“Pick One!”
Male or Female, pick one, because there is no middle option. In today’s society we see a major emphasis on what gender or sex someone is; we see it more than people think: what bathroom you go to, what clothes you wear, and what sports team do you play for. The problem is that biologically some people are not male or female but a combination of the two. We now call that intersex, however intersex is seen as problem that needs fixing. Time magazine printed an article called, “Between the Sexes” by Christine Gorman and Wendy Cole that dives into intersexuality to try to explore its role in society. Intersexuality is a secret social problem that seeks to be fixed by medicine, when it just needs to be accepted by modern day society.
“Between the Sexes” by Gorman and Cole begins with a woman named Debbie Hartman who gives birth to a healthy baby. The problem is the doctors are unable to tell if the baby is female or male. The baby has both male and female DNA and both male and female body parts; the baby is a true hermaphrodite. “… ‘Hermaphrodite’ is not one of the options available on a birth certificate, so the Hartman’s’ doctors struggled to figure out which sex was more appropriate for the child (Gorman and Cole 1).” The doctors finally decide the baby is boy and the Hartmans are allowed to take their baby home, however at eleven weeks the baby developed a hernia that required surgery, and the doctors found a rudimentary ovarian and Fallopian tube tissue. The told the Hartmans that in fact their baby was a girl and that she was at risk of developing cancer if the ovary and fallopian tube stayed in. The family decided to go along with the doctors and rename their kid Kelli and buy new clothes for her. Kelli went on to have three more surgeries to construct female-looking genitalia. Her mother revealed all the surgeries she went through when she was eight years old and at the age of ten Kelli is still having problem with gender in her life, but is still getting on in life. The article then talks about how intersexuality is lot more common than people think. There are estimates that around 0.2% to 2% of live births are intersexual. Gorman and Cole explain how that traditionally doctors treat babies with a surgically refashioned genital to match one sex so that the baby has a conventional sense of gender and so that extra tissue doesn’t turn cancerous (like Kelli). However they go on to say that adult intersexuals are coming out and describing the pain that came with all the surgeries they had to go through and all the secrecy and shame they experienced. The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) is trying to change its policy of endorsing surgery for intersexuals because of what they have came out and said about it. Dr. Bruce Wilson, an endocrinologist at DeVos hospital in Michigan recommends that we start assigning a sex later in life, maybe around puberty so that doctors won’t assign a child to the wrong sex. The article then talks about how that even though gender changes have occurred in the last decades, people today are still fixed on the idea that there are only two separate sexes. They also talk about how it is more difficult to make the decision to what sex to assign a baby because simple genetics isn’t always clear. They describe a women name Sherri who is technically XY, but has all female characteristics; she has AIS (androgen-insensitivity syndrome). She was told that she was unable to have kids because of twisted ovaries, and at the age of 35 she became curious with all her medical records and did some poking around. She found out what she had, and was just upset that no one ever explained her condition to her. Julanne Tutty had a similar story, she didn’t find out that she was intersexual till 35 and that’s only because she did some poking around, she was most upset about all the secrecy and not about the actual condition. The article explains how these two women would of felt a lot less embarrassed if there wasn’t any secrecy involved in their condition.
This article is very informative. It really shows people the hardships that go with having an intersex kid or being an actual intersex person. But the problem here is that these hardships are unnecessary because these people aren’t a danger to society and they deserve to be accepted even though they are different. It’s just like the issue of race; it’s these physical differences that make certain people uncomfortable. That is unfair to intersex people, just because some people are uncomfortable they have to suffer, these people need to just realize that everyone in the world comes in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. In a perfect world medicine should only be used when the person’s life is in danger, and if they are not then these people should be accepted by normal society.
What everyone needs to do is read, “Shifting the Paradigm of Intersex treatment” by Alice Dreger, written for the Intersex Society of North America. It basically explains intersex in two models either the concealment or Patient Centered model. The concealment model is the way society hides intersex people through fear and medicine, offering a quick fix to the “problem” of intersex people. And the patient centered model offers truths based on what’s based for the patient. An example from the article is:
“What is the ideal future of intersex (Dreger2)?” And the concealment center model would answer, “Elimination via improved scientific and medical technologies (2).” And the patient centered model would answer, “Social acceptance of human diversity and an end to the idea that difference equals disease (2).” The article just lets people know what society wants you to think and also what the real answer to intersex questions is. The key to it is people just accepting intersex people so that a big fuss doesn’t have to be made about them.
Intersexuality is a secret social problem that seeks to be fixed by medicine, when it just needs to be accepted by modern day society. The article shows the difference problems that arrive in society because of society’s inability to accept intersex people. When intersex is seen as a problem parents feel they need to correct through medicine and then physical and psychological problem arise from that medical intervention. American society needs to stop all this judgment of different people and just accept everyone for who they are.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,993472-3,00.html
I completely agree with Candice in that inter-sexual individuals should be accepted for who they are and not be seen as abnormal. Unfortunately many suffer discrimination due to the gender categorization posed by societal standards. It is sad to see how these babies have no say in what sex they want to be and to see how at such a young age they are subjected to such intense surgeries. Many of them go onto to develop both physical and psychological trauma as a result of these surgeries which may have not fir their gender when they grow up. I hate how everything has to be put into a category in order for society to accept it. Just like homosexuality is no longer viewed as an abnormality and is now widely accepted, I think that people should push for inter-sexual individuals to be embraced and accepted by society as well. These individuals are born this way, after-all they are human. They should not not treated and judged so harshly in society.
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