Middle Sexes: Redefining He and She

This documentary expresses both gender and sexual identities as being something biologically and naturally defined, opposed to something that is chosen.  Variation among identifications were portrayed as something positive, and demonstrated that all types of people deserved to be respected equally, no matter what their differences are, even when society hasn’t followed that construction.  One line in the movie that really tied this thought together was, “ Biology loves variation, but society hates it.” This quote really depicted how biology is construed of variety of things, but society has been the one to put negative connotations onto something that is naturally defined.

An argument that I found to strongly support this was the story of Noah, an eight-year-old boy who physically is a male, but takes on feminine tendencies such as dancing, dressing up, wearing girl clothes.  At a young age, Noah is confident in being who he is, and although his parents have tried to discourage his behaviors, they also did nothing to rear him in a feminine manner, making his identification quite natural. During this documentary, Noah is questioned about how the way kids treat him at school, and he says they ask a lot of questions and sometimes he gets tired of people asking him the same questions, such as, “Are you a girl or boy?”  This reminded me of the clip, “Reteaching Gender and Sexuality,” in which young individuals express how they are “so over” getting asked these reoccurring question.

  Noah’s story also reminded me of the article,  Cisgender Privilege Checklist, that defines all of the privileges somebody who identifies as cisgender receives, such as, “ 2. I can be confident that people will not call me by a different name or use improper pronouns.” People just like Noah won’t always have the same privileges as cisgender individuals, which is something Noah never chose for himself, that’s something that was naturally taken away from him, but he is happy with the way he is nonetheless

Another example of natural intersexuality is the story of Max, who was born as a female named Judy with indistinct genitalia, which led to identification confusion throughout life, and made Judy feel like an outcast.  After being in a strong relationship with another woman, Judy finally decided that the label of “female” did not necessarily pertain to him, resulting in him changing into Max, where he became much more comfortable and happy with his identification.  His story shows that an individual does not always fall in the distinct black and white categories of male and female, and there is quite a variation of possibilities as shown in Anne Fausto- Sterling’s article about the five sexes. The title alone, The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough, shows that two categories are not specific enough to define a persons’ gender identity. Both the movie and this article show that there are biologically multiple variations to the XY(men) and XX(woman) gender categories, and that there shouldn’t be limitations to having just two genders.

The only argument I didn’t find convincing in this documentary was when it was describing animals and their sexual habits.  I feel like animals are always brought into human biology, even when our behaviors and characteristics are different.  It was focuses a lot on pleasure and I didn’t think the natural sexual tendencies of animals helped explain the natural biological tendencies of how an individual identifies as.

This documentary relates to our course in various different ways.  The individuals in this documentary show anybody who identifies outside of a male and female label are considered deviant.  The different stories from all around the world also show that each place holds different societal values, where it can be considered deviant in one setting, it can be valued as beautiful in another.

            Something that stood out to me was the traditions of the Katoi and how socially they were accepted. I would like to study the social constructions around why the Katoi are so well accepted, and why other cultures believe differently. I would like to gather information from individuals about their views and values of intersex from both outside sources, to people who are involved in viewing or taking part in being a Katoi, and see how the social constructions differ from each perspective.

Word Count: 715

Works Cited:

Fausto-Sterling, Anne. "The Five Sexes: Why Male and Female Are Not Enough." The Sciences March/April (1993): 20-25. Print.