Sex Differences In Fixing Sex By Kartina Karkazis

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Part Two of Kartina Karkazis’ novel Fixing Sex focuses on the reality parents face when their child receives an intersex diagnosis. Karkazis illustrates what a couple experiences when they discovered their baby girl was not in fact a girl, in accordance to the socially constructed understanding of a female. She also covers the importance of choosing a sex with an intersexual baby when society is involved. A great example from the text is, “Bodies with atypical or conflicting biological markers of gender are troublesome because they disturb the social body; they also disrupt the process if determining an infant’s place in the world” (96). It ties in perfectly to the purpose of paragraphs four, five and six: The Ramifications of Corrective Surgery (Good and Bad). The quote highlights one of the “bad” ramifications of intersexual corrective surgery. It has progressed to the point where society has such a large impact on what is classified as a “proper girl” or “proper boy” that if a baby does not classify into one of those categories, then the child is no longer accepted.

Mealey, Linda. Sex Differences: …show more content…

Money discusses what exactly intersexual means in medical terms: “By definition, intersexuality, and likewise its synonym, hermaphroditism, signifies ambiguity as to whether an individual is male or female… ambiguity means that a person is not consistently either all male or female, but there is some degree of inconsistency or incongruity among them”(28). Though the text is quite wordy with medical jargon, it will be beneficial to have the reader fully understand what intersex means. The medical side of things is important to touch upon, to establish the foundation of what intersexuality really is. This will be very useful in paragraph two: Definition of Intersex and a brief talk if the social construction of sex to describe what intersex

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