Misfortune and Intersex Births

Through our discussion in class, I began to think of the ways in which Rose’s life in Misfortune has parallels to what has occurred more recently when children are born with an indeterminate sex, termed as “intersex.” When this happens, the common practice among doctors has been to quickly perform surgery on the baby’s genitalia in order to make the infant visually male or female. This procedure was experimental, the long-term results of which were never observed. It’s quite easy to see how problems can arise later in life if the baby’s biological sex does not match its physical appearance.

I should clarify in regards to where I am drawing my parallels. Clearly, Rose was not born with ambiguous genitalia. She is physiologically and biologically male. The similarity between Rose and intersexed babies lies in the consequences of raising a physiologically male baby as female like Rose was raised (and vice versa), and the psychological effects that this can have later in life. Though the evidence is anecdotal, according to this article from Slate, the gender confusion that results from raising a baby as the opposite sex from what they are biologically (gender confusion: a consequence in itself) can lead to “rage at the destruction of sexual function, to conflicts in school and relationships, to depression and attempts at suicide.”

In the chapter from Understanding Human Sexuality which was passed out in class, we see a real example of this anger manifesting itself. The baby in question, Chris, was born with XY chromosomes, making her biologically male. Due to her malformed genitals however, which were halfway between the length of an average newborn’s clitoris and the length of an average newborn’s penis, the doctors decided to surgically give the baby female parts. In the text we learn that at 27 years old she felt anger at what she considered to be a mutilation of her genitals.

In Rose’s discovery of her true sex we see how her reaction could be similar to that of a person of intersexed birth who was given the wrong sex. “I wasn’t a woman, but I wasn’t yet a man…I hated myself.” She later claws at her genitals in self-loathing. In addition to this, I think it is safe to assume that Rose’s illness immediately following her self-discovery was psychosomatic. Unlike Chris, Rose’s genitals remained intact, and this obviously makes her case different.

I think that where Chris’s dilemma probably stems from both the physical harm done to her body and the resulting confusion, Rose’s stems (no pun intended) from the psychological harm done to her. Where they are alike is that as infants, neither Chris nor Rose was given a choice in the determination of their gender. The ensuing damage comes from the incorrectness of the gender they were given and the way in which this determination made both infants begin their lives with a certain disempowerment.

This makes me think about what Judith Butler says in Gender Trouble regarding the “unnaturalness” of gender. If she is correct, perhaps Chris and Rose shouldn’t feel angry for being raised as the opposite sex since, according to Butler, both determinations of gender would be incorrect. But I think I’ll save opening that can of worms for another time.