Quote:
Originally posted by gabshu
How can you not give your child a gender? How long will it take for that kid to decide what gender they want to be? What do people who are opposed to this propose?
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1) In our society it's near difficult not to assign a gender. One of the first things a doctor is expected to do one the child is born is to announce it's gender. What, then, does s/he say when they cannot decide if the single visible gonad is not discernable?
2) Assuming the child isn't terribly pressured by society and peers, which is near impossible, studies have shown that children as young as one year old know that there is a difference between genders.
3) People who are opposed to infant gender reassignment propose waiting until the child is old enough to decide for him or herself. On a video about intersex, one child decided to become neuter by removing all gonads and such. That's a pretty uncommon decision, but ultimately, shouldn't it be up to them to decide who they want to be?
On the other hand, people who support infant gender reassignment believe it's in the best interest of the child to know what they are early on. What do you do, though, if they know in their hearts that they are the gender you did NOT assign them to? So, who's best interest is infant reassignment really in?
Quote:
Originally posted by denim
Maybe there will be a new sex soon, in evolutionary time.
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The thing about that "theory" is intersexed children have been around as long as humans have been procreating. It's just that we're only now able to talk about it a little, but there is still a lot of unnecessary feelings of guilt and shame. "New" sex implies that they never were until just now. Intersex has always been and always will be so long as "mother nature" creates variation and deviation.
What I think we should be saying is this: We are finally recognizing intersexed children, but they deserve more than what we're giving. Our dichotomized language of male/female denies their existence and we need to change it to be more accomodating.
The intersexed child that decided to be neuter, had to fight the hospital that had "shis" birth certificate in court because they told "shim" (a previous human sexuality class created that pronoun for a neuter) the birth certificate could only have male or female on it. Shim finally won in court and Toby's birth certificate now says neuter.
We are so stuck in our ways when it comes to gender. We, especially the medical field, need to recognize that gender isn't binary. We aren't just one or the other. There are people that are somewhere in between.