Beyond the Binary: The Effect of the Sex and Gender Binary on Intersex Individuals
What is Sex? No, not that type of sex. I am Ashley Phillips and I will be discussing how the perceptions of sex and gender are social constructed in their historical context that resulted in a rigid binary. The consequences of this binary are seen in the present in medical and legal discussions about intersex gender assignment.
Sex is a means to classify human beings that are said to differ. The categories, male or female, are based on differences in genitalia and sexual organs. Gender on the other hand is the cultural meaning of man and woman. Gayle Rubin describes this relationship by describing sex as a raw material and gender as the cultural product. Therefore, all societies have males and females, but society creates man and woman through the social construction of gender.
To better understand how the body is gendered through sex assignment I would like to discuss the one-sex and two-sex body model. The one-sex body model argues that there is only one body, a male body, and within the definition of the male body lies the female body. The main argument of this theory is that female genitalia and reproductive organs are male but placed inside becoming female. On the other hand the two-sex model presented by Hippocrates is the model that stood the test of time, with modification of course, argues that the bodies of males and females are radically different.
Outside of the western context perceptions of sex and gender change. Charlotte Furth discusses that in Chinese cosmology it is believed that interactional forces of yin and yang is what creates the differences in sex and gender. The amount of yin or yang that was present at conception was what determined the sex and temperament of the child.
To describe biological sexual abnormalities the Chinese used terms like false male or female. The distinction between false males and females is that false females experience genital abnormalities that make penetration impossible and a false male experiences functional impotence.
Looking at the variety in theories of sex determination shows that sex and gender are flexible and fluid, they have changed over time and cultural contexts. However, we still find ourselves stuck in this binary of male and female. Outside of the binary the individual must be diseased, disordered, or deviant.
In the space between or outside the sex binary lies intersex. Intersex individuals are born with sex characteristics that do not fit into typical binary. These differences in sex characteristics can be seen in chromosomes, genitalia, reproductive anatomy, and hormones. Intersex is often treated as a birth defects or disorder. By tying intersex traits to disorder suggests that intersex bodies are pathogenic contributing to prejudice, discrimination, and stigma.
Intersex individuals experience discrimination whenever society separates people based on gender. At birth infants with ambiguous genitalia are labeled as intersex. Parents of intersex infants are pressured to place their children in the binary through surgery. Intersex individuals experience the surgical removal of reproductive organs, alteration of external and internal genitalia, and pre-pubescent hormonal therapy to treat the disorder.
These unnecessary surgeries can have lifelong consequences such as scarring, incontinence, loss of sexual feeling, emotional distress, involuntary sterilization, and hormone replacement therapy. Since these occur before the age of two, the child’s gender identity has yet to develop leading to the possibility that the chosen gender may not match the individual’s future gender identity.
In our society it is socially and legally unacceptable to live without a assigned sex. Therefore, in the present doctors study an infant’s sex chromosomes and hormone levels, and the infant’s physical appearance to help parents make decisions on how to raise their child.
In the 1990’s many non-profit groups such as the Intersex Society of North America, Intersex Campaign for Equality, and InterAct began fighting for the human rights of intersex individuals. At the national level intersex individuals are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act, Affordable Care Act, and Title IX. In 2016, with the creation of a third sex option intersex individuals gained the ability to legally identify as non-binary on documentation.
Although intersex individuals have gained protections from discrimination and erasure they continue to lack body autonomy. InterAct has worked at the national, state, and local levels to help create and support legislation to protect the body autonomy of intersex individuals. In 2018 InterAct helped pass legislation in California to delay nonconsensual and irreversible surgeries until an intersex person reaches the age of informed consent. Then, in October 2020 Boston Children’s Hospital pledged to stop intersex infant surgeries.
Change is slowly occurring. Our society needs to stop forcing individuals to conform to socially constructed binaries especially when it has physical and psychological consequences. We will not see sex and gender equality until the discrimination, stigmatization, and erasure of intersex individuals vanish.