A Child Called X

That's a cute story. Its also makes me wonder, how hard is it going to be to raise a child in a society full of gender sterotypes? Although my boyfriend and I have decided to wait until the baby is born to find out its gender, the first question everyone asks us is which gender it is and which gender we want. I always wonder, what if its both? What if we have a hermaphrodite baby? Everyone just says "that would be horrible!"...and I wonder why. Sure some hermaphrodite babies do have really bad health problems and some are sterile, but most lead perfectly normal lives. I want my child to be whatever they want to be, not what other people think they should be because they are male or female. Luckily, my sister is a good influence in this. She has totally embraced her sons playing with dolls and being obsessed with fashion. She has embraced her daughter playing basketball. Unfortunately no-one can prevent the outside influences her children have experienced.

Just to be sure anyone knows.

"Hermaphrodite" is actually a really biased, incorrect term no longer in use, because it's so inaccurate. It's not with some species, mainly invertebrates, but isn't accurate for humans (and we have Freud to thank for that poor assignment). It's namely the porn industry who still uses that term, for likely obvious reasons of not being concerned with accuracy and bias.

Some people are born intersexed, and some people are born with ambiguous genitalia. You appear to be talking about intersex here, Brooke, and yep, intersexed people tend to be as healthy as anyone else (and one intersexed friend of ours is happy as heck he's sterile: makes for easy birth control for him!). Sometimes those things intersect, sometimes they don't. Here's some more info for those with interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersexuality.

That aside, awesome things you're both bringing up here.

I loved that story. It was so cute.

Also, about the intersex thing-- most people who have an intersex condition live as one gender or the other, not in a "Baby X" situation. Their physical sex may be ambiguous, but it does not necessarily determine their gender expression or identity.

Another great site about intersexuality is http://www.isna.org , the Intersex Society of North America.

I recently met an intersex person at the leadership intstitute I attended this past month. It was an amazing thing. S/he truly lived in a "Baby X" situtation, and was proud of it. Sleeping in the girls' cabin, using the men's restroom, identifying as both male and female or as neither in our activities. It was an eye-opening experience.

And as for the term "hermaphrodite." There certainly has been some inaccuracy dealing with that term, true. But some people are perfectly comfortable with labeling themselves as such, incorrectly or not. Etymology is still evolving, but it's not so much what the words mean or their derivatives as the essence of the word. Hermaphrodite, intersex, whichever you choose. It's not so different than labeling yourself human or primate.

oh, that was a charming story! thanks for the tip.

one of my favorite fictional treatments of intersexuality & gendered behavior is "the left hand of darkness" by ursula k. le guin, written in 1969. in many ways it's actually terribly, irretrievably flawed -- but for that very reason, very interesting to read. you can practically feel the author wrestling with her ideas on the page. in the years since, she's written several follow-up essays examining the story and interrogating her own choices with reference to characterization and language. wonderful stuff.

I guess this is one case where being sterile you could be happy about it. Unless your trying to have a baby. I wonder how those london escorts would feel about it if you told them you were sterile but you should still use protection regardless

I dont believe London escorts would care.