#suzanne kessler

The further I read the passage the more uncomfortable I became with the fact that Kessler began to sate how from such a very young age intersex infants are going through series of surgeries to fix the medical condition they have. It’s up to the parents to decide what sex the child will have. It makes me uncomfortable to see that infants have no choice for the matter on what their preferred sex is. Furthermore, the way Kessler states “I believe, to the general impression that the infant’s true, natural ‘sex’ has been discovered,and that something that was there all along has been found. It also serves to maintain the credibility of the medical profession, reassure the parents,”  It almost as the reason why they undergo the surgeries is to make the medical practitioner keep the title that they are always right, that’s what makes it even more unsettling. In order to make up for not noticing that the child is intersex they try to reassure the parents that that it can easily be fixed. “Other inappropriate remarks a doctor might make in post-delivery consultation with the parents include, ‘you have a little boy, but he’ll never function as a little boy, so you better raise him as a little girl.’ As a result, the pediatric endocrinologist, ‘the family comes away with the idea that they have a little boy, and that’s what they wanted, and that's what they’re going to get’”.

These redings portrayed the life of the word “transgender”. It has gone through various religions, cultures, races, and just societies in general. Modern day, the ‘natural attitude’ towards gender is the stereotype that there are only 2 genders. Transgender came along and challenged these beliefs. However, transgender can date back to B.C. years. In “Transgender Liberation”, Feinberg presents how transgender used to be a very normal thing throughout society, However, “a bloody campaign” that occurred due to the ruling class made transgender become ‘unnatural’. Feinberg presented how kings, queens, and even gods (mainly the Greek gods) were transgender and/or cross dressed. However, this normality of femininity and dressing was downgraded due to higher ups such as Catholic churches. This began the oppression and the discrimination against transgender people, which sounds horrible to me. If it was something normal, why change it? People should be allowed to be whatever/whoever they please, as long as it isn’t harming themselves or others. 

After reading Kessler’s writing, I learned about something called inter-sexed babies, where a bay is born and the sex can’t be properly determined due to something wrong with the genitalia. Even though these babies have no proven gender at the time, they are mainly treated as/to become male. Why should the baby be treated as male though? There’s an easy way to correctly determine the gender even without the genitalia, and that is through the chromosomes of the baby. However, the baby is still treated as male, even to the point where its genitalia is called an “underdeveloped phallus” rather than an “overdeveloped clitoris”. Although there is a lot of pressure on the parents to do official paperwork for the child, they should check the gender via a hormone or chromosome test instead of automatically treating the baby as male, which sometimes causes the baby to unfortunately undergo a correction surgery.  

I feel like this would be an extremely hard thing to determine and I think it should be left up to the child and/or his or her parents to decide what gender they want to label their child.  The reason I say the child should have a decision in this is because as they get older and they become more in touch with their body, they may choose to identify themselves using their female genitalia even though they were raised to be a male or vice versa.  Of course the parents have a say so in this but I personally feel it should be left up to the child to identify their self because this can be a very confusing and overwhelming thing for a person.

The article "The Medical Construction of Gender" by Kessler explains the painfully long and, one can assume, expensive process of turning an intersexed infant into either a boy or a girl. The whole process just proves how important it is to fit in the social construction of the world. Parents would mutilate their own child just so the child could a life with an identity as a boy or girl and assume a "gender." The intolerance of society pushes people so far to meet its constructed standards including parents and children. It all boils down to conformity and roles in society. If a person cannot be identified being a boy or girl, man or woman, male or female, that person will not have a place in society and the only reason why is because society will not know how to assign gender roles to the person.

Source: "Transgendering: Blurring the Boundaries of Gender" by Wendy Mckeena and Suzanne Kessler, "Transgender Liberation" by Leslie Feinberg, and "Be All that You Can Be" from My Gender Workbook by Kate Bornstein

When I think of transgender I see Chaz Bono!!!! The reason why is Chaz has become a man and it was long journey. Chaz is the role model to many kids out there basically saying if you feel different it ok because we are all born different and it is ok to have the feeling that we are born in the wrong body. I feel that transgender and transsexuals mean the same thing because a person can change their sex with or without surgery. Personal I accept people for who they are I have friends who are gay, straight, bi, transgender and they are good people. I don’t know why society views this as wrong. I think society has too many close minded people in the world. The Navaho’s have 3 genders men, women and nadle which are the transgender person. The Native Americans have berdache are the transgender. The Navahos and the Native Americans are not complaining about the transgender why should we? Even way back in the days the Romans through big orgy parties’ wherever one had sex with everyone one that was not a problem. So why do we look at transgender people the wrong way? I can understand the whole religious thing but transgender people are people and they pay taxes to just like the African Americans, Latinos, and the Whites. There is no need to hate or dislike transgender people. I think transgender are going through what minorities, gay and lesbians are going through to be seen as people and not slaves or animals or the other. They just want to feel right in there body and not feel like they do not belong. This should not bother someone because it is not affecting anyone else body.

Sources:"The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles" by Emily Martin, "The Medical Construction of Gender" by Suzanne Kessler, and "The Five Sexes: Why male and female are not enough" by Anne Fausto-Sterling