Week Eight Blog
The issue of intersexed babies is a sensitive one and also creates knowledge on how the medical establishment wants and expects us to recognize a body as normal. First of all, it is almost impossible for a parent or a doctor to know for sure that they are making the right decision in determining the sex of an intersexed infant, but at the same time it is also almost impossible to not make a decision. Even though it seems more reasonable and scientifically correct to determine the sex of someone solely on their chromosomes, this article made me realize that you can't always do that because of the way our society categorized and judges people. Doctors say that if the penis is a certain size or smaller it should be named a girl. This is because if it is too small, a "micro penis," it will not properly function in the act of heterosexual sex. This shows us that in order for a male's body to be considered normal; it must have a certain sized penis. The same goes for females. If their clitoris is determined to be too big it will be unattractive and abnormal in their future.
As you can see, in determining the sex of intersexed infants, the body is the sole basis of the decision. This shows us that society judges your sex based on your body and nothing else. If you don't look or have "normal" parts of a certain sex you must not be that sex and in turn you must be the opposite. This also reinforces the idea that there are and always will be only two sexes, male and female. Considering that they will sacrifice a girl having an enlarged clitoris instead of a boy having an unsatisfying penis says that we still base things off the needs of men, but at the same time it is still taking into consideration the desires and feelings of women. Yes, it may be “wrong� and not the most successful to base the sex off the body; it is pretty much the only thing that they have to base it off until the infant is much, much older. I think it would be more harmful for a child to not be named a sex over being named the wrong sex. In our society today everything needs to be named, labeled, and put in a category, even if its one that may change years later.