Intersex Bodies Essay

Transgender people in today’s society have it hard enough; going to prison is even harder due to the risks associated to someone who is transgendered. People who are transgendered risk their health and well-being while being locked up in prison. They face a variety of issues while they are incarcerated such as housing, physical, emotional abuse and most of all denial to their basic medical needs that helps express who they are through their gender.

Prisoners that are incarcerated go through many hardships during the course of their sentence. The mistreatment that inmates in prison encounter is unjustifiable in many cases. Amongst the inmates mistreated, transgender prisoners are challenged in many ways with abuse, misconduct, and discrimination. Transgender individuals are people who do not identify themselves with the gender that was assigned at birth. The high-risk profile of being a transgender inmate in prison strikes for deep concern and something needs to be done.

Imagine being a woman in a men’s prison. For many prisoners, this is the case because most state court correctional decide to sentence transsexual women in transition inmates based on sex assignment, not their identity. Within most dominant U.S. cultures transsexual women in transition are defined as those whose sense of gender is so absolutely opposed to their sex assignment at birth that they individuals desire to live exclusively as the opposite sex, undergo hormone treatments to align with the opposite sex, and sometimes undergo surgery to match their sexual organs with their gender identity (Stirnitzke 291). Often people are

Throughout history, it is evident that inequalities and disparities are part of health systems and society. Even after all the success of activism, such as the work from the human rights movement and campaign, inequalities and disparities are still evident today. Especially within minority groups, such as LGBTQ* (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) individuals – this is not to say that LGBTQ are the only categories when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identities, thus it is followed by a * – and racial groups. Furthermore, it is evident that within minority groups there are specific micro-level groups that experience unique and sometimes even greater amount of inequalities and disparities. For example, the micro-level group of transgender individuals from the LGBTQ* community is one of the many minority groups that experience both medical and social disparities and inequalities.This paper will discuss both the medical and social inequalities and disparities that Transgender Individuals face, including structural violence and intentional violence.

There is not a plethora of research on the transgender inmate population. Brown and McDuffie (2009) report 750 transgender prisoners were in custody in 2007. The only reason this population is last on the list of importance is because of the limited population. Transgender inmate population pose one of the most challenging legal questions to the DOC. How far does the DOC have to go in providing medical, psychiatric, or surgical needs to those inmates who enter the correctional facility as transgender (Brown & McDuffie, 2009). There has been some successful litigation that has addressed these issues with inmates who have been diagnosed with gender identity disorders (GID). Brown and McDuffie (2009), suggest California has some of the most “comprehensive directive” that allows inmates to continue or initiate “cross-sex hormones for appropriately diagnosed inmates” (p.288). Ultimately, the transgender population pose a real threat to the correctional environment, such as, safety issues and predatory behavior by other inmates. One area of concern for transgender inmate population, because it is such a relatively new population, there are not a lot of facilities medically equipped to care for them properly (Brown & McDuffie, 2009), a lot like the elderly inmate population. This population is as equally at risk of being violated as any of the other special

In order to reduce the risk of harm, many prisons have elected to put their transgender inmates into segregation, to keep them away for the general population (Smith, 2012). Administrative segregation is often used the most when housing transgender inmates. This form of segregation is very similar to solitary confinement, meaning that inmates are put in a single cell and left alone for hours at a time (Simopoulos & Khin Khin, 2014). When put into administrative segregation, the inmate often loses various opportunities such as being able to work, having visitation hours, exercise, specified treatment, and other activities (Smith, 2012). It is not unusual for the segregation cells to be less then desirable. Most times they dirty, unkempt and sometime even

Another ethical problem is that in correctional facilities it is not spoken openly about transgender rights and what can be done to ensure safety for all no matter their gender identity. In an article written by Asmar detailing the experience of Hill, a transgender who identifies herself as a woman in a male prison, was raped by her cellmate. Whenever she asked for help or reported what happened to her, the staff did not believe her. For instance, when she was violently raped by her cellmate she wrote a letter to a nurse who was handing out medications. The nurse’s response to her note was unethical and unprofessional as she asked her if it was real and that “…it better be real” (Asmar, 2015). There are many concerns with the nurse’s response.

Due to social conformity, along with the advancement of technology and surgical procedure intersexed persons are aimed to be "fixed" at birth.  Although otherwise healthy, there is a need to perform surgery on the baby in order to remove certain sexual organs that don't fit with the perfect idea of what a girl or boy should look like.  This often leaves scars, and the psychological and emotional confusion along with it.

175) as mentioned previously that it is possible for anyone to be raped or assaulted while in prison the chances of a transgender prisoner are significantly higher. In fact according to an international survey of correctional procedure’s it was found that only 20% of the correction procedures actually have policy for treatment of transgender prisoners (Edney, 2004 p. 329). Once incarcerated the transgender prisoners are stripped away of everything used to make them feminine or

Gender, rather than being a binary distinction between male and female, is a spectrum-- and so is sex. Intersex and gender non binary people have existed throughout human history, from the Indian hijra to the Indonesian calabai and calalai. Binary sex and gender are social constructs: they are created, idealized, and enforced by society through harassment, estrangement, and mutilation of those whose experiences do not fit the “norm”. By operating on healthy genitals to force them to fit a specific and exclusive definition of sex, doctors and parents who consent to infant intersex surgery are enforcing the social construct and allowing for discrimination. Let’s bring it back to birth certificates. With only two choices, male and female, there is little option NOT to assign

Intersex Society of North America’s principle is that “one’s genitals are primarily for one’s own use, not for the comfort of others.” therefore, the patient should be allowed to choose for their own body and not have to stand by their parents preferences. There have been numerous cases, where an infant was given unnecessary surgery to "normalize" them to fit society’s standards. The family of the children were told to keep their condition a secret, sometimes even keeping the condition a secret from the child as well, just like Davis’ story. Today Intersex adults stand up against the medical treatment they were given as children to say the treatment they received was “harmful, lead to sterility, ongoing pain, scarring, and incontinence, loss of genital sensation and sexual function, and depression.” (The Interface Project) Through support groups members have discoursed their views and opinion of surgery performed on infants through their own personal experience advocating that child should be able to have a say in their

Gender and sexuality can be comprehended through social science. Social science is “the study of human society and of individual relationships in and to society” (free dictionary, 2009). The study of social science deals with different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society. Gender identity is closely interlinked with social science as it is based on an identity of an individual in the society. Sexuality is “the condition of being characterized and distinguished by sex” (free dictionary, 2009). There are different gender identities such as male, female, gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual that exists all around the world. There is inequality in gender identities and dominance of a male

What does it take to be a man or a woman? Our sense organs alone do not determine whether we are men or women. Our gender includes a multifaceted combination of beliefs, behaviors, and characteristics. How do we act, behave, and talk like a man or a woman? Each one of us has a sex, a gender, and a gender identity that are all aspects of our sexuality. These aspects describe who we are, in different personalities and attributes but related. Society’s categories for what is masculine and feminine may not capture how we truly feel, how we behave, or how we define ourselves.

Males and females are classed differently from the moment they are pronounced boy or girl. Gender determines the differences in power and control in which men and women have over the socioeconomic determinants of their health, lives and status in their community. Our society moulds how men and women should and should not behave and can be observed in all parts of our society. As a result of these Gender stereotypes men and women have issues which affect their health which are unique to each gender. Males for example are perceived to be greater risk takers as a whole in our society than that of females. We represent risk taking behavior with masculinity and violence, high speed driving and contact sport with the male gender. (Doyle 2005)