http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/alice_dreger_is_anatomy_destiny.html

While studying for the final, I chanced upon this video and found it very interesting. The speaker, Alice Dreger, studies history and anatomy and talks about her experience with intersexed people. She met a person with XY chromosomes, but because the individual suffers from androgen insensitivity syndrome, the individual's body does not respond to testosterone. Thus, she grows towards the path of a woman, she looks like a woman. It was not until puberty when she did not get her period when she saw a doctor and realized that she has the genetic make up of a man. After this revelation, people felt that she is a man. But innately, she grew up as a feminine girl and even had breasts.

Another encounter she had was with an individual who suffers from congenital adrenal hyperplasia. He was born a boy, raised a boy and had sex with his girlfriend. However, he found out he had ovaries and a uterus and subsequently, realized that he has XX chromosomes. The reason for his masculinity was because the adrenal glands were very active in the wombs, thus creating a masculine environment internally, which causes the genitals and mind of the individual to be masculinized too.

This video was very interesting as I did not know or hear anything about intersex people. In the above-mentioned examples, the individuals were brought up in a gender that is opposite of their genetic make-up. However, because of their upbringing and internal body environment, they feel the same as the opposite sex, causing the society to question the true identity of the individuals. However, quoting Alice Dreger, we are too used to the notion that "one kind of anatomy comes with one kind of identity." This is a oversimplistic portrayal of the entire issue of sex, as unconventional situations have proved that sex is a very complicated concept. Therefore, the whole notion of gender is actually a social construct built upon our deeply rooted perception of what it means to be a man or a woman. Does it depend on our genetic make up or our upbringing and how we feel internally? Dr Martin Luther King said in his "I have a dream" speech, "We should judge people based not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character." This attitude should be applied to the way we judge people too. We should transcend beyond the anatomy, and view them as who they are as a person, instead of expecting them to fulfill the societal expectations of gender.