(no subject)

[novapsyche]

Rethinking surgery on 'intersex' babies

Comments

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

Completely unrelatedly, you should stop by my apartment after you're done at the library, if you are at the library, like I think you are. :)

[cabell.livejournal.com]

What's interesting to me is the way that the article complicates an biological essentialist view of gender without giving it up, and aside from a brief reference to "irreversible surgery," doesn't talk about the frequent complications caused by sex reassignment surgery. "Abnormal" genitalia that is surgically modified to fit social norms doesn't work as well as the genitals with which intersex people are born. A lot of cues that something about them is not normal, even if they're not told what that might be, are available to most intersex people from early childhood--surgeries, the behavior of adults who know that their sex was assigned, etc.