Anne Fasuto-Sterling begins her chapter, “That Sexe Which Prevaileth”, begins by discussing how when a child is born with both male and female sexual parts, the doctors and parents can make a decision and conduct a surgery on the spot, which chooses a particular sex for the child. She mentions that this allows the parents to choose a lifestyle for their child. They are now able to pick a color for the nursery, and make plans for their child as to which activities they will partake in.
I had a major problem with this. While in our society gender is an important identifying agent, which is used in every aspect of life, raising a child to be a particular gender may not be up to the parents. Although living a life having both male and female qualities would lead to an extremely difficult upbringing, what if the parent chose the wrong sex? I cannot imagine being a parent having to choose if they wanted a boy or a girl, but it must be one of the hardest decisions one must have to make. Choosing a sex for a child leads to choosing the color of their room, what they wear, what activities they partake in, and in the end, it could all be wrong.
This leads me to think about the first chapter of Sexing the Bodywhere we separated gender and sex. In today’s society they have become more separate and we have accepted that one’s sex does not match their gender and that is becoming more and more acceptable. But it is hard to look at sex the way we look at gender because in our minds there is a boy and there is a girl. Can we or should we create a third gender? Should there be a box on an application for those who are both/neither to check off? It is a hard question to answer.
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