Broadening My Horizons: What is Intersex? And How Do You Define Family?

My venture into Lane Community College today was an interesting one. Not minutes after being parked, I thought that I would rather drop my classes and go elsewhere...anywhere elsewhere! :) Then, I calmed myself and found my way to my first class (if you get anxious like me always check it out ahead of time), which Barrett and I had scoped out last week. Sociology of Gender...need I say more? Why am I taking this course, you ask? Because it fits the "diversity" requirement course option for entry into Lane's Nursing Program. The class itself it certainly diverse. I no longer feel like I stand out, like I felt at OSU among all the young, pretty college kids. No, there is something representing every group you can think of in this class: minorities, heterosexuals, homosexuals, transgendered folks, old, young, male, female and racial and socioeconomic groups too.  The professor (who I am stuck with...wait, wait privileged to have for both classes!) is a cell phone and laptop Nazi, as in they are not welcome in her class, at all. That's not that big of a deal, while I am an iPhone junkie, and do text a lot, as well as Facebook, blog and check email from my phone, I can live without it for hour and 20 minute chunks...I hear it will be much longer in my CNA class this winter. I will give her this, she is interesting. She gave each group of 4 two separate tasks, tasks we would later discuss ad nauseum to see how gender stereotypes influence our daily lives, and where the stereotypes come from. The tasks were: 1)walk like a man, and 2) sit like a lady. If you have never thought about this, just the terminology used denotes actual meaning to the phrases. Being told to sit like a lady conjures up images of women sitting demurely, legs crossed and hands in lap. But walk like a man does not conjure up just one image. Is it a western, cowboy-like man? A noble businessman? A gangster?  All have different types of walks, so you can see that we have many different takes on what that phrase can mean. Like I said, interesting. 

Our first reading today is about the concept of an individual being intersex. Now, if you have not a clue what that means, welcome to my mind today. I was like "interwhodawhat?" And no, it is not fancy slang for sex on the interstate!  (You know that was funny!). According to my sources, "Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male. This is usually understood to be congenital, involving chromosomal, morphologic, genital and/or gonadal anomalies, such as diversion from typical XX-female or XY-male presentations, e.g., sex reversal (XY female, XX male), genital ambiguity, or sex developmental differences. An intersex individual may have biological characteristics of both the male and the female sexes.^[1][2] Intersexuality as a term was adopted by medicine during the 20th century, and applied to human beings whose biological sex cannot be classified as clearly male or female."
Make sense?  As I understand it, both parts, lack of the biologically appropriate parts or not being able to tell what parts are present. That's my dumbed down version-not that you needed it. I, for one, had heard of hermaphroditic people, but had never really read about it. Apparently if a clitoris is larger or a penis is smaller than the average range, surgeons will recommend surgical alteration to make the child more "normal." If the penis is too small to ever function normally, the baby is altered into being biologically a female. If the clitoris is too large that it doesn't quite look "female" enough, the girl baby is altered to have it cut down (this can lead to inability to orgasm in some cases). Both surgeries can lead to many unanswered questions from the child. I had never really known about this topic, and hopefully that isn't TMI for my readers, but it is interesting, and here is a website that explains the issue better than I can: What is Intersex?

Then, after a quick lunchtime visit with my love (he did get to come out today!), I headed to Sociology of Marriage and the Family. Same instructor, same room, same interesting first class. We were handed crayons and paper and told (with no further directions) to draw our family. I happily drew a clan of stick figure people and pets. Then, we were asked to share. I volunteered, thinking I represent a fairly "modern" family.  "I'm Sarah, here in the pink dress, and this is my husband. These are my two sons with my ex-husband  here (pointing to his stick figure), and this is his wife, her daughter and their daughter. These are my parents." My instructor raises her eyebrow, "And you all get along?" "Usually quite well," I reply. A bunch of raised eyebrows and murmurs. "Well that is certainly not the norm," she says, "good for you." I felt like someone on the Jerry Springer show, and she wasn't mean, just honest. I wanted to retort, "well it should be!" but I didn't. Two students later I am followed by a woman who says, "This is me, my two daughters, my boyfriend and over here in the corner is my ex-husband and his new whore. He's in the picture because I'm stuck with them (nice literal and figurative meaning there!)." To that the class responded with nods and smiles. Really? I get it. I really do. It is much more normal to be in that boat and hate your ex and their new love, but...anyway. That was my first day of school.