Man, woman, intersexed, and everything in between:

There is little doubt that society provides minimal "wiggle room" between binary oppositions; North American worldview rarely contemplates the space between oppositions that biological processes don't always make so cut and dry, such as "man and woman," or "white and black." In considering this week's readings, we find that these natural "anomalies" in and of themselves have very little consequence. We find that intersexed individual suffers no medical condition or disease due to their "ambiguous" sex, but does run the risk of suffering social ostracization in a society that does not believe in making room for something in between or outside the bounds of man and woman. In this sense, the intersexed individual finds their liminal gender socially and, in some cases politically, criminalized in a strictly two-gender society.

There are very few taboo actions individuals will take to find a niche within dominating society. Much to the frustration of intersexed individuals, gender ambiguity is no exception. Whether by choice--as we find with intersexed individuals who choose to actively "play the role" of one gender or another in society--or otherwise--as we see with the much more proactive, though rarely productive and always obtrusive infant genital mutilation--we find the ever-persistent two-gender definition of the sexes in society, effectively excluding and erasing approximately 1.7 percent of our population. By continuing to reinforce the two-gender ideal, we are marginalizing (at the very least) and criminalizing (at the very most) those who cannot physically or emotionally adhere to the socially gendered rules set before them.

In understanding the point of view and struggles of an intersexed individual in a very two-gendered society, I can't help but think of the feminist catchphrase of "the personal is political." Though the root of the issue are certainly very different, the main idea behind feminist ambitions and those of intersexed individuals are very much the same. The rhetorically demonized "feminist agenda" often includes ideals such as the end of oppression for all peoples, despite race, class, and sex. While I find it difficult to believe that most individuals who advocate feminism (myself included) immediately consider the asymmetrical gender privileges outside two genders, the personal struggles of intersexed individuals can easily be made political in lobbying more room between the illusive "male/female" dichotomy; intersexed bathrooms and dressing rooms, hair salons (does one go to the barber or the beauty parlor?), sex-segregated activities such as sports teams, and even those pesky M/F boxes on almost every registration form--including federal forms--remind the intersexed individual day in and out that they essentially do not exist in our two-sexed society.

Indeed, as the issues of intersexuality have become more publicized in the last few decades after attempts to surgically "clarify" an intersexed infant's genitals at birth have often failed, we are finding that, finally, the intersexed personal is also becoming political. Protests and lobbying have, at the very least, raised public awareness to the very existence of intersexed individuals (think of it, [an] entirely new gender[s] that American culture is just now coming to acknowledge!) and the oppressive prejudice and erasure they are exposed to on a daily basis. Indeed, by using "the personal is political," intersexed individuals are able to raise awareness to their situation and are working toward "decriminalizing" their ambiguous, yet completely natural sexual situations.

Perhaps one of the most striking (and frightening) aspects the invisibility of intersexuality reveals is how quickly and without second thought individuals make the "choice" to completely modify their physical and emotional selves in order to appear "normal." The idea of surgically modifying parts of myself that I draw meaning and identity from, as many intersexed individuals have, not only terrifies but disturbs me; though it is therapeutic to have coalescing mental images of oneself and one's physical appearance, this identity is still a construction put forth by society (what is the "true" image of man or woman? don't we often find that both of these ideals are slippery to pinpoint and can be left to interpretation?). In this sense, social construction is literally forcing intersexed individuals to choose a completely modified version of themselves over what naturally occurs in their chromosomes, in their self image, and/or between their legs because it does not match what society thinks should occur in these areas. As an advocate of feminism, I wholeheartedly believe that this is just as oppressive as any patriarchal, white, capitalist, heterosexual oppression (thank you, bell hooks) and needs to be included, for better or worse, in the wider "feminist agenda."