Response Post 2.17

In class on Tuesday we spent some time discussing how, when encountered with an intersex newborn, physicians will make a decision about their sex, perform surgery, and declare the baby and boy or a girl. The class discussion and Anne Fausto-Sterling’s chapter “Of Gender and Genitals” both suggest that the doctors are doing something wrong by “choosing” the sex of the baby. I know that there are complicated effects of essentially assigning a sex to a baby. The child will inevitably have a hard time growing up, because he may have been “created” into a baby boy, but perhaps the internal neural and hormone system is quite female. I am not denying the fact that it would be incredibly hard to have a sex forced on you if you were born intersex.

However…I argue that the psychological affects of being intersex into today’s modern American society would be far worse than having a certain sex forced upon you. Imagine if an intersex baby remained intersex, neither a male nor a female. What would people refer to this child as? A he or a she? As humans, we have a natural tendency to categorize. When babies are born, girls usually receive a pink hospital bracelet and/or cotton hat, while boys receive blue bracelets and hats. Categorization of sex (with only the male and female option) is so engrained into our society that newborn baby girls receive a pink bracelet minutes after being born. What color bracelet would an intersex baby receive? What color would the parents paint an intersex baby’s room? What would be baby’s birth certificate say, if the hospital could not check the male or female box?

I’m not saying that there should only be two sexes. I don’t think it’s right that someone who is born as intersex is automatically made into either a male or a female. However, until society can accept “intersex” as a third category of sex in addition to male and female, I think it would be impossible to grow up as an intersex child. Because our society is so concerned with sexual identity, the psychological effects of being intersex would be extremely debilitating and would prevent this child from leading a happy life.

I’m going to conclude with an example. Let’s say a baby is born, and this child happens to have 6 fingers on one hand. The sixth finger does not present any medical emergency and the child would be perfectly fine with that sixth finger. However, the parents and the doctor decide to amputate the sixth finger so the child can lead a more normal and easier life. In elementary school, children learn to count to 10 on their 10 fingers, when you get married there is a specific wedding finger, etc. A child with six fingers would face difficulties in society due to his or her abnormality. Therefore, it would be silly to leave the sixth finger there when it could easily be amputated.

I think that this example relates to intersexuality, although sex is definitely different than a simply sixth finger. Similarly though, a child who is intersex would face so many problems growing up in our society. I think at this moment in American society, it would be irresponsible of parents and doctors to allow a child to remain intersex, because it would be promising a very hard life to this newborn baby.