I just got home from my elective, where we had three poster presentations, one of which was mine and Bridgette's! Our presentation was about trying to change the medical standard of care so that sex assignment surgeries are not performed on intersex babies immediately after birth. I really enjoyed researching this project and in the process came upon the beautiful website for the Intersex Society of North America, whose positions I have now enthusiastically adopted. They basically say that doctors should be completely forthcoming with parents, immediate emotional support and counseling should be available to the family, medical testing should be done to attempt to determine the underlying cause of ambiguous genitalia, (this is because some causes raise associated medical concerns AND because for some of the underlying causes, the vast majority of children will identify as girls while for others they will more likely come to identify as boys) and finally, the parents should use all available information to assign a gender, either boy or girl, to the child, and no surgery should be performed until the child is old enough to make an informed decision about it. The ISNA specifically advocates that parents assign a gender to their child, and not raise the child as a third gender. One of their reasons for this is that they feel to raise children in this way isolates them while at the same time making it seem like male and female are fixed categories, and intersex is a fixed third category. On their FAQ page they include this amazing section:

Why Doesn't ISNA Want to Eradicate Gender?

We’re often asked why ISNA doesn’t forcefully advocate for a genderless society. Many times, these questions come from people with a genuine interest in gender studies and educating people about intersex. The truth is that we share lots of common ground with people in the humanities and/or activist communities who have fought long and hard to insure that the voices of marginalized people are heard.

When women of color told feminists that their lives weren’t reflected in theories that assumed white experience to be universal, scholars listened. When queer people came forward to say that theories of gender that neglected sexuality often fell short of capturing the realities of their lives, scholars listened. Without a doubt, scholars have a rich history of taking the voices of marginalized people seriously and changing their theories and practices accordingly, and now ISNA asks that scholars listen to what people with intersex conditions have to say—even if it might not be what they’d like to hear.

The whole website is so heartfelt and articulate - I love it. I think our presentation went very well - people seemed interested and asked a lot of great questions. It was the highlight of an already good day. The other presentations were very interesting, too. One was about legal and economic issues around surrogacy and another was about the history of forced sterilization in the United States. Such a good way to spend the evening!

I have also been a hat knitting machine! I am on number three in as many weeks!