Follow Up: Responding to Julia

I thought that Fausto-Sterling’s chapter, “That Sexe Which Prevaileth”, was very interesting. I think that our culture’s constant maintainment and fixation on the two-sex system needs to be overturned in order to make the lives of those born the way that they are better. It is not as if these people that are born intersex have control over the fact that they are born with ambiguous bodies, and it is unfair that our society as a whole is opposed to the acceptance of such an idea as fluid sexual identities. I found the last section of the chapter to be particularly intriguing though because although I support the reevaluation of our society’s outlook on intersex people, I think that we at first need to have those that are intersex on board. Fausto-Sterling mentions a case study that Hugh Hampton Young, “The Father of American Urology” performed, in which he studied a hermaphrodite named Emma who grew up female. I have issues with Emma’s situation because she has a husband yet she has girlfriends on the side, which I find to be her way of taking “the path of least resistance”. Emma stated, “My husband supports me well, and even though I don’t have any sexual pleasure with him, I do have lots with my girlfriend” (Fausto-Sterling, 43). I think that this is her way of succumbing to the expectations of society rather than coming out and showing the world who she is and being proud of it. Obviously there are other issues at hand, such as money, which she makes a point to mention, but I think that as someone who is intersex, and is accepting of her female and male parts, then why not be who you want to be rather than “fitting in”. I think that if we ever want to change the way society looks at those that are intersex, we need people like Emma to accept the way she was born and outwardly show this acceptance. Without that first step, I am unsure if we can have hope that stereotypes will change.

I found an interesting article in the Commentary section of CNN.Com, written by Hilda Viloria. She was responding to the situation that South African athlete Caster Semenya is currently in. She expresses her outrage at the whole gender verification issue and how even though some people are being supportive of Caster, they are also indirectly increasing the prejudices surrounding the topic of intersex people. Hilda is also intersex and discusses her story in the article. I found her story very interesting because she never really knew what she was and there was no way of explaining her enlarged sex organs. Finally, at the age of 26 she discovered that she was intersex, from a newspaper article, of all things! I was moved by Hilda’s story because she describes how she was facing racism, homophobia, as well as prejudices towards intersex people. Fausto-Sterling states that, “Reconceptualizing the category of “sex” challenges cherished aspects of European and American social organization” (Fausto-Sterling, 31). I think this is true but as Viloria says, if society and the medical world had been more upfront and straightforward with people about intersexuality rather than trying to fit people into the male or female categories, we would not be having these issues today. Viloria says, “intersex folks are not some new invention that people need to be "ready for:" we exist and always have” (Viloria, 2009). It is extremely unfair that intersex people are forced to feel sorry for the way they were born and it is even more unfair that society is telling people, such as Caster Semenya, who was born a female, that she is actually a male.