I have always been fascinated with the Idea of intersex infants and the medical field. In the past couple of years there has been many debates in the psychology and medical world of whether there is a psychological burden on the children who are born intersex or if its just a psychological issue for the parents. The medical Field argues that keeping the child's with an unknown sex is a health hazard for the child, yet there hasn't been research out there to support this phenomena. The enforcement of gender has been such a important role in our society that many parents are highly concern with different gender traits, from the way they dress their infants to the colors they were, etc. However, what happens with those infants who's gender is chosen at birth and were not given the opportunity to chose on there own ? Here's one great story , chosen to be female Max Beck has been battling with his sexual identity for a very long time until one day he realized he wasnt a abnormal or a lesbian he was in fact more male than female http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/intersexual-life.html. Max Beck was born with "rudimentary phallus" and "fused labio-scrotal folds" aka ambiguous genitalia which lead the doctors to perform surgery on Max at age 2 and transition him into a female since he did not have any reproductive organs to work with as a male. After half of Max's life of living like a tom-boy at age 21, while he was in college she thought she was a "lesbian" and that she liked woman all along, until she was hired for a hospital and got the surprise of her life. Max started seeking therapy on her sexual identity because she was so lost and one day it occurred to her to finally research her infancy. So Max looked up her medical records and she found that she was born as an intersex child along along, her lost in identity was not that she had an issue but that her body was always masculine for a reason. After this Max was able to feel comfortable to date and decide to do a full sex-assignment surgery to become a male. Later in team Max began advocating for intersex people and also married his beloved wife Tamra in 2000. Below is a short- video one of the 5 videos of Max's Story.
3/1/13
Problems with intersex and the enforcement of gender roles
I have always been fascinated with the Idea of intersex infants and the medical field. In the past couple of years there has been many debates in the psychology and medical world of whether there is a psychological burden on the children who are born intersex or if its just a psychological issue for the parents. The medical Field argues that keeping the child's with an unknown sex is a health hazard for the child, yet there hasn't been research out there to support this phenomena. The enforcement of gender has been such a important role in our society that many parents are highly concern with different gender traits, from the way they dress their infants to the colors they were, etc. However, what happens with those infants who's gender is chosen at birth and were not given the opportunity to chose on there own ? Here's one great story , chosen to be female Max Beck has been battling with his sexual identity for a very long time until one day he realized he wasnt a abnormal or a lesbian he was in fact more male than female http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/intersexual-life.html. Max Beck was born with "rudimentary phallus" and "fused labio-scrotal folds" aka ambiguous genitalia which lead the doctors to perform surgery on Max at age 2 and transition him into a female since he did not have any reproductive organs to work with as a male. After half of Max's life of living like a tom-boy at age 21, while he was in college she thought she was a "lesbian" and that she liked woman all along, until she was hired for a hospital and got the surprise of her life. Max started seeking therapy on her sexual identity because she was so lost and one day it occurred to her to finally research her infancy. So Max looked up her medical records and she found that she was born as an intersex child along along, her lost in identity was not that she had an issue but that her body was always masculine for a reason. After this Max was able to feel comfortable to date and decide to do a full sex-assignment surgery to become a male. Later in team Max began advocating for intersex people and also married his beloved wife Tamra in 2000. Below is a short- video one of the 5 videos of Max's Story.
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Children who are born intersexed should have the right to choose their sex when they are old enough to understand their identities. I think the root of this issue is a lack of understanding that there is a fluidity in the human body-you can still identify as a man and have a vagina or identify as a woman and have a penis. However, the emphasis on gender and the standards set for each category are considered so rigid that doctors are assigning identities to children that may not always be correct.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love this post. Certainly decisions should be given to the individual in my humble opinion. It's interesting though, because as much as I like to think that gender norms are taught, what happens if a child is raised ambiguously gendered and chooses to live life as a cis-gendered individual at a mature age? Was it taught or is there truly a sense of "manhood" or "womanhood"? How much of what we believe to be masculine or feminine is true to the nature of the word? Is there a nature to the word beyond definition?
ReplyDeleteWell, if at the time this child has decided to identify with his biologically sex at a mature age then they have already been exposed to ideas of "manhood" and "womanhood." Even if the parents may have treated the child ambiguously gendered, gender is still a social construction and one cannot go through life without being categorized into one gender therefore treated accordingly. Also, in order to really answer this one would have then define the word "nature." Is it a biological phenomena or the norm? According to Judith Lorber, gender is "not attached to a biological substratum" which then does not determine ideas of masculinity or femininity (57). However, these ideas are so institutionalized within us that they almost appear as human nature. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult to actually determine whether or not this child really truly found his/her own gender identity.
DeleteThis is a great illustration of the arbitrariness of gender role assignments. The whole gender construct is predicated on the existence of two biologically different sexes, and we see here that this difference is not even always present! The very existence of inter-sexed infants should, by logic, bring the entire male/female paradigm crashing down, but it doesn't. The idea of doctors (whose role is only to ensure the child's and mother's health) rushing parents to choose a gender gives this whole phenomenon the aura of an embarrassed coverup. To tag on to the questions posed by Venusasaboy above: I'd venture to say that the whole idea of gender would not even exist outside of the social structure that creates it.
ReplyDeleteThis post is excellent. I remember taking a sexuality course and the professor was talking about some people that are born with the wrong gender inside the wrong body. This post do make reference to that. I believe parents should not hide the truth from people like Max and Tammy. They should always informed them of their condition. I am happy that both Tammy and Max have the courage to tell the people they got married to the truth about their lives and their condition.
ReplyDeleteI would love for intersex children to be given the opportunity to grow up a little and choose. But since there is so much emphasis placed on gender roles, masculinity versus femininity and what each gender can and cannot do, I feel afraid for these children. From day one, everything is decided for them in terms of gender just as soon as their sex is known. If a gender is not selected, to who are they supposed to identify? But whom is this identification really for? Is it for the child to feel a sense of belonging in either group? Is it for the comfort of society as a whole to be protected from having to contend with an individual who doesn’t necessarily fully fit the expectations of either group? Society relies so heavily on systems of classification that when someone doesn’t fit the expected norm, they often try desperately hard to fit in somewhere. Unfortunately, for many intersex born children, they aren’t given their first choice.
ReplyDeleteThis post was very interesting! I don't believe that it is up to the parents to decide what sex their child should be. However, they have no choice but to decide when the baby is born to what sex they are going to raise their child as because the baby doesn't have a mind of its own yet or is able to speak to tell them what sex they would rather be. However, this isn't something that should be kept from the child when they are growing up because it is going to confuse them and affect them in many ways. I find it interesting that Max thought that he was a lesbian because he liked women then found out what was really wrong with him. Its shows the irony in how sex and gender can make a huge difference in whether you are categorized as a homosexual or heterosexual person then to hear that someone was born with both female and male chromosomes or organs changes the whole perception.
ReplyDeleteI was also interested in writing my blog post on this subject but you covered it very well@ Intellectuallady4. I really think its unfair that children don't have the opportunity to choose their sex when they are born intersex. It is their body and they should choose which gender they would like to be, when they get to the age of making decisions. I also read this article in one of my feminist course last semester about an intersex child. She was born intersex and the parents decided they wanted a girl. The child grew up liking girls and dressing in attire she felt she shouldn't dress in and she felt something wasn't right. Her parents finally told her the truth about her being born intetsexed. My question is do our parents have the right to choose for us which gender is right for us? I would want to make my own decision but then being just born into this world they would say we have no voice our parents are the voice for us.
ReplyDeleteI think this was a great idea for a post. I really do not think that the time will come when gender roles are no longer assigned. I feel that there is an enormous social pressure to conform to one gender role. While in class, I am constantly reminded of something a friend of mine said while pregnant with her first child. She is not from the US and had mentioned that she hates the cartoons here and does not want her child to watch them. She went on to say though, that if her child did not see the cartoons because of her wishes, the child would be exposed to them by other people and if he/she was not, they would always feel left out with their other classmates and friends. Every time we discuss different approaches and theories regarding gender and gender roles in class or I read about it here, I feel that her statement rings true. No matter how a parent tries to raise their child, they are going to be exposed to cultural norms regardless.
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ReplyDeleteI completely disagree with doctors who impose a specific gender/sex on a child based on what they feel is the best for the child. This all ties back to the nature vs. nuture debate that has been going on for years. John Money was one of the first to report success in an infants sex change but was his research completely honest. I will post youtube clips on case that John Money worked on in which he helped convince a mother of twin boys, to change the sex of one of them into a girl. That twin underwent a bad circumcision and as left with out a penis. John money believed that the sex of a child could be change because it depended on the child's rearing. As he went on leading the public to believe that it was all a success,the twin suffered all through life and eventually underwent corrective surgery to become a male again. This goes to show that not always can nurture change what is innate. With this said, I believe that doctors shouldnt impose their thoughts on the parents or the child the child should eventually grow up to decide for themselves. This may prevent more extensive damage that the wrong sex change could have.
ReplyDeleteThese are the links to Gende Unkown which shows the experiment that I am talking about with John Money and what Milton Diamond take on it is as well.
DeletePart 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpun-am7jSg
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI5v8UVsnIU
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQVklQGxXY4&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0orNfxnMZ0M&feature=related
Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iKS000zSYE&feature=related
Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQBEl1zQHI&feature=related
I believe that intersex individuals should have the right to make their own choices. Just like Max , Cherryl Chase ( Born Brian Sullivan then transformed Into Bonnie Sullivan) is an intersex individual who's genitals were surgically altered at birth. Chase states that I believe that intersex individuals should have the right to make their own choices. Just like Max , Cherryl Chase ( Born Brian Sullivan then transformed Into Bonnie Sullivan) is an intersex individual who's genitals were surgically altered at birth. Chase states that intersex individuals should be assiged a sex at birth. But should not be surgically reinforced. If there is any surgery at all it should be chosen by the adult intersex individual.
ReplyDeleteI believe that intersex individuals should have the right to make their own choices. Just like Max , Cherryl Chase ( Born Brian Sullivan then transformed Into Bonnie Sullivan) is an intersex individual who's genitals were surgically altered at birth. Chase states that infants should be asigned a sex at birth but it should not be surgically reinforces. If there would be any survery it should be chosen by the adult intersex individual.
ReplyDelete