This opposite-thinking is binary-thinking. In fact, very young children are taught to identify opposites starting in preschool. They are intersex, their assigned sex often placed somewhere along the middle of the spectrum between the male and female binary.īinary thinking is all around us. Most people have genitalia that appear and are assumed to be male or female, but a lot of people have internal and external genitalia and even chromosomes that do not align with what we have come to call a boy or a girl. Sex is not limited to the male/female binary. For many physical, psychological, and reproductive reasons, there has been and continues to be resistance to these surgeries on intersex babies and children. Recently in the United States, babies would often be subjected to irreversible surgical procedures to “fix” their anatomy and have physical sex characteristics that match the sex assignment chosen by physicians and parents. The Cleveland Clinic reports that about 1 in every 1,000-4,500 babies born present with genitalia that do not fit into the male or female category. Sex assignment at birth and intersex babies In fact, it’s helpful to think about the words male and female as sex assignment and separate from gender and sexuality. The “sex” of a newborn is often determined by observing their genitalia, presuming that external organs that look like a penis and testicles indicate a male baby and external genitalia that look like vulva and labia indicate a female baby. “But that is their gender at a gender reveal party!” you might think, and we would say it isn’t their gender but rather their assigned sex. Explore Georgia lawmakers approve transgender sports bill In fact, gender reveal parties actively gender a baby before they can even thrive on their own outside of the womb. There are infinite examples of this kind of gendering of even the youngest children. There are other gendered messages embedded too, such as a patriarchal relationship where the father is the man of the house, the protector of his princess, and yet probably “soft” when it comes to his “little girl.” It’s probably pink, a color that has become attached to femininity, and a princess is often connected with someone who is perceived as a girl with a gender expression that is feminine. Dylan Brody (left) and Stephanie Jones (right).
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