I want to thank Dennis Rodkin for writing and the Reader for headlining the 2/2/07 article “What Sex Am I?” As a sexologist, I believe this story is important because it helps readers to think outside the socially constructed either/or categories of male/female or heterosexual/homosexual. The scientific evidence demonstrates that rather than a binary either/or, there exists in nature a spectrum of biological variability. With this broader perspective we can more readily affirm individuality rather than stigmatize differences. Only by challenging cultural assumptions of male/female oppositions will women achieve social equality. (We have not yet passed an equal rights amendment, have we?) Similarly, challenging assumptions of homosexual/heterosexual binary difference is important for achieving equality of social rights, whatever our fluid and dynamic sexualities and gender performances might be.
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While I applaud postponing “the choice” and reassigning decision making from physician initially to parents and, after the medical journal article, to the intersexed person, “the choice” seems to remain conceptualized as binary, either man or woman. . . .
