Blog Eight
In Suanne Kessler’s piece called “The Medical Construction of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants�, the way in which the medical establishment decides whether an infant is male or female is laid out. She also describes how the doctors “fix� intersexed infants and how they treat the parents of these intersexed infants.
A big deciding factor in whether an infant is male or female is based upon the size of the penis. If the penis is not large enough, measurements decided by the medical establishment, the infant is female. As stated in the article, “in the absence of maleness you have femaleness�. This statement only encourages the patriarchal society that we live in. It is stating that males are the dominant individuals in our society and if you are not “good enough� to be male, you are female.
The big question arises when an infant does not fall into either the male or the female category. The medical establishment feels compelled to change any ambiguous genitalia so that the child will fit into the normal categories of sex, male or female. If the infant’s penis is not large enough to be considered normal, the infant is transformed into a female. The doctors in the article also expressed the importance of quickly changing the infant so that they can be introduced into society as a “normal� human being. It was brought up that if the genitalia of a boy is changed at a later point the individual will have memories of castration. Also in the article, the doctors interview said that whichever way the infant is changed will most likely not matter because the way in which the individual is raised is the decided factor in the gender association and performance of the intersexed individual. Kessler points out that most medical professionals are not trained well enough to handle these situations appropriately, especially when dealing with the parents. The parents are told to dodge question of whether the baby was a boy or a girl until all procedures are done.
I was very disturbed by the story of the parents that had an intersexed baby and told everyone that they had twins, one boy and one girl. When the sex was determined and fixed, the parents told everyone that the other twin had died. I can’t imagine having to do this but this only proves the pressure of our society on everyone to fit into the two categories of sex. It shows the great lengths that some will go to, to cover up such an event.