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Keerim Kim completed Assignment 03

In Suzanne Kessler’s “The Medical Construction of Gender,” she introduces interviews from medical experts, to deal with conditions of intersexuality. By her claim, it is represented “biological sex” and “culturally constructed gender” as having a close relationship. Infant intersexuality and ambiguous genitals had been studied for quite a time. The study was not only restricted on the physical part, but put an emphasis on the connection between psychological, cultural issues.

In a commonly accepted way, people are assigned of their gender at the time of delivery. Then, it forms and builds their identity throughout lives. Therefore when a child has an ambiguous genital, the initial assignment process should be done in an extremely careful sense to avoid possible trauma and various side effects. Nowadays, the intersex conditions are treated as fixable. Physicians try to tell the parents and patients by normalizing the intersex condition. It helps them to think in a positive way, and not to be discouraged. From this point, cultural factors play an important role. It is vital because in socializing stage, gender assignment significantly affects on how those children are raised and how people treat them. Physicians say social factors outweigh biological factors. Parents and community construct child’s identity, in which gender plays a big part. This stage is crucial not just for children with genital ambiguities, but to any children.

The whole process of gender assignment and construction has ambiguity and limit in some point. It is true that sometimes, doctors eventually get to treat the gender how they want to construct. However, to avoid confusion in both parents and patients, the process should not include any psychological discomfort, anxiety and humiliation. In the article, Kessler says the biological sex is transformed into a culturally constructed gender. Partly agreeing to her opinion, I think rather than being transformed, it gets blended into cultural and social world with the acceptance of reconstructed gender.