These two chapters were difficult for me to read.
I find concept of genital surgery on children hard to understand. As I believe
Fausto-Sterling points out, media/society is against genital mutilation in
other countries, but passively allows it in this country. At first, I thought
that the parents were the ones Okaying the surgeries, but it seems like they are
often told about them after they are performed. I have a big
problem with the idea that doctors are deciding things without consulting the
parents. I think that it is an infringement on the health of the baby in
addition to all of the other violations.
The other really big take away point I got from
this was that they would often perform a surgery based on what genitals were
larger and/or what was easier to “fix”. There has been lots of improvement in medicine
since these surgeries started. I understand that they probably didn’t have all
of the testing we have available today. But, because of the swift nature of
their surgeries, the child frequently didn’t not perceive themselves to be that
gender as they grew older. Sometimes the patient didn’t find out about the
surgery until they were a fully grown adult. Wow. I can’t imagine going to the
doctor and finding out that I have been lied to by doctors (and maybe my
parents) for all of my life.
In response to the idea that we have more than 2
sexes, I’m not sure. I understand the need to broaden the idea of gender to
more than 2. I’m just not sure about breaking sex into 5. I think I get the
thought behind it—2 just isn’t broad enough for everyone. I’m just not sure
that we would end at 5 or whether it would keep growing into more subcategories.
I need to learn more about this before I can really say.
No comments:
Post a Comment