Tags: intersex

The Difference Blog

Judging gender

Humans make judgements about the perceived gender of other humans so quickly that we are usually not aware of having done it. What factors influence these snap decisions? Ganel et al (2002) suggest that identity and gender are inseparably linked in cognitive facial recognition. This is in contrast to other models that suggest identity and sex are processed in separate pathways; Ganel et al only found these routes separable when gender decisions were based on hairstyle. Kovacs et al (2004) found that exposing male raters to gender-specific steroid scents influenced their gender judgment. Hoss et al (2005) found that attractiveness increased speed and accuracy of both male and female classification of faces by adults. Masculinity facilitated classification of males by both adults and children, but facial femininity did not affect identification of females.

A lack of clarity in this decision may be distinctly unsettling. Krendl et al (2006) found (via fMRI) that amygdala activation was stronger in evaluating transsexual and "unattractive" faces than in evaluating pierced, overweight, or control faces. Baudouin and Gallay (2006) found that raters responded to composite faces of males or females as more "distinctive" than composite faces that were not specifically gendered.


When I was first transitioning, I tried to stop classifying people by gender. This proved to be a lot more difficult than I expected. All I succeeded in doing was being wrong more often, which was enlightening in and of itself. Still, it's upsetting when you realize that the "lesbian" you've been checking out really is a teenaged boy. The only success I've managed on this front is in being less unsettled when I turn out to be wrong. Since I'm very bad at admitting when I'm wrong in other areas of my life, I consider this a major victory.
The Difference Blog

Exceptional

Last month, Pediatrics issued a Consensus Statement on Management of Intersex Disorders, reversing the recommendation to follow psychologist John Money's protocols which recommended early corrective surgery. Cheryl Chase, founder of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA), was pivotal in getting the recommendations changed, according to a New York Times Magazine article sent to Difference Blog by an anonymous reader.

The arguments in favor of early surgery are, as Elizabeth Weil puts it in the NYT article, "tend not to be very rational." Recent research has begun to examine the outcomes of such surgery. Minto et al (2003) found high rates of sexual non-sensuality and inability to achieve orgasm in a group who had received clitoral surgery vs. intersex women who had not had surgery. Thyen et al (2005) in a review for Treatments in Endocrinology, point out that the empirical data on intersex treatment is "sparse." More research is obviously warranted, but the question remains: is it more of an "experiment" to intervene or not to intervene?


The first time I saw an intersex speaker, at the plenary address for the first Transcending Boundaries Conference, I found myself hoping and wishing I would have the opportunity to adopt an intersex child. I fantasized about raising a child without gender, and fighting for the child's right to be gender-free in the school system (which is not what ISNA recommends, by the way). This was mostly because I was already considering transition myself and heady on the ideals of radical gender theory. I also recognize, now, that part of this was a desire to raise a child who had genitals similar to the ones that transition would create in me. How then, can I blame parents who want their children's genitals to resemble their own? The only difference I can see, although it's an important distinction, is that I never wanted to create or modify another human being in my own image, which strikes me as a particularly evil sort of hubris.