Gender Differences In Intersex

“It doesn’t suck to be intersex, it sucks to be persecuted” sadly this is the mindset that is still popular/ widely associated with individuals who are intersex. These individuals are normal human beings and people who desire to have everyday lives, normal love lives, and to be confident in their own skin. 1.7 percent of all children born in the world are born with sex characteristics that are both male and female (cross sex) and don’t fit in either the male or female box that society has constructed (Murphy & Rudolph 117). Intersex, like most things that fall outside social normal, is a taboo topic and, as a result, society as a whole is not well educated on the topic because it is considered an awkward/ unacceptable topic to discuss. For
The topic of intersex has always been and is a topic that is hush hush and seen as an issue of deformity rather than just a unique difference an individual possesses. In regards to how intersex people are impacted today, not much has changed. The medical fields still views intersex children as having a physical deformity and describes it to the child’s parents as such. In the 1950’s, John Money at Johns Hopkins University developed the Optimal Gender or Rearing Policy. This policy/ theory stated that “children were more likely to develop a gender identity that matched the sex of rearing than might be determined by chromosomes, gonads, or hormones” (Murphy & Rudolph 116). Basically, Money claimed that nurture could out rule nature. This policy/ theory is still applied in modern medicine when dealing with intersex children and surgically assigning them a sex, even though this theory is severally lacking in supportive evidence and is
Even though Money’s theory has no substantial scientific or case study evidence, intersex children are still handled in the manner that if they are surgically assigned a sex and raised as that sex, that they will identify with that sex and live happily. Hospitals still follow this policy and have been slow to change otherwise. This is because Money’s theory provided an answer, even though it is not a good one, and a policy for handling an anatomical condition that previously did not have one. These power structures should be addressed because this “solution” has caused all damage and no good; not one person who was the victim of Money’s theory was thankful that their parents took this route to handle their intersex. The best way to do this we think is to educate the public more on intersex, and that it is not a deformity but simply an aspect of an individual. Also, educating medical students and current medical practitioners that surgical assignment of sex does more harm than good, and letting the child grow and decide on their own what they want is what is truly best fort the