Introduction

According to the Ecology Global Network there are approximately 360,000 births per day in this world. When someone is born in a hospital one of the first things the doctors do is assign the child a sex based off of the biological parts present. From there the rest of the world takes over in making assumptions about the child’s gender based off of the assigned sex. As Sam Killerman said in The Social Justice Advocate’s Handbook: A Guide to Gender, “Gender identity is our internal response to a social construction that attempts to make a connection between a person’s biological makeup and their eventual role in society.” Gender is a socially constructed idea and often in this society it is assumed that one’s gender matches their assigned sex, or it is assumed that both of the previous match up with the individual’s gender expression. From there people also assume that one’s sexual or romantic orientations fit into neat normative boxes that coincide with gender expression and identity, and sex. In actuality though, these assumptions just are not reliable. With 360,000 births a day there will be some babies that are not born just male or female, there will be some babies that don’t identify as men or women, and there will be some babies that are not attracted to the opposite sex. The goal of this blog is to define and discuss a few of the many identities and orientations that people possess and to show that as a society we simplify topics we should not. There is beauty in diversity, so let’s shine a light upon it.


http://www.ecology.com/birth-death-rates/

Monday, April 13, 2015

Intersex


This light-hearted BuzzFeedYellow video features four intersex individuals who share their thoughts on what it is like to be intersex through their personal experiences and perspectives. The clip explains that intersex people "may have variations in their gonads, chromosomes, or genitalia" that lead them to not readily be classified as male or female. Emily, who embodies physical characteristics often associated with women i.e. long hair and wearing a pink blouse, has XY chromosomes and testes. In the video XXXY (2000), Kristi is also genetically male because she has XY chromosomes, despite her female genitalia. Doctors often perform "normalizing" surgery on intersex people at a young age, after which they are put on "hormonal treatment" to help them conform to their assigned gender even if they do not identify with it.

The video also touches on the fact that intersex is often confused with transgender. Emily explains that intersex deals with biological characteristics, and transgender deals with gender identity and expression.


Pictured above is the intersex pride flag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAUDKEI4QKI

http://mashable.com/2014/06/13/lgbt-pride-symbols/
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