Intersexion

Intersex people are not the rarity that many think they are. I was startled to learn this when pregnant with my youngest daughter. I read the novel Middlesex, which sent me on a likely hormonally fuelled wormhole of research into intersex individuals. What if my child was born intersex? What, if anything, would the medical establishment, want me to do?

I was horrified to learn that it is still common practice in North America, and many other parts of the world to do invasive, dangerous, and clinically unnecessary surgeries on infants and young children to assign gender long before they are capable of expressing their wishes. I was horrified to learn that frightened and well-intentioned parents are still being pressured to assign a gender to infants and young children who cannot reasonably assign a gender to themselves. I was even more horrified to learn how older children and adolescents are treated by the medical community; often having their genitals exposed and poked and prodded, simply out of curiosity under the guise of education which to me is dehumanizing and tantamount to sexual assault masquerading as science. All of these things are touched on in this documentary This is not uncommon. It is very frequent that babies are born with ambiguous genitalia, or genitalia that seems to fit one gender, but internal sexual organs of the other often not discovered until puberty or even later. I have heard statistics ranging from 1 in every 2000 to 1 in every 5000 babies born. That is a significant portion of our population. Given the staggeringly high statistics, I think it is very unlikely that any one of us does not know someone who was born somewhere on the intersex spectrum. But it is not spoken of. We do not hear about them. We do not hear from them. And that to me is tremendously sad.

So this documentary was a breath of fresh air. Intersex individuals telling their own unique stories in their own words. With everyone feeling they are so "woke" when it comes to gender identity and sexual orientation, this is the one area that seems to be missing. These individuals have very little representation in popular media. They are rarely discussed at all. Everyone deserves a voice. Everyone's story is individual and valid. I am thankful that this documentary was made to help educate myself and others about this diverse group of individuals who have very sadly been overlooked for far too long.

Doing gender assignment surgery on a 3 month old? I mean seriously. I don't remember even considering my gender until I was about 8 or 9 years old. You were just as likely to see me playing with cars in the dirt as dressing my barbies in the clothes my mom used to sew for them. I was very aggravated when she told me I had to start wearing a bra. And we still do this. Reduce a person to their genitalia. God forgive us.

Genital mutilation is horrific and still practiced in the US and many countries.

Parents and doctors love hacking parts of babies genitals off, and it hurts and scars people for life, literally.

The candid stories from the intersex people that are interviewed are incredibly interesting and traumatic. Stop forcing infants to get gender surgeries, circumcisions, ear piercings, etc.

These mutilations need to stop.

See above. Probably the hardest thing to watch I've ever seen. Really important to see though, I'm grateful I did.