Let me take a cue from my fellow COM101 group mate, Sery. Last week on her blog she spoke about Caster Semenya, an 18 year old athlete from South Africa who is an intersex person – (formerly known as hermaphrodites).
Yesterday on CNN.com, there was Hida Viloria and she like, Caster Semenya, is an intersex person as well as an activist for intersex people.
Viloria grew up being raised and labelled a female. She grew up in a strict Catholic home, where no one spoke about nudity or sex and so she grew up perceiving that she was just like everyone else. Her parents never sent her to have any sort of ‘corrective’ surgeries and/or hormone treatments as an infants because her father knew that unless absolutely necessary, that such an operation shouldn’t be done on an infant.
“I’d already learned that people can be prejudiced against things they’re unfamiliar with, or are taught to dislike, and that we shouldn’t take on their bigotry.”
’On April 19, 2002, I appeared on the television news program “20/20″ with a prominent urologist and “expert” on intersex conditions. When asked why he supported “corrective surgeries” he answered, “Society can’t accept people of different colors, and now we’re supposed to accept somebody with genitalia that don’t match what their gender is? I do not believe this society is ready for it.”
Intersex folks are not some new invention that people need to be “ready for:” we exist and always have. Resistance to accepting us has created the mess that Semenya now finds herself in. If medicine had been more upfront about intersex conditions rather than pretending they’re just male and female as usual, they could have avoided ruining the career of some athletes.
Whichever condition Caster Semenya has, she shouldn’t be made to suffer for others’ mistakes. Since infancy, she’s been legally labeled, raised, and accepted as female. To be told that she can’t compete as one now would be like being a U.S. citizen all your life, but being suddenly denied a passport because somebody decided that the city you were born in is actually, sorry, on the wrong side of the border.’
Speaking only for myself, I feel that what Viloria says about ‘Intersex folks are not some new invention that people need to be “ready for” ‘ and that they have existed all along, is very true. We just have not been aware of them and this is not something people go around publicizing about themselves in public. How does humanity prepare ourselves for something such as this?
Our perception of the norm is so strongly influenced by the mass media and society that anyone who doesn’t fit our idea of the norm, gets a stare or a raised eyebrow. But who decides who or what is the norm? What if, it turns out that the number of intersex people is more then the rest of us?
I am sad to hear that the prominent urologist and “expert” on intersex conditions still believes that ”Society can’t accept people of different colors.” Yes, maybe there are still parts of the world that cannot accept people of different color but it makes me think of all the hard work & sacrifice that Martin Luther King, Jr & Rose Parks made to gain equality for colored people in the mid 60s. I would like to think or believe that the majority of society has accepted people of different colors and it is only the minority that is stuck in the 60s.
Are our mental framework so rigid that there can never be total equality?
Will we as human beings finally be able to accept people for who they are and not what they are?
I guess I have more questions then anything else, eh?
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/18/hida.viloria.intersex.athlete/index.html
September 29, 2009 at 2:40 pm |
Hmmm… I’m totally cool with being one if not for the fact that you cannot reproduce. You’re assured to be attractive. I’ve read that somewhere before. Majority of them grow up to be attractive. Although supposedly at a certain age depending on their sexuality they get to choose which sexual organ to get rid.
On this note, I remember somewhere that i quote “the perfect female is a male”. Biologically speaking. The science behind it I am not so sure about. Still… I think trannies worship them. To get to choose your sex? Trannies had to make so many alterations and expensive treatments to become what they are and a majority of them don’t turn out ideal if you know what i mean.
September 29, 2009 at 4:24 pm |
seriously….. u have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time on your hands to be thinking about stuff like that.
Hmmm…… but now that you’ve mentioned it….. if you could pick, of course considering that you were hermaphrodite, which would you pick?
But hey on the note of Trannies…. most of us girls worship them….. some of them have bodies to die for….. they put us women to shame some times….
September 30, 2009 at 6:21 am |
WTH is that supposed to mean! hahaha i’m a male by default of course i’ll pick my male parts if i were one. LOL. Hermaphrodites are more assured of attractiveness than trannies. So the one with the higher probability is a better option i think. Plus much less invasive surgical procedures to deal with. If a tranny picked the wrong surgeon look what kinda future she has ahead of her.
October 21, 2009 at 6:01 pm |
In society, people are always very judegmental and being a normal female or male is already hard enough let alone being a hermaphrodite. Society do not look kindly on what they perceive to be beyond the norm so unless some miracle happen whereby we become some sort of utopian society, then being a hermaphrodite is not going to be easy as you will always be deem to be “abnormal” in the eyes of society even if it is of no fault of yours.
October 22, 2009 at 2:00 pm |
It is so true that being physically a normal female and male is already hard enough much less being a hermaphrodite. But I do admire those of them who can come out and go against the current and be who they are outside their sanctuary.
You know, we use to perceive the little people and blacks with prejudice but now, they are tolerate and as I would like to believe, accepted by most people. To some extent I would like to believe that shows like ‘Little People Big World’ help alot of us to understand and realize that little people are just as normal and the same as us.
And as of 2009, Barack Obama became the first black president of the US of A, so it is a HUGE step in equality for races.
I do hope that in time, even hermaphrodites get the same equal rights as everyone else.