Therefore doctors attempt to rectify the situation by assigning gender. Doctors determine which sex they believe the baby to be based on the prominent genitalia. The next step is then surgery to assign gender. Gender assignment surgery is usually done before the age of two years. However sometimes

In my opinion I do think that the attitudes and gender identity statements that is discussed in this discussion question still exist today in our society. I think that this exist because I have heard my aunts and grandmother say the some of the statements that is listed in this discussion question. I think that caregivers and educators response should be that they are exploring their environment therefore let them learn through play. We as adults should promote safe physical; and motor development in children. Our textbook mentions that “ knowledge of expected patterns and sequences of physical and motor development helps adults to appreciate each child’s unique capabilities and interest and gives direction to the provision of growth-enhancing experiences for children”(The Young Child Development from Prebirth Through Age Eight, n.d). Therefore we as adults must must allow the child to engage in play if its not a safety issue. I think that if the child is not given the opportunity to enhance their developmental skills then the adult can hinder their developmental capabilities and needs.

I found that the reading, Teaching Intersex Issues, was incredibly interesting because the topic of gender and sex can be so tricky to teach along with feeling like a person is walking on eggshells, nervous that they will offend someone. The main information I took away was that respondents had made a comment that intersex would not stand out because transgender issues and other gender issues are also discussed. I found this interesting because I truly feel as though I have never actually taken the time to think about intersex individuals, the only thing I had ever heard about them was in the form of jokes, which pains me to even say. Though after reading about some of the cases in As Nature Made Him, and the parenting book that was also assigned,

Several of the fundamental shifts in the ideas about the sexual nature and sexual differences occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries. During this period the new scientific knowledge is increasingly accepted concerning biological sex, gender, and sexuality, under which the belief that men and women are biologically different emerges. As the acceptance of this discovery grew it creates a new cultural system of proper behavior for men and women, and new constructions of gender. Through the change in the gender/sex system, Rousseau’s ideas about what makes men and women different and the evolution of homosexuality the ways by which behavior is codified as proper or deviant in the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries is made clear.

Sex refers to biological identity male or female while gender refers to social expectation and behaviors assigned to each sex, but not everyone conform this expectation we can say that gender is based on self-concept and the way we interact with others this is formed through social life(family ,friends , religion , media…)where a lot of behaviors are shaped through what is socially accepted and what is not which for example even though many people are not naturally born into these gender expectation there is a strong set of ideas built about how “normal” men and women should look and act, with all of this associated mostly with masculinity and femininity for example men become doctors and women become nurses, men are the breadwinners and women take care of home and children, boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls men are tall and muscular and women are petite ,thin and sensitive and of Couse men are supposed to marry women and only this anything else is an undesirable and not accepted there is no place for intersex people too. “Intersex” is a term used for a many conditions in which is someone who is born with a different sexual anatomy that is not what you can call typical female or male. For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male characteristic anatomy on the inside. Or they be born with genitals organ that seem to be in-between the natural male and female types.

Bettcher, in her article Intersexuality, Transgender, and Transsexuality, discusses the history of transgender and transsexuality in accordance with feminism and other minority break-off groups. Buttcher starts by explaining how trans political theory has come to coincide with queer political theory. That nowadays, being rejected by other groups at the outset as deceivers and liars, trans groups have essentially been grouped with queer theory.