Medical Reconstruction of Gender

487 Words2 Pages
In Suzanne Kesslers article “ The Medical Construction of Gender” physicians handle intersex infants a defect that needs be corrected. The need to find the baby's gender is crucial in western culture, even though their are typically no biological threats to the babies health. When an intersexed baby is born physicians immediately test the babies hormone levels to discover the babies “true sex” since being both male and female is not possible in our culture. A primary factor in determining the sex is the penis size, if the baby has an average sized penis then they will most likely be reconstructed as a boy but if there penis is too small than the babies so called penis must be an oversized clitoris. The importance of diagnosing the child is stressed at birth because physicians want the baby to grow up with their gender identity and gender roles in society match. Because our society values gender roles so much, informing people of intersexed child is difficult. One of the first things that happen after birth is naming the child based off of his/her identity, so therefore parents are taught how to cope with their childs ambigious gentials and are taught how “lie” or normalize the situation to their friends and family. “Money would agree that is a misrepresentation of epistemology to consider any cell in the body authentically male or female” Physicians still make their discission about ambigious gentitals based off social standards. When deciding the gender of a intersexed baby, testing is crucial but the tests are sometimes predetermined based off factors such as the parents prematurely naming the child or the fact that a penis is more valued than a vagina in our society. Biologically an intersexed baby is perfectly healthy but culturally an intersexed baby is an alien therefore normalization is an important process to all involved, even into adulthood. When a

More about Medical Reconstruction of Gender

Open Document