Fausto-Sterling’s third chapter was very detailed, to say the least. When I took Modernity sophomore year and had to read Dude You’re a Fag I felt very uncomfortable reading it in the library, and found this chapter to be the same. While I know it is something that we should not feel uncomfortable about, a lot of the drawings and pictures in this chapter made reading it in the library slightly awkward at times. Having said that, I did find this chapter to be interesting and I learned a lot about intersex individuals. Prior to reading this chapter I had always heard about “hermaphrodites” but never knew what classified one as a hermaphrodite or the differences between a pseudo and a true hermaphrodite.
I do not personally know anybody who was born intersex, or know if somebody was, but one example I kept thinking about was an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy”. I know Grey’s is not real life, and they exaggerate many of the cases a great deal, but one of the episodes included a teenage girl who came in with what she thought was a tumor. After running some tests the doctors concluded her ovary was a testis. (At least I think I’m remembering this correctly….) This particular teenage girl had always felt different than the other girls and wondered why she never fit in. The doctors first told the parents of the test results and the parents requested they not tell the girl. In this case, and something that is opposite of what Fausto-Sterling describes in her book, the doctors felt uncomfortable with this decision and felt they should tell the girl. Eventually it came out that it was a testis and the girl felt nothing but relieved that she was actually a boy. (The accuracy of this statement that she is a boy depends on my memory and on the overall accuracy of the TV show, of course.) This episode was several seasons ago and I did not know what I know now about intersex individuals, but found it interesting that something like this was on national TV. I think that if we have more media outlets that included issues such as these the discussions will not be thought of as taboo and the lives of these intersex individuals will improve.
Britt-
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that perhaps a way to inform the masses about the unknown prevalence of intersexed births that occur today is to display examples of this phenomenon on the media. I think that this issue is made into such a taboo in our society solely due to the fact that many view the incidence of a mixed gendered individual as extremely rare. I also liked your point in this post regarding the embarrassed feeling that you encountered while reading "Sexing the Body" in the library, due to its semi-scandalous cover. I had this same exact feeling when I first purchased the novel at the book store, and I ended up reading the required chapters while at home. It is interesting to think about why we feel uncomfortable displaying a novel that merely discusses biology and sexuality (components of life for every human being). Perhaps a step for us (as newly informed women's-studies scholars) is to face these feelings of discomfort and recognize their ridiculousness, as a mode of growing into more enlightened and accepting individuals.