Relationships Between Sex and Gender - Essay Example

(Collage) Sex and Gender Throughout history, it has always been assumed that a person should occupy only one type of gender. This is being either a male or a female. People from each gender behave differently from one another as expected especially in terms of sexual structure. If it happens that a person is born with a reproduction system that cannot be clearly defined as either being male or female, then that condition is referred to as intersex. This is the definition offered by the Intersex Society of North America.

Bonnie Sullivan was born Brian Sullivan but had to undergo genital surgery to rectify what the doctors referred to as sexual ambiguity. The parents had to relocate to a new location so that the child who was two years old at the time could start a new life afresh as a girl. What Bonnie did not understand is why her body wasn’t changing like the rest of the girls. That is when she started digging up her medical past looking for answers. She came to realize that she was born intersex and surgery had been performed on her to reshape her genitalia.

She further explains that through biological research, it is possible for a female to have ‘Y’ chromosomes and still be female, the reason why the International Olympic Committee suspended the testing of chromosomes on female athletes back in 2000. Nyong’o (2010) “Caster Semenya returned to a hero’s welcome in her native South Africa, where the public denounced the ‘gender testing’ she was forced to undergo” In the movie Orchids: My Intersex adventure, Phoebe Hart is on a road trip all across Australia looking for other Intersex individuals to share their story and experiences they have encountered and what sort of challenges they go through every day with their condition.

Phoebe as a child had to be removed her testicles and her genitalia restructured surgically to make her a girl. Towards her teen period, she noticed that she could not menstruate like other girls. Her mother bluntly explained she would never menstruate since her uterus had been removed. Phoebe, therefore, decided to highlight the plight of other intersex individuals through this documentary film. She wishes her parents would have given her a chance as an adult to make this decision (genital surgery) instead of making it for her.

Different reactions were drawn from Caster Semenya’s participation in Berlin athletics where she had won in the 800 meters. People openly claimed she was male and had no regard whatsoever for either her feelings or mental stress. This is an instance of how people disregard the emotions of people they consider to be ‘sexually abnormal’ like Saartije Baartman or even Sewally and torment their consciousness regardless. It could be a reason why children are undertaking genital surgery to correct this ‘problem’.

Ian (2009) pg286 states that ‘Several had experienced either diminished or extinguished genital sensation following surgery for intersex’. Genital surgery, therefore, affects their genitals in that they cannot perform sexually, therefore, causing a lack of children. When we look keenly into all the above situations, we can authoritatively note that intersex individuals are not happy with the genital surgery they have undergone. It is like society is trying to cover up the existence of inters exists.

Guterman (2012) “…these perhaps well-intentioned doctors are blatantly violating their patients’ rights and in some areas the law”. They are affected by genital surgeries even in their adult life since they cannot have children or enjoy sex due to a lack of stimuli or dead nerves. Jones (2013) states a conservative will try to conserve traditions’ in reference to someone either being male or female. There is a comprehensive need to identify the existence of intersex individuals maybe as a third gender and try to accommodate them in our society rather than pushing them to belong to one side of the gender.