Owning Your Own Body?

            

Primarily, one of the overarching points that needs to be emphasized and has been emphasized through the readings—which is the most alarming I should add, would be the notion doctors have been invested with so much power in our society that they in power to dictate a gender on a individual and therefore change completely their life. In the article “The medical construction of Gender” by Suzanne J. Kessler and Hermaphrodites: Intersex in America” by Elizabeth Reis. The authors made the points clear of how the doctors and specialists in question had the power to alter, and make their own assumption about what it meant to be a person who was described as Intersex, when they had nearly no experience in the matter.  In the latest piece “The Medical Construction of Gender” one of the main theorist that has been cited to have developed research is the only non-disputed source John Money and his partner Ehrhardt that has any say in the matter about Intersex, in page 7 Kessler dictates as follows: “supportive evidence for money and Ehrhardt’s theory is based on only a handful of repeatedly cited cases, but it has been accepted because of the prestige of the theoritians” this proves to be highly problematic as it was the basis other research but it also points out to another glaring point that is also problematic.

            Both the articles, as mentioned above the piece by Suzanne J. Kessler and Elizabeth Reis point out the importance of how it was poignant for the doctors finding a “treatment” for the individual who came and visit them to make the right speculation about what gender the they were, or what part of the body was going to be removed. If the doctor retracted his previous conclusion then his reputation would be hurt. Another thing that was looked down upon was:  “giving power to the patient” if the doctor considered the patient’s wishes—which did not happen often.

            Credibility being one of the most important ideas that led a doctor to make an assumption of gender and what genitalia the individual must be assigned is another problematic issue. It only amounts that doctors have and are influenced by what they think it’s best according to the social expectation around them, and not at the interest of the patient. Neglect and often-erroneous diagnosis is not something that should be taken lightly, but analyzed in the larger spectrum. Still, socialization or the need to conform to the binary is the reason the doctors cite as to assign a female, or male genitalia to a patient. Claiming that happy ending is the only end goal for a doctor for an individual identified, as intersex would be a blatant misconducted explanation. Additionally pressure to assign a gender to the patient was often practiced under practices that derived from old and untested theories (John Money’s theory of sex development) that were used at the basis of explanation only further this notion of binary of gender and left no room for growth that might have come in later years. It only led to even more miseducation of doctors and therefore even more blindsided, patients.   The topic of intersex now is sensationalized as something equal to anomaly, and is only reinforced by the normalization created by doctors. Who further explain and teach parents that everything is going to be okay. It would be more productive to have more research and move away from archaic notions of sex and gender. Fausto Sterling explains in her article “Sexing the Body” sex doesn’t mean male or female and gender doesn’t mean one from the other.  This ideas and theories that have been developed only passed down and have not let room to be questioning of the ideals that have been imposed on us, and our patriarch based society.

            The basis in which doctors decided the future of these children was what really caught my attention. Although I have pointed out both readings what was one of the main problematic things, it is interest to think of this in the way the doctors justify this unethical and complete violation of the body, and trust of their patient. It is not the patient making their decision on their bodies as one should govern and have autonomy of their bodies. The decision to be one gender has been assigned to them without consent. It has also happened to most of individuals as we grow up in this society. We have been thought that there are only two governing genders, male and female and nothing in between and most importantly that one is much more important than the other. Being a part of this patriarchal society. It brings me to my other point that I also found interesting. In the article by Suzzane J. Kessler she empathizes this following point.

            If an infant, recently born had ambiguous genitalia it would be more beneficial for the boy to be assigned a female part if his penis was not to grow to be an averaged sized penis. This would only become a bigger and much more pressing issue for the boy, the it was better to give the infant a vagina, for then that was the only solution possible. Once again this only reinforces what I have been stating before, the levels of hierarchy between female and male bodies are always imposed in this ideas. Always leaving the female body to be one of lesser value, and to able to have intercourse with a male, for that’s the function as Kessler describes is the only important aspect to the doctor and therefore the patient.

            Finally within the idea of us as people and individuals having the right to govern our bodies, I come to my example. The progress that we make as a society is slow not only did it take time for women to vote, but it also took time to achieve civil rights act. We have a long history of valuing some more than others, usually those individuals we value less are the ones that are within a marginalized group. Baby steps, I should call are the ones we make and can only remain hopeful that one we can stand away from our predispositions and our regimented dominant idea of gender. My point being that once we give it more attention and the topics are explored we might get there as a society to develop into gender fluidity. 

A big awareness movement that is happening is that of trans people: Laverne Cox a trans-person who has recently been named by Time magazine the face of trans people as deemed by an interview provided by Dazzed and Cofused Magazine.  She states the following statement about owning your body: “It’s about all of you. It’s about owning your body but it’s about owning all of it. Our bodies matter, but we’re more than our bodies.” I thought this was interesting this is opening new conversations about gender and sex; these are conversations that we need in order to make progress and stop seeing and working under sex binary.