So last class we talked about how
we would deal with the scenario of a child being born with ambiguous sex. Many
people said that they would not do anything if their child was born this way
and they would leave it up to the child to decide. I think that if it was up to
me and I was put into that situation I would have to disagree. I don’t think I
could sit back and know my child would go through all of that hardship of being
different. I personally know that there is nothing wrong with being born this
way and that I can accept my child however they are, but other people are not
as accepting, especially other children. This would be a crucial time in my
child’s life, and if they spend all of it being made fun of for being
different, that is not going to help the emotional well being of my child. Now
someone said that this is just being a lazy parent for not wanting to deal with
this issue, but how can you say that it is being lazy to try and spare my child
from the emotional difficulty of being different? No parent would want to
choose an option to make their child unhappy and ostracized from other kids. To
let the child grow up and make their own decision, when would they be able to
make that decision? There is no way that they would be able to make it anytime
before puberty, they can’t make such a big rational long-term decision at that
age. And during puberty, their hormones are raging and changing the way they
think, so that too would not be a good time to make this decision. So the best
thing to do would be to wait until they were older, and that is a long time.
Though it would be a difficult decision, and you are running the risk of all
the things that we learned about in the article we read for last class, I think
that if the doctor said it was safe to have the surgery to make my child one
sex or the other I would take that option. I think that would be the way to
make my child’s experiences growing up the happiest and prepare them best for
the future.
My question for everyone else is
how they would feel about this decision, and how they would respond to the
different parallel universe thought experiments we did in class. Do people
think that it would be easier to be 100% guaranteed one sex every time? Or would
it be easier to be able to choose when one comes of age for everybody? I think
that it would be easier to be guaranteed one sex every time if that was possible,
especially if the hormones matched the sex because it would make things easier
and better defined. But I want to know everyone else’s opinions.
Matthew, I tend to side with you in thinking that I would decide as a parent (obviously if it were deemed medically safe) to have my child surgically committed to one gender. BUT, after reading Fasuto-Sterling's article I'm questioning that opinion. (And actually, by writing that I've raised more questions about the viability and efficacy of operating on newborns in the first place… It places the child in more danger than say operating as an adult.) I hope to look into this question more to try to discover some empirical studies investigating the psychological outcomes of each option: letting the child grow up intersexed or committing them to one gender from the get-go.
ReplyDeleteA conclusion I've come to in pondering this question is: that the belief that surgically committing our children to one sex or the other is less psychologically harmful is a product of our social constructions of gender. Because we as a society conceive of gender as a binary, we assume that life is easier for a child if he/she is singularly sexed. I would be curious to know how such intersexed individuals fare in cultural communities that may not be as technologically advanced as the Western world we live in. How do those children, who do not have access to even the choice we are presenting here, grow up and thrive? Again, this would also depend on how that community conceives of gender: would they even see anything wrong with it if they have no conceivable way of "fixing" it? Are the children ostracized? Or conversely, valorized? Maybe I'll come across some such study in my research. If I do, I'll report back!
When asked this question in class, I struggled to determine the more morally correct explanation between the two options. At first, I chose to side with letting my child grow up and choose, swearing that I would love them as they are and give them the stability and security needed to develop into an independent adult. However, I soon found myself agreeing with your outlook, that upon choosing surgery, I could potentially save my kid from a tough childhood and even adulthood. Furthermore, I found myself thinking that even if one could unquestionable argue that waiting and allowing your child to choose was the correct thing to do, I found it hard to say that it was right for me, who would not be experiencing the hardships of being secluded, to use my child in a war against intolerance. I found myself thinking "well, here is another example of the world being f-ed up." So in this question, as parents, is it more of our duty to give our child the most "normal" childhood like the majority of kids, or to fight the issue with them head on no matter what the cost? Which sets a better example?
ReplyDeleteI think it would definitely be easier to have an infant be 100% guaranteed to be one distinct sex each time. However, the question is whether or not we are really talking about "ease."
ReplyDeleteShannon,
ReplyDeleteI think your last point is important. In this context, it seems that giving one's child "the best chance at a normal and happy life" means shielding them from intolerance, regardless of whether this brings them the long term personal satisfaction and self-actualization that comes with feeling comfortable in their own skin as a female, male, or intersex individual.
I've also been thinking about how systems of privilege factor into these decisions for parents. While I might be conflicted when making this decision for my child, I also come from a relatively privileged racial and socioeconomic background. As a college student, I am not working 9-5 struggling to make ends meat. This frees me up, both physically and emotionally, to contemplate these sort of social justice issues and thought experiments. I would also have more expendable resources (time, money, emotional support) to fight for my child's rights as an intersexed individual, whether those battles be social or legal. However, if I was a parent from a low-income background working three jobs to keep my family off of the streets, I might be more likely to choose surgery for my child because I simply could not expend the time and energy to fight for my child's acceptance as an intersex individual.
It is unfortunate that these factors might weigh on or shape parents decisions to raise their child with ambiguous genitalia or to surgically assign them a biological sex, but they are important to consider.
Right on Alex, good point about a family's economic level.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing I thought of when we discussed this in class ended up being kind of a question of lesser evils. Would it be better to choose the sex of your child when they are born and run the risk of it being the 'wrong sex,' so to speak, and then watch them struggle growing up inside the wrong body? Or is it better to leave them be and watch them grow up still not belonging, but for a very different reason? I don't actually have an answer for this question. But I also wonder about people who make the 'correct' decision for their intersex babies, and in the end witness good results. We never hear about these kind of decisions ending up being good for the child, only the bad decisions screwing up the child. I think it would be interesting to hear from a positive perspective regarding this scenario, if possible.
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ReplyDeleteI think we are dividing the two options (surgery vs. living as an ambiguous gender) in too binary of a way. I believe (and I think Fausto-Sterling advocates for this as well) that infants should not be operated upon, and then should be raised as one gender until they are old enough to decide what they want to do with their bodies (this is not including health-related issues that need to be dealt with immediately). It is possible to raise a child in a gender affirming household, reassuring them that whatever gender they identify with is okay and that it's alright if it takes them a while to figure that out.
ReplyDeleteI also think that Alex's point is super important. Not all adults have the resources to know about the gender binary, gender construction, etc. to know what is or isn't healthy for their intersex child. We have to be careful not to blame parents who are choosing infant genital surgery. Rather, we should work to educate doctors to make sure they are educating parents on all of their options.
As a commented on Henry's post, I would still opt for our current world over a world where everyone is sexually ambiguous or a world where everyone is part of the binary. I think both universes would keep our social norms in tact and I think Elyse's universe fails to explain how sexuality would be affected.
ReplyDeleteLike many have said up here, it would be very hard to raise a child genderless in the modern world. Everything--from getting a driver's license to filling out college applications--would be affected (not to mention that we do, unfortunately, still live in a world where people fail to understand gender in a non-binary way and children would be teased by their peers). However, if the world suddenly changes and anyone can identify with any gender and a genderless option suddenly appears on birth certificates and everyone is accepting and loving, then I would definitely not be afraid to let my child remain ambiguous until they are ready or perhaps for the rest of their lives.