Intersexed Patients

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14459843

I thought this article was relevant to Preves's discussion of intersexed individuals, and a good example of its continued treatment in some medical communities as a pathology. It certainly focuses on the "feelings of alientation and despair" criticized in Preves's article: patients describe themselves as a "psychological mess" and living in "shame and secrecy," implying that intersex is damaging to the child's identity. No one has anything good to say about the intersexed condition; it is solely presented as something devastating that must be dealt with through science. This article celebrates the same medicalization that Preves criticizes, when I think it should be asking the same questions Preves asked, like "Does it really matter if one's genitals do not measure up to medically codified norms?" The article attempts to show the progressiveness of new medical procedures, and the care they take in creating a stable identity for the child. While this is progressive in its movement away from the invasive procedures and rigid binaries of male/female anatomy that Preves criticized, the approach still celebrates science "fixing" problems of the body, even when it is not necessary to the health of the patient. The article concludes by arguing for a more widespread definition of sex, yet the crises of identity presented throughout the rest of the piece demonstrate how important definitions of gender and sexuality remain in society.