Intersex Narratives

In this Ted talk, Mr. Norman Spack talks about a very sensitive issue prevalent in the whole of the world, an issue which affects a substantial population of the world yet people find it difficult to address it. He talks about how sometimes when a child is born the doctors find it difficult to specify the sex of the child because of either the discrepancies among the externals or between the internal and external organs of the body. I agree with his statement that many times our feelings and sexual orientation differ from our gender identity. We also feel something which is not a normal thing for our gender but is a common trait with the opposite gender. The speaker rightly points out that whether the sexual orientation is in harmony with

Each day, over one-hundred and eighteen million babies are born worldwide. According to the biological sex binary male and female, every infant has the possibility of being born with sex chromosomes female (XX) and male (XY), which causes differences in their biological anatomies. There are also individuals with disorders of sex development or more commonly referred to as being intersex. Intersex is an umbrella term for people whose sexual or reproductive anatomies, sex hormones, or sex chromosomes just do not fall neatly into the definitions of male and female. Examples of this disorder could include ambiguous genitalia, androgen sensitivity, or abnormalities with how the rest of the body responds to sex hormones. The majority of cultures around the globe give merit to and recognize the differences in biological sex (male/female binary), what roles they have played in their traditions/histories, and their current position in framing politics or societal structures. Some Non-Western countries such as China, India, Taiwan, and Pakistan, include cultures that exhibit a strong sex-preference, or more specifically son-preference. More than simply preferring the births of sons to daughters, son preference develops from instances of gender inequality where outside parties often question basic human rights. Non-Western

Society demands strict imposition of gender expectations and must constantly be reassured of the traditional gender and sexual binary. A gender binary is a biopolitcal regulation of masculinity and femininity identity while the sexual dimorphic system theorizes the existence of only two bodies distinguished by their reproduction capacities. However, the “regime of ‘sperm and egg cell carriers’ is going astray” (Preciado 105). In As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, John Colapinto reports David Reimer’s frustration of gender identity as a result of faulty and unethical medical procedures. Born as Bruce Reimer, David is accidentally circumcised, deprived him of a functional male reproduction system. In regulation of imposed societal guidelines of masculinity, he “is incomplete, physically defective, and that he must live apart” (Colapinto Chapter 1).

The Salem Witch Trails were a dark period, adults were accepting the claims of the children who held no evidence over the accused. This time is one of the examples of “America’s Red Scare”; when many innocent lives were being innocently taken away, following the false accusations of witchcraft. The structure of events being put together into a book titled The Crucibles, written by an American playwright, an author in 1953 named Arthur Miller. Miller describes the trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1692-1693 period.

The five sexes that are being discussed are male, female, and intersex. Intersex is described as a catch-all category for the subgroups that share both male and female characteristics. That creates the term hermaphrodite (herms), which are people who have both male and female parts. The second subgroup is called male pseudo hermaphrodites (merms) which are people who are born with mostly male parts. The third subgroup is called female pseudo hermaphrodites (ferms) who are those who mainly have female organs. The article focuses on the structure of how hermaphrodites are classified. Ferms, which are the females, are mainly female because they still develop a menstrual cycle during puberty but if they do not take any medication for their disorder, they would develop traits as a

In THE FIVE SEXES, REVISITED, Anne Fausto-Sterling explains the variant forms of sexual differentiation, such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is a masculinization of genital in genetic females. Through her explanation, she gives an item by item rebuttal of the two-sex system because that system “is not adequate to encompass the full spectrum of human sexuality.” In other words, chromosomes, hormones, sex organs, the gonads are much various than the general public think of. Therefore, she suggest the new sex system which including 5 sexes: males, females, herms, merms, ferms. For the settlement of 5 sexes, we should not view the intersexual conations as diseases. In addition, genitalia surgically not only should be minimized and reversed

Now, that is a lot of power. We often entrust a doctor’s judgement wholeheartedly because they just want the “best” for us, and in the cases of interesexed individuals, the physician simply wants to rid them of all the adjustment horrors that comes with such configuration, but seldom do they question the inadequacies of our role system, nor have they considered the possibility of such individuals developing into a perfectly happy and capable human beings without reassignment. Perhaps this is due to their inability to associate normalcy with anything outside of the binary. Inevitably, problems began to emerge from these reassignments. Some reassigned individuals felt aligned with their prescribed gender, but most did not. Some of these cases are extremely unfortunate, because their genitals had already been mutilated at birth. Such outcomes had prompted physicians to take more precaution when dealing with intersex babies. Sterling’s noble effort in assimilating intersex individuals through further categorization will help them find a classification system where there is a place that they can fall under, but it does not change the views of the masses, nor does it make it much easier for them to appreciate themselves as who they are, although it is a

Throughout centuries numerous individuals used sex, gender, and sexuality interchangeably unaware of the dramatic differences. According to Serena Nanda, the author of Culture Counts, “A basic anthropological concepts is the distinction between the biological and cultural aspect of being a male or female” (Nanda 239). In other words, sex, gender, and sexuality constructs a different denotation from a biological perspective to a cultural perspective. These differences layout a fine line on what makes a male a male and a female a female. Moreover, Nanda also states in Culture Counts that “sex refers to the biological differences between a male and a female, particularly the visible differences in external genitalia and the related differences

Previous to the 19th century, most intersexual individuals led ordinary lives. Their genital difference was mostly accepted as part of the difference which occurs in nature. Intersex was never a health problem (Daaboul, 2000). It was in the 19th century where intersex became a medicalized and individuals born intersex were categorized as “abnormal” and “diseased” (Daaboul, 2000). The drive of medicine in the last century has been to “cure” intersexed individuals by using surgical, hormonal and psychological therapies to make them clearly female or male. However, the practical and psychological outcomes of this approach have been poor. Many intersexed individuals have suffered severe mental and bodily damage from medicine’s efforts to make them

Anne Fausto-Sterling further separates sex from sexual identity by discussing the experiences of intersex individuals. Despite what society expects of those who don’t neatly fit into the binary, intersex individuals generally manage to live happy lives. After this reading, it seems ridiculous that society has been allowed to determine what a person’s genitalia should be. As America begins to become more accepting of homosexuality, hopefully those who genitalia is a mixture of both male and female sex organs will also find themselves being more

There are many different causes of intersexuality. The baby can appear to be a girl based on external genitalia yet internally can be a biological male. The same can also be true for a boy. Genitalia of an intersex baby can be underdeveloped, malformed, not in the right place or be a mix of male and female parts. Doctors continue to debate on exactly what constitutes a true intersex baby. “Some physicians claim that a stretched-penis length less than 2.5 centimeters at birth constitutes "micropenis" and a stretched-clitoris length greater than 1 centimeter at birth constitutes "clitoromegaly."(Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender) p. 773The patients of

Many cultures and countries, traditionally, have viewed gender as naturally immutable, as biologically determined at birth, and as binary – either male or female. Because gender binary is accepted as a norm in many cultures and countries, many have ideas and expectations toward newly born infants – these infants are expected to fit neatly into either male or female, and their sexual anatomies are expected to be distinct from one another. When infants are born with intersexual condition, however, medical authorities not only consider these intersex births as anatomic abnormality but intervene also to “fix” these intersex infants back to “normal” by performing highly invasive genital modification surgeries. Because they believe that intersex

If you want to live within the definition of your own truth, you have to choose to go through the initially painful and ultimately comforting process of finding it” (Levithan 253). Due to being in Vic's body, A is reminded of its own gender problems. Where Vic was conceived as a girl when she should have been a boy, A has struggled with not having a fixed. As well as gender fluidity and transgender topics, Every Day also looks at sexuality. A has been in the bodies of straight males and females, but also in the bodies of homosexual males and females, and has not had a problem.

Gender: a word society uses far too often without realizing its true complicated meaning. Children are born every day and the golden question becomes “Is it a boy or a girl?” What would a person do if they heard their child was neither or both? According to the National Institutes of Health, “One out of every 2,000 kids is born with genitals that cannot be clearly identified as male or female.” These types of children are called “Intersex”, and they break the boundary of gender identification. Intersex is a broad category for many situations where an individual’s genital or reproductive anatomy, or chromosomal pattern, lies between the normal standards of both male and female. The prefix “inter” stands for between; therefore, the simple definition of intersex is “between the sexes.” Intersex conditions usually result from a genetic

Typically, sex and gender have been described as a package deal; one reflects the other. However, this is false and has become a popular topic in today’s society. Sex is defined as “the biological characteristics that distinguish males from females” (Henslin, 2014). Therefore, a person’s sex is determined by their physical traits, such as a penis or a vagina. Gender, on the other hand, “consists of whatever behaviors and attitudes a group considers proper for its males and females” (Henslin, 2014). Gender norms vary between cultures and are not based off of physical traits.