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The Medical Construction of Gender

In “The Medical Construction of Gender,” by Suzanne Kessler, it is shown how doctors and families deal with intersexuality in the case of new born babies showing these physical characteristics. When infants are born with ambiguous genitals, they cannot be defined as male or females by their doctors.  Therefore, infants are subjected to chromosome, hormonal and other tests to verify their biological identity. This situation creates a stressful moment for doctors and parents because having a neutral sex baby is seen as problematic. However, the point that Suzanne illustrates is that doctors are not neutral in determining the infant’s sex. Doctors base their opinions not only in scientific facts but also in how the genitals of these infants look. These decisions taken by doctors, parents and society come from a common ground. People have fixed ideas about sex and gender roles. And people have fixed expectations about how a male or female should be like.

When a baby shows XX chromosomes, that baby is defined as a girl. On the other hand, when a baby shows YX  chromosomes that means the baby  is a male in terms of biology. Yet Suzanne states that sometimes the infant sexes are not defined by the chromosomes because doctors have their own opinions about intersexuality. There is a lot of pressure in the sphere of the professional setting where doctors discuss and analyze what is the better decision to make. If the baby would fit in society as a boy or girl, and if the life of the baby would be successful in terms of “reconstruction of genitals,” the subsequent surgeries that will be involved, hormonal treatments as adults, sexual life, procreation, and in terms of socialization, what gender would correlate to the physical characteristics of the baby. The most salient feature for making decisions is the size of the male’s penis.

Moreover, parents feel puzzled by the situation because intersexuality is not discussed publicly even though the five percent of the population has been identified as intersexual. Doctors ask parents to hide the situation from family members and friends until the “issue” is resolved. Parents avoid talking about it. It is taboo, and people deal with this situation in terms of fear of judgement. All these factors increase the level of  urgency to solve the situation although babies are born healthy.

Suzanne shows that sex is questionable in terms of biology sciences, as gender is questionable in terms of definitions of society.  Any infant born with ambiguous genitals could live his or her life as any other person identifying as male, female or both.  What is more important is to see how the child would be socialized.