Essay on The Trouble With Ambiguous Genitalia

In this section of chapter 3 Georgian Davis talks about the power the medical field had on the topic of the intersex body. Georgina set up an interview at a pediatric medical center with Dr. I who was a well-known expert of the intersex body. After the publication of the “Consensus Statement of Management of Intersex Disorders” intersex language had been replaced with the terminology DSD (Disorders of Sex Development) in the medical profession. As mentioned in chapter 2 she reiterates critiques that the medical field have undergone based on their inability to diagnose honesty to people with intersex traits. She noted that the medical profession can either do harm or good to the intersex community based on its position in the level of gender structure. In the medical profession, there was not always a form of naming abnormalities. It began with the Greeks and continued into the 18th century until they created a classification of the many medical traits. Sociologist Phil Brown argues that for there to be diagnostics there has two be two parts to complete it. One the diagnosis is technique which includes forming the classification by using various tasks and techniques. While the work diagnosis includes clinical evaluations and task. By using this form of diagnosis, we can better understand intersexuality.

“disrupts, denaturalizes, re-articulates, and makes visible the normative linkages we generally assume to exist between the biological specificity of the sexually differentiated human body”

People with gender Identity crises do not feel their genitalia reflects who they are inside. They may feel a powerful drive to have their genitalia match their self-image opting for sex reassignment surgery. Gender expression is far more relaxed than it has been throughout our history in America, but it still poses a problems for some on a daily basis. Gender expression is one area where women have a social advantage over men. It is far more socially acceptable for a woman to dress masculine than for a man to dress feminine; although neither are without predigests.

It is expressed in Dean Spade’s article “About Purportedly Gendered Body Parts that there are not only two ways to define gender identity, those two being the male and female genders, and that the parts of the body do not always define who a person is. Biological parts have become a label that determines the gender in which a person is born with; even if the person does not feel like they belong as the gender they were forced into at birth. With these labels come the roles and beliefs that follow it. If someone is born with ovaries then they must marry a man and have children and run the home, not to fall for other females. Even with the rise of fighting these norms against transgender

Gender is one of the most socially ingrained social constructs. The rigid enforcement of gender is harshly controlled by the medicalization and what I will refer to as the construction of the illness of gender transgression. I postulate that there are two forms of gender transgression: a general rejection of gender norms and a rejection of these boundaries in manners that do not fit into the dominant script of gender (i.e. deciding to transition). When someone “transgresses” the boundaries of gender in this latter way, I postulate, they are inculcated both by society and by the medical community to conform to a normative trajectory of transition. This relationship between a socially constructed identity to a molecularized body – a body

ASI (Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome) or also known as Intersex is a situation many people are unware of. As for myself I wasn’t really aware of the whole situation of how the process goes along and everything that comes with it. Reading Davis Consenting Intersex and Pagonis story I read the troubles of every that they were being told since, the day day of their birth. Both their parents were being lied to or for better words not being told the truth. I understand that this situation is very difficult and I would like to believe that as Doctors that you take this situation very seriously and try to make the best choice on how to come of it. Unfortunately, from reading the personal stories that’s is not the issue.

Through examining the ways intersex individuals are treated in a medical setting, one can see how science only allows binary bodies to be created. Crawley et al. (2007) discusses intersex individuals and the standard treatment of intersex children, being to alter their ‘abnormal’ genitalia to resemble one of the two genders. This has become the normal treatment as if this is necessary, but the only threat the child is in danger of is not fitting perfectly into the heteronormative standard of correct genitalia. Because surgical intervention proves we alter and change one’s sex, it becomes difficult to claim that sex and gender are solely biological, when clearly one’s gender and sex becomes largely altered the moment they are born into society. Anne Fausto Sterling, outlines her concept of the five sexes, explaining that intersex is a term used to describe any individual that doesn’t fit into the narrow categories of male and female. She explains that the same process that was in play in the Middle Ages is

The term “intersex” can be used to describe many conditions that can make a person not be typically male or female. These conditions affect the human’s reproductive anatomy. “… a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between male and female types…” (http://www.isna.org/faq/what_is_intersex). In addition to these conditions, a person can be born with “mosaic genetics” which means that some of their cells contain XX (female) chromosomes, while others contain XY (male) chromosomes. Although the term “intersex” describes certain conditions or categories that a person may have, there’s some ambiguity. Doctors have varying opinions on what exactly should count as “intersex”.

People are being treated unfairly and without consideration. According to Elizabeth Ries the author of “Divergence and disorder” Stated “ The conditions once known under the umbrella terms intersex and hermaphroditism are now generally being called disorders of sex development in medical settings. The terms might seem synonymous, but in fact there are significant differences with controversial consequences. The term disorder of sex development may promise clarity for doctors who diagnose patients with such conditions and provide some relief for parents of children being born with such conditions, but it has produced considerable rancor among adults who identify as intersex. Specifically, their problem is with the word disorder. The disability rights movement has taught us that atypicality does not necessarily mean disordered. Doesn 't disorder imply something is seriously wrong and needs to

There are several sources that tell a person how to be a man or woman. Science tells us by recognizing the X or Y chromosomes. The media shows us through the physically ideal celebrities that grace the covers of magazines and flaunt their bodies in commercials. Sports, wrestling, cars, and blue for the boys. Dresses, make-up, painted nails, and pink for the girls. All of these sources, as well as others, have evolved into an expectation that has become institutionalized within society. This expectation, is placement and belonging into the binary system of person: the man or the woman. In Anne Fausot-Sterling's acrticles “The Five Sexes” and the “The Five Sexes, Revisited”, the

This is why my initial decision might have been to do what Dr. Gared recommended: consent to the surgery and raise my baby like a girl. Naturally, if we were to do that, we would rear him or her as a girl, and except him or her to behave like a normal girl. This is a phenomenon known as forced gender socialization, and defined as the tendency for boys and girls to be socialized differently. Indeed, like any mother would, I would dress “her” up like a doll and set up play dates for “her” with the neighbor’s four-year old daughter. I would read “her” bedtime stories about princesses. Family, friends, teachers, and kids at school, would also treat our baby like a girl, thus enforcing gender socialization. However, our child might not grow up like any other little girl. Even if Dr. Gared were to remove the testes, there exists research that proves that “sex chromosomes contribute to sex differences in behavior and brain morphology” (Arnold and McCarthy, 15). This means that my child, with XY chromosomes, could grow up thinking and feeling more like a boy. Pamela Crawford, an intersex child’s adoptive mother says that her “child, now 8 years old, feels more like a boy and wants to be a normal boy” (Sutton, 1). Raised as a girl, the child struggled against her girlhood from the start. This can actually be a rather traumatic experience for intersex children

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

379). The authors then explain that there is an ethical dilemma that cisgender individuals have an easier time accessing medical interventions compared to transgender patients and this is based on the immediate need of the patient (Bouman, et al., 2014, p. 380). Later, some arguments are brought up as to why two signatures are necessary for transgender interventions including: removal of healthy tissue, irreversibility of surgical procedures, limiting regret of sex reassignment surgeries, loss of fertility, and protecting clients from single practitioner errors (Bouman, et al., 2014, p. 380-382). Then there is a comparison made between the need for two professional referrals/signatures and the lack of consistency of two referrals. The authors conclude that two signatures/referrals should not be necessary for genital surgeries and that two signatures should be implemented only if the mental health professional is uncertain of diagnosing a client with gender dysphoria and needs a second

While in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Dr. Hugh H Young of Johns Hopkins University, the father of the medical studies for hermaphroditism and the author of the book “Genital Abnormalities, Hermaphroditism and related Adrenal Diseases”, explored numerous people who were intersexuals and discovered that the majority of them were content with their lives, and did not develop any psychological problems or scars. A notable case would be a woman named Emma who had grown up as a female with a vagina and a penis-sized clitoris. As a teenager, Emma would have sexual intercourses with other women but eventually she married a man. Although she had a husband, there had not been too many sexual activities therefore Emma would have other girlfriends on the side to fulfill her pleasures.

When considering gender and sex, a layman’s idea of these terms might be very different than a sociologist’s. There is an important distinction: sex, in terms of being “male” or “female,” is purely the physical biological characteristic differences – primarily anatomical differences. (There are also rare cases of “intersexual” individuals as outlined in the Navarro article, “When Gender Isn’t a Given”.) Gender, on the other hand, is an often misconstrued concept that is commonly mistaken as synonymous with sex. A non-sociologist might surmise the following, “men act masculine and women act feminine, therefore, it must follow that gender is inherent to sex,” however, this is not necessarily the case.