REFLECTION PAPER

The students will watch the documentary "Secret Intersex: Neither Boy nor Girl (Medical
Documentary) from Real Stories" and will write a reflection paper using the following questions:

 Describe the experiences of the intersexed child or person and does these experiences
shaped their lives?
 Based on your readings, (study guide #4 or Anne Fausto-Sterling: Five Sexes Revisited)
what are your thoughts regarding sexual reassignment to the intersexed child?

“Nothing is impossible”. We know that everyone in this world is vary. We are different in races,
cultures, traditions, beliefs and being. We viewed sex as female who has a vagina while male has penis.
In the first place, sex has two faces the male and female, but how if there is more? And this, they called
INTERSEX.

According to Secret Intersex: Neither Boy nor Girl (Medical Documentary) | Real Stories, every
year in the UK, 2,000 babies are born with ambiguous genitalia. Secret Intersex explores what it means to
be born genderless by following a range of intersex cases: couples who have given birth to children with
ambiguous genitalia and must decide, with a doctor’s help, on the gender of their child; a teenage girl
who has lived with a penis structure for 15 years and is only now embarking on treatment; and an adult
female who is still coming to terms with her gender after years of living as a male. People who known as
Intersex are do not know their sex neither boy nor girl or genderless. They said that they are not complete
unknowingly their given sex at birth. This perhaps pointing out that “Life is complicated without sex”.
Some people who is Intersex are looks or has a feature of a girl or boy but moves or acts differently with
their features because they are born with ambiguous genitalia. Certain babies live in hospital in their
childhood days to treat their problems and to complete their being. Some are still conscious within their
self, their sex. They describe their self as different and they live in this world uncomplete. But all I can
say is, they are strong. Strong to face enough their difficulties and doing their best to conquer this. Several
parents must decide the gender for their babies, and some are just letting their child what they like and
want gender. One mother said that she did not says the truth in having this kind of condition for not
leading in abortion. Parents are always parents. They are always there to love, care and guide you with or
without some condition.

In my opinion, I don’t agree for sexual reassignment to the intersexed child. Children should be
accept for who they are and should be love regardless their being. They are gift from God. According to
Sterling, the gender assignment surgery rather than not correcting ambiguous genitals is what causes the
psychological problems that the doctors described. This can be harm and can give trauma, psychological
problems, and emotional distress. The parent of the intersexed child should be the one to guide the child
for their chosen gender for the genderless child. From that time, the child can be choose if he/she will
undergo surgery. At least the parents can do is accept, love, guide and always be there from their queries
in some aspects that can bring light from darkness. Always remember what Suzanne J. Kessler states, “In
the everyday world, gender attributions are made without access to genital inspection…what has
primacy in everyday life is the gender that is performed, regardless of the flesh’s configuration
under the clothes”.