Blog Week Eights
The birth of an intersexed child brings into question many factors that are not just biological for both family members and the medical practitioners. “Indeed, biological factors are often preempted in their deliberation by such cultural factors as the “correct’ length of the penis and capacity of the vagina.� Medical procedures seem to be considered first before consultation with parents, announcement of the gender of the child at birth, and consideration of counseling during the child’s teen years.
The medical field is influenced by cultural expectations of what a female or male should look like and be within the current limitations of our society’s expectations. Without considering all the factors, diagnosistic mistakes can be made. These medical procedures are Consideration of one sex or the other (male or female) are made the primary consideration of what sex the child should become. These two sexes are the only “natural� options that physicians see are acceptable. They are acceptable because this is what western society thinks is acceptable and normal. In other words, western medicine only considers there are two sexes make determinations for a person’s entire life using these cultural factors.
Since the medical field accepts the “binary� system of either one or the other, there is also an acceptance of how a body “should� be or “should� look. The child and parents have a life choice made for them within the guidelines of a society that limits it views of either male or female and nothing in between. Then this person is expected to live the life of either a male or female. This child is the one who needs to live life as this body and all the emotional and physiological impact.