Blog #5 - Kessler

In her article, The Medical Construction of Gender, Suzanne Kessler reveals the inherent problems associated with sex assignments for children born with ambiguous genitalia. A major issue that Kessler addresses is the belief that intersex children are not born with a gender and therefore need to be altered to become either a male or a female. The option of a third gender is unacceptable to society, and therefore all children born neither male nor female are considered abnormal and deformed. Kessler argues that hermaphrodites are neither male nor female, but a separate, third gender category. Because society only recognizes two genders (male and female), doctors and parents of intersex infants strive to “correct” their children by unnaturally molding them to fit into one of the two acceptable gender categories. Society’s gender dichotomy is reinforced by the medical community, because they view hermaphroditism as a deformity that needs to be corrected through surgical reconstruction. Kessler makes the strong point that, “Accepting genital ambiguity as a natural option would require physicians also to acknowledge that genital ambiguity is corrected not because it is threatening to the infant’s life but because it is threatening to the infant’s culture.”

Societal factors greatly impact the sex assignment of hermaphroditic children. One of the main factors in deciding the gender of an intersexed child is the appearance and function of the genitalia. “Doctors today schooled in the treatment of the various intersex syndromes, view decisions based primarily on chromosomes or gonads as wrong… and that decisions based primarily based on phallic size, shape and sexual capacity are right.” According to Kessler, the appearance of the genitals are so important to the child’s ultimate sex assignment, because if the child looks “normal” than they will be more accepted by society. Kessler also stressed the affects of our patriarchal system on sex assignment. In most cases a child is constructed into a male if he has an average functional penis. If the child has a smaller than average, or inadequate penis, then their genitals are constructed to look and function like a vagina. “A good penis equals male; absence of a good penis equals female.” Essentially, the goal of gender assignment is to create and individual that is capable of engaging in heterosexual sex. So males are created if they have a sufficient penis, and females are created to accommodate an average sized penis.