å Saturday, February 18th, 2017

At birth, infants are given certain guidelines on how they should be raised based on genitalia. They are given either a pink or blue cap, and this cap comes with certain rules that the parents follow in order to give them a “normal” childhood; but what happens when a child is born with ambiguous genitalia? Intersexuality is something that is often ignored by society, and is considered a deformity.
The fact that intersexuality is considered a deformity that must be corrected in order to live a normal life is perpetrated by doctors. These medical professionals believe that they must fix this supposed problem for the parents to raise the child in the proper environment, and the basis for correcting this is not based in biology. Much like the issue of sexism being backed up by science, the cultural construction of gender is being supported by these doctors that say that a child must live as either a male or a female. It is proven that the majority of the time the condition of intersexuality is not life-threatening, but it is practically treated like it is by these doctors, because they want to place them into a box of either female or male.
When a child is intersex, surgery to fix the appearance of their genitals is often performed. A basis for whether or not the doctor assigns this child as either male or female is the child’s penis size. Because of society’s definition of masculinity involves having an average penis, children who are born intersex who have an abnormally small penis are often given hormone treatment first to see if there is a response. If there is no response, the doctor then decides that the child will be a female and gives the child reconstructive surgery, because they believe that the child could not live their life as a normal male with a smaller than average penis. More emphasis is given on making the child into a male, which shows a desire for more male children rather than female by the doctors. A significant factor that contributes to whether or not the child is “fixed” of their intersexuality is how their genitals perform sexually when they are adults; if the male’s penis can satisfy a woman, and that an originally intersex female’s vagina can receive a penis. This not only has implications on the gender roles of masculinity and femininity, but it also implies that being straight is the societal norm.
Doctors treat intersexuality as a deformity that needs to be corrected, and they place this belief on the parents as well. They desire to fix the child’s genitals as soon as possible, to ensure the child grows up without being psychologically damaged from this experience. Doctors often discourage parents from raising their child as either gender when they are unsure, so that when the child is assigned a final gender, their gender identity matches with their sex. Although it is important that these doctors recognize the difference between gender identity and sex, they imply that something is completely wrong when children’s identity and sex do not match up.