Living an intersex life — CBS Sunday Morning, 2023, 8:38 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoWkhvd8IBg

Intersex is an umbrella term for bodies that are not exclusively male or female (there are a variety of specific intersex conditions). There are millions of intersex individuals in our society, and intersex people have existed throughout history. Yet, in the Twentieth Century, intersex became medicalized due to improved medical technology, the rising influence of the medical profession, and societal fears of homosexuality. Many intersex infants are subjected to “corrective surgery” in attempts to align their bodies towards one sex or the other. Most of these surgeries are purely cosmetic (i.e., medically unnecessary), and they can result in scarring, chronic pain, an inability to experience sexual pleasure, later in life, and various other medical complications. Moreover, doctors and parents may select the wrong sex category for the intersex individual. This is why intersex activists have long campaigned to stop these surgeries, encouraging doctors and parents to embrace the natural development of intersex bodies. This will allow an intersex person to opt for medical intervention in the future, if they so choose.

It may be interesting to have students explore this map of gender diverse cultures: MAP LINK. One lesson is that many societies have traditionally accommodated (even celebrated) intersex individuals rather than problematizing them.

From the video’s description: According to statistics cited by the U.N., .05 to 1.7 percent of the world's population is intersex, defined as having external or internal sexual organs that are not clearly male or female. As a matter of course, doctors in the past performed surgery on babies, ostensibly so that they would live a "normal" life. Correspondent Erin Moriarty talks with Pidgeon Pagonis (who was born looking female on the outside but also with testes and XY chromosomes) about Pagonis' memoir, "Nobody Needs to Know"; with professor Elizabeth Reis, author of "Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex"; and with urologist Dr. Ilene Wong, who believes the medical community has failed intersex patients.