Beyond Norms: Acceptance Of Intersex People
Our society tends to turn our social norms into unarguable, individual truths. The role LGBTQ activists have played in our society has been to challenge these norms. A polarizing topic in these challenges of norms is that there are two mutually exclusive sexes, male and female. Males are defined as man, XY, masculine. Females are defined as women, XX and feminine. The large-scale grouping of these traits is how society has problematically viewed individuals for decades. This has such far reaching effects from gender specific toys and clothes to infant genital mutilation. I believe that the simple recognition of intersex people existing would be a progressive move in dismantling the binary sex concept. The idea of only two sexes derives from the physical form, and is made concrete through chromosomal science. There is not as large of a social outcry for deviation in sex. It is more focused on gender. Before this class I would have agreed that gender may be a social construct, created by society and upheld in society, but sex was not. Sex is determined by the sciences and no matter the gender you identified as, you were either born male or female.
The first person to challenge this stance for me was Hanne Gaby Odiele, a Belgian supermodel who is openly intersex, meaning a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn't fit the typical definitions of female or male. Intersex wasn’t something I disagreed with ideologically, I was just completely ignorant on the topic. An undeniable 3rd sex was the ultimate bomb dropped on all of my perceptions about gender and sex. Growing up in America, with the church specifically, all the arguments were about right and wrong, with questions being raised such as: Is it immoral for a man to have sex with a man? Should women have the right to terminate pregnancy? These arguments don’t shame intersex people, it just completely leaves them out. Without going into the doctrine of the Catholic church, the closest they have come to taking a stance is their definition of transsexuality: "A psychic disorder of those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the opposite sex". The church is very careful about the semantics used in these texts and I believe they specifically left out those whose sex is medically ambiguous. Instead of using the medical proof of intersex people to make a progressive statement that doesn’t contradict the Bible’s teachings, the church simply ignores it. LGBTQ activists and Christians tend to be at opposite ideological ends on any social issue worth debating. I believe that the acceptance of intersex people existing would be a progressive stance for the church that can only be brought through LGBTQ activists challenging the two opposite sexes concept.
Evolving Catholicism is a potential future event that LGBTQ activist could have created by challenging the two opposite sexes norm. One much more drastic event that is enforced by the two sexes concept is infant genital mutilation. Stemming from a lack of understanding of intersex, new born children go under tremendous, sometimes life threatening, surgery to “correct” their genitals. Whether people want the surgery to give their kid a potentially normal life or they don’t, it is a topic that needs to be discussed so people are informed that a perfectly healthy child can be intersex and not need a mutilating surgery. Less individual and more social effects of two opposite genders concept is the specific gendered toys and clothes for children. The belief is all girls are innately feminine, wear pink and play with dolls, masculine boys wear blue and play with guns or action figures. Leaving alone the commonalities of dolls and action figures… people's conflation of gender and sex leads them to believe that there are only two sexes. If you don’t fit your genders stereotypes, you are labeled as weird or the opposite sex, just by deviating from the norm. It’s not fair to make any assumptions about someone’s gender or sex, let alone a child, simply because a boy has a proclivity for the feminine or a girl to the masculine. The institutionalized concept of pushing children into these gender boxes at birth leads to any deviation from the assigned sex of that child, being met with opposition. The extent of the opposition has often led to abuse, homicide and even child suicide.
Self-reflection is a necessary step in the process of self-awareness. It helps focus you on things that are not the important daily tasks, but the socially intangible. This class introduced topics that were not necessarily foreign, but uncomfortable enough to not be constantly on my mind. I will analyze my life as it relates to concepts like stereotypes, oppression, gender inequality and intersectionality. Some groups of people may have more stereotypes attached to them than others, mainly minority groups. However, there is not a group of people on earth that are immune to over-generalized beliefs about their particular category. The overgeneralization is what causes the plights associated with stereotyping because it makes people assume the stereotype is true for the individual. I, a white, cisgender, middleclass man, am at the top of the privilege hierarchy. I still suffer from stereotyping. Either I am a: long hair, hipster, millennial, liberal, pot head, brainwashed, college student. Or, a white, middle class, racist, gun touting, Trump loving, conservative. No matter how many privileges I have as a straight, white man in America, it cannot stop the hate received from people assuming how I act based on how I look. Stereotyping is part of the ladder to systems of oppression. Oppression is prolonged cruel or systematic unjust treatment or control. We assign these treatment’s names, such as classism, racism and sexism. These were all born from stereotypes and a social structure so complex, so subtle, we allow them to get lost in our daily routines and lose sight of them. This can lead to internalized oppression. “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” wrote Steve Biko, one of South Africa’s most prominent anti-apartheid activists. Once they are internalized their validity stops being questioned. This allows the one who internalized it to believe and act on the oppression.
An example that reflects my reality is most of the women in my family, who vote for republican men. Voting to give your gender less freedom and less opportunity because of your skewed view of equality can only stem from internalizing your own oppression. Internalized oppression has a place in expanding the gender inequality gap. In our country, and most of the world, women are treated worse than men. Yet the right-wing women I have spoken to, would say they are content with the rights. The same if you went to an uncivilized, oppressive country. Women who have almost no rights are brainwashed by their internalized oppression to believe their poor standard of living under the patriarchy is okay. Even though republicans don’t recognize gender inequality, a lot of women are voting for them due to their internalized oppression. The internalized oppression of women leads to them becoming complicit in the gender inequality gap, which leads to greater internalized oppression, which leads to a greater gap. This is a pyridoxal example of interlocking systems of power impacting those who are most marginalized in society, known as, intersectionality. The best way to prove the effects of internalized oppression pertaining to the gender inequality gap is showing the parallel between: Americas inequality and how some women think it’s fine, to a third world country that, by our American standards, completely abuses women, and those women being complicit with it. You are performing the same act of compliancy at different levels of intensity, not fighting back therefore becoming complacent and blind to your inequality.
Being a white, cisgender, Christian man, I am the epitome of privilege and being blind to it. Born as part of the majority, I have an innate advantage in society from the privileges assigned to me at birth. I receive male privilege that relates to social norms, harassment and relationships. Being born into the racial majority also has its privileges, such as Law Enforcement being predominantly my race, positive media portrayal, and redlining, a very blatant form of white privilege. Male privilege and white privilege can be explained through the mythical norm. Audra Lord coined the term mythical norm stating, “America’s mythical norm includes those in society who are “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure”. There are many social norms that enforce the mythical norm by positively serving men and negatively effecting women. Pertaining to male privilege, this can extend from not being shamed for “going against human instinct, ” by not having kids to lack of expected grooming of body hair. Sex and relationships also attribute to male privilege. Men are allowed and expected to have as much sex as possible. If women do the same, they viewed as slutty or unclean. If women do not want to have sex, they are seen as a prude. Men are not told that their sexuality exists only for other people, women are. Men can express their sexuality music or art without the accusation of using your body for advantage. Men are given Viagra as they get older to make is easier to have sex. Women are less supported to be sexual as they age, being told things relating to their potential child baring, or lack thereof. Harassment and violence also have their place in gender bias.
An American national survey found 65% of all women experienced harassment on the street while only 25% of men (higher for men identifying as LGBTQ) do. The study also states men are less likely to be stalked, raped, victim of revenge porn and partner violence, all due to being born with a phallus. White privilege is often tied intersectional-y to male privilege. Having the law enforcement population be primarily my race gives me privileges like, not getting harassed for my skin color and getting guaranteed fair treatment from lack of discrimination. In America, being certain you are not discriminated against in legal matters because of your skin color is not something any race is guaranteed, except the white race.
The purest example of white privilege is redlining for housing. Back in the early 30’s, there were literal maps with areas highlighted in red to mark “hazardous” locations that contained minorities. These locations would have loans that were extremely expensive to make it more difficult for minority groups to buy houses. Because homeownership is the best way to accumulate wealth, the effect of redlining laid the groundwork to contain the impoverished groups to specific areas, restricting there means of leaving and wealth. Redlining was banned 50 years ago and the effects can still be seen today. White people didn’t have to worry about redlining and now don’t feel the institutionalized effects from it. The last example of white privilege is how race is viewed in the media. Tamir Rice was a black, 12-year-old kid fatally shot for having a toy gun. Nikolas Cruz was a 19-year-old, who killed 17 people. Rice was depicted as being a grown man because he was tall for a 12-year-old, Cruz was described as a broken student. Having immediate sympathy for any allegation solely due to skin color is a privilege that no race experiences except white.
