When I led the discussion on Fausto-Sterling’s “The Five Sexes” today, I tried to emphasize certain factual qualities of the article over her opinions such as the “utopia” that appeared near the end of the article. However, I thought that several discussions that we had in class today were very socially relevant such as the debate over how to raise an intersex child and whether to take any medical action, if necessary.
For my discussion in class, I did some brief research about intersex individuals on the Internet. One of the most compelling intersex advocates I found was Cheryl Chase, an intersex individual who helped found the Intersex Society of North America, or ISNA. Chase’s story was so interesting, and as her parents had selected her gender for her, and she had had a clitoridectomy at a young age. Because of this surgery, Chase says her genitalia is “scarred” and “numb.”
Hearing Chase’s story really got me thinking about Fausto-Sterling’s “utopia” and how doctors and parents should help an intersex child. I cannot even begin to fathom an age of consent for a child to make choices about his/her body, but hearing Chase’s story made me more inclined to consider letting children make the choice for themselves. This proposition raises many issues such as the psychological well being of the parents, the environment the child would be raised in, and how growing up intersex has its own unique health problems. I think that Fausto-Sterling’s gender “continuum” is a bit unrealistic, but I know that as I learned more about intersexuality by reading “The Five Sexes,” I became more sympathetic and understanding about the issues that intersex individuals face. If anyone is interested in learning more about this controversial (and contentious) issue, visit www.isna.org.
4 comments:
I had a few questions that I would like to ask in response to your blog on "Learning about Intersexuality." Firstly, I too find the story of Cheryl Chase very compelling. It is easy to find sympathy for an individual that has a diminished feeling of sexuality because of procedures that occurred early in her childhood especially before she knew of the ramifications the procedures might have on her for the rest of her life. However, my question is during the course of the surgery, did something go wrong? I believe that the procedure of changing between two sexes is performed relatively often without complications. It would be my guess that a complication arose during the surgery that is not common to the procedure.
My next question is a little specific, but I find it extremely relevant. The term you used to describe Chase’s procedure is a clitoridectomy. A clitoridectomy is considered a type of female genital cutting (FGC), also sometimes referred to as female genital mutilation or female circumcision. FGC is performed for cultural, religious, or non-medical regions. The procedures used in gender reassignment surgery and genital modifications for intersexuals are different from those of FGC. To the best of my knowledge a clitoridectomy involves the splitting of the clitoral hood (the clitoral hood is homologous to the male’s foreskin) to increase sexual response. My question is: why would Chase have a clitoridectomy, a non-medical procedure, performed on her body as a young child? The research I have done on clitoridectomies has been limited and I would like the opportunity to research more about the procedure to solve a few of these unknowns. Maybe you can help me out though and enlighten me a little bit more on Chase’s story. Thanks a ton!
I would just like to start by saying that I think you did a great job with your presentation in class; however, I still have some comments on this certain topic. First of all the activity that we did in the first section portrayed a greater section of the class as being a "herm", "merm", or "ferm" based on the characteristics given to them; however, factual information that you presented to the class showed that less than 4% of all births result in intersexuality so I just found that aspect of the presentation a little confusing.
I agree with what you have written about a "utopian" society as well as what was discussed in class; however I truly do not believe that such a society is ever possible. I really think that people are just all in all not nice enough and many feel better about themselves knowing that others are facing more difficult challenges. You have also brought up the idea of an age of consent for such a surgery to be performed. I personally believe that a human at any age is never really ready to chose whether he or she would like to be female or male for the rest of their lives. I belive that is just too great of a decision to make for any individual, which is why I belive that the surgery should be performed at birth.
I would love to think of a society with "5 Sexes" where everyone was treated equally and not judged, but in a nation and a community where we still face problems with race, social status, and other aspects of physical appearance; I feel that a gender acceptance of five sexes is just not feasible in our world today. I do believe however, as you have said that we should be sympathetic and understanding to the issues of intersexuality, but I really think that the best resolve for any person of intersexuality to live a "normal" life is to have a sex selected for them at birth. Thanks so much again for the presentation!
For scotch3m (love the name, by the way)...I read mostly about Cheryl Chase from Wikipedia, the ISNA website, and several other articles, two that refer to the removal of her clitoris. One article states that her clitoris was “too large” and was removed, while in the other article she refers to having a clitoridectomy. Wikipedia states outright that she had the procedure. This leads me to believe that a great deal of tissue was removed (as they thought it was too big) instead of the splitting of the clitoral hood. In response to your second question, I think that Chase’s “clitoridectomy” was a medical procedure and that perhaps she uses this word to refer to another type of procedure, perhaps one involving more tissue removal.
Here are the links to the Chase articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheryl_Chase_(activist)
http://www.slate.com/id/3118/
http://www.gettingit.com/article/552
For beach125’s comments, I really enjoy getting this kind of feedback! I tried to make the point in class that the opening activity was not representative of the population as a whole, but I wanted to do an activity that would have most of the students in the class as “intersexuals” and not being able to fit into a category of just male or female, as I hope it would enhance the learning experience. Hopefully this can clear things up, and I am sorry if anyone else was confused!
Scotch3m and beach125, thanks so much again for your feedback and for being so responsive in class!
I wonder how the reading for tomorrow might help us in thinking about the issues that you all raise. Maybe we should continue this discussion.
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