They are called intersex, or intersex people. In the past, we spoke of hermaphrodites to refer to those who were born "neither truly male nor truly female." Numerous and discriminated against, intersex people struggle to have their status and their suffering recognized.
For too long, society has wanted to reduce its members to two absolutely binary and defined sexes: the feminine and the masculine. However, like the notion of gender, it cannot be so reductive. This is particularly evident in the case of intersex people, numerous and often eager to preserve their body and their identity without responding to these ancestral injunctions.
What does being an intersex person mean?
According to the classic definition, so-called intersex people are born with sexual organs that are difficult to define because they belong to both sexes, male and female, and often atrophied. It is also referred to as "visible sexual ambiguity". If the term intersex, used today, is still little known, that of hermaphrodite has long been used to evoke those who, for a long time, were born thus without nature having attributed to their body of defined sex. However, intersex people and the associations which are dedicated to them hardly taste this name, since it would induce, as in the Greek mythological figure of Hermaphrodite, that they would unite in their body the two sexes whereas these are rarely complete. Moreover, as Amnesty International explains, which considers that 1.7% of people are born with intersex characteristics, the term intersex refers to "a wide range of natural variations which affect the genitals, gonads, hormones. , chromosomes or reproductive organs ”. And while these are most often visible at birth, they may also appear with the development of the body only at puberty or have no physical manifestation at all. For Genre Pluriels (an association for the visibility of people with fluid, trans and intersex genders), “the vast majority of intersex people have genitals that really appear to be typically male or female while a minority have atypical organs ”.
Intersex and transidentity, what's the difference?
It is important to stress that intersex is a decorated physical characteristic of gender. Being an intersex personis to be born or grow up with an ambiguous biological sex which does not allow the characteristics of "girl" or "boy" to be attributed with certainty without inducing a particular gender identity. The notions of sex and gender are different. As Gender Plural explains, "more and more intersex people are feeling comfortable with an intersex gender identity." Also, if intersex people may be transgender – that is, "having a gender expression and / or a gender identity that deviates from traditional expectations based on the sex assigned at birth", as defined by Amnesty International – this is not implied either. Trans people have a well-defined sex at birth, and they just don't recognize themselves in it. In a video released by BuzzFeed, Saifa, who defines himself as "an intersex black man," explained: "A lot of times intersex people have surgeries they don't want, while trans people have to fight for it. the operations they want. "
Towards the end of mutilation in intersex people
At the end of 2013, 30 intersex organizations gathered at an International Forum to fight against the discrimination suffered by this part of the population. Linked to the ignorance of parents and doctors on the subject, but also to the desire of society to force families from birth to assign intersex children a random sex chosen without their consent, operations performed very young on intersex children have long been practiced without them being associated with the decision. From this Forum was born the Declaration of Malta aiming to "guarantee the right to physical integrity, physical autonomy and self-determination", and thus to put an end to the mutilations undergone by genital surgery described by many victims. as having devastated their lives. On March 17, 2017, in France, President Hollande received associations fighting for LGBT rights at the Elysee Palace and affirmed loud and clear that the "assignment" surgeries performed on intersex children were mutilations, thus pushing the community medical to question these ancestral practices. Lived under a blanket of silence, intersex is also a place of suffering for people who feel they are alone in the world. Hence the importance of these numerous French and international associations, places of defense but also of dialogue between intersex people relieved to be able to share their experience.
In addition, many studies today show, contrary to what the medical profession has long thought, that intersex people who were not reassigned surgically during their childhood, often have very satisfying sexualities even though they would not respond. to commonly accepted binary vision. In "The reinvention of sexuality among intersex people" *, Loïc Jacquet deplores: "How many intersex people, constrained in their sexuality and their pleasure, have been able to begin to rebuild themselves by realizing that they did not have to do penetrate vaginally and that they could use their 'clitoris' in their intercourse? How many of them are still blocked by the shame of not having succeeded in "being a woman", and feel guilty for having desires considered "too" masculine? As the sexuality centered around deep vaginal penetration by a king penis loses its power, discussion forums around the different sources of pleasure experienced by intersex people are finally opening up for everyone the possibility of going towards their own pleasure.
"Man", "woman", why does society force us to choose?
"Man", "Woman", do we necessarily have to choose their sex in a binary way? And to please who? Ditto for its kind, that civil status continues to impose on identity papers, causing there a number of suffering and administrative difficulties for trans and intersex people wishing that this obligation be abandoned or that the possibility of opting be admitted. for neutral sex. Originally, the newborn was to be brought to the registrar so that he could see his sex first-hand. The goal? Avoid that some withdraw their son from national military obligations. A foundation for gender inequalities, civil status has also helped establish patriarchy and the submission of women to their husbands. In 2020, wouldn't it be time to review this outdated injunction aimed at indicating on administrative papers what our sexual organs, our bodies or our chromosomes would say about us? On May 4, 2017, when the High Court of Tours had authorized an intersex person to have the mention "gender neutral" entered in their birth certificate, the Court of Cassation finally opposed the judgment. The road seems long but the fight continues.
* In "New feminist questions" published by Antipodes.