Tag Archives: intersex

Catholic_Church, Sexuality and gender

“Mail AND Female He Created Them” (not “OR”)

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For a whole host of reasons, I’ve been inactive on this site for some considerable time. However, the latest Vatican document on gender, must have a response.  I am grateful to Fr James Martin SJ, for pointing out that there are some helpful points in the document: it is explicitly an invitation to dialogue, and recognises the importance of treating all people with respect, acknowledges the problems of discrimination and violence, refers to new developments in the findings from science and encourages “listening”. Fr Martin continues though, to point out that the document nevertheless proceeds to discuss the issue entirely on the basis of the claims of theologians, completely failing to either listen to trans people and their families, and ignoring the evidence from science.  Fr Martin’s analysis deserves close study.  I have a simpler, fundamental problem.

The fundamental flaw in the Vatican document is hidden in plain sight – in the title: “Male AND female he created them”.This clearly states “Male and female….” – but the text in fact interprets this as “Male OR female..”, ie assuming, that there is a simple binary divide. In fact, all the evidence from science (natural and social), and from lived experience, is that this is fundamentally unsound. Each of us, to some extent, is a combination of both “male” and “female” – ie, we all have elements that are masculine, and some that are “feminine”.

For some people, possibly most, one side or other dominates to a large degree, soithat our “masculine” or “feminine” side clearly coincides with our apparent biological sex. For some others, it is not so clearcut.  The existence of intersex people provides a clear illustration of the problem, For some people, external genitals do not coincide with internal genitals, or with chromosomal patterns, or with hormones, It is not even true that chromosomes are always either male or female.

Trans people are not intersex: their physical sexual characteristics may all conincide. The problem is that these physical characteristics may differ markedly from their internal, “brain” gender, giving rise to what is sometimes described as “gender dysphoria”. This is NOT about “choosing” one’s gender, but about recognising the truth of one’s gender – which may not coincide with one’s physical sex.

The Vatican’s placing their a priori assumptions about a simple binary divide, flying in the face of all the evidence of science, is the very definition of gender “ideology” – which is the epithet they use to demean gender theory (which is indeed, evidence based). Worse, some Vatican apologists accuse gender theorists of “ideological colonialism” – ignoring the historical fact that it was the colonial administrators and missionaries that imposed their binary gender ideology on cultures that accepted and celebrated a range of genders.

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Sexuality and gender

An Intersex Mayor Speaks

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For Intersex Awareness Day yesterday, the internet was awash with numerous posts on the subject. One that I particularly liked was by Tony Briffa, an Australian writing about “My experience as the world’s first openly intersex Mayor“. Briffa writes candidly about life as an intersex person, one who is “intersex and am therefore not exclusively female or male”, and the difficulties presented by being perceived sometimes as male, sometimes as female.  The simple physical fact is, that Briffa was born with some male parts, but a primarily female body.  The social facts of living as partly both, is a different matter entirely – not simple at all.

In LGBT groups, we sometimes come across discussions about a possible need to expand to LGBTI, to provide explicit inclusion of intersex people, just as gay groups earlier expanded their own terminology to make explicit inclusion of lesbians, bisexual and trans people. One response to that, is to leave that decision to the intersex community themselves: it is known that many intersex people do not want to be lumped together with the LGBT community, as their problems and issues are of a different kind entirely. (But then, much the same can be said about transgender people – their issues are not about sexual orientation). In this respect, I note that Briffa does write, at one point early in the story, of having  “felt very comfortable in the LGBT community, and I could openly discuss who I am and being intersex”.

However, it remains true that the issues are entirely different. It would be completely wrong for me as a gay man to even remotely attempt to describe the experience of an intersex person, and I’m not about to do it.

Read it for yourself, at Intersexday,org – where no doubt you can also find many other useful posts, to learn more about an important but widely misunderstood part of the human population.Y

(October 26th was Intersex Awareness Day. Fourteen days later, November 8th will be Intersex Day of Solidarity)

 

Catholic_Church, Science, Sexuality and gender

Intersex Challenges Binary Theology (& Politics)

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Just sometimes, when a baby is born the answer to “Is it a girl or a boy?” the answer is simply, “No”. A small but significant proportion of people have bodies that just do not fit into that binary divide of either male or female.  There are few firm estimates of the number of intersex people, because definitions vary. By one narrow definition, the proportion of the population who are intersex is 0.018%. In a world population of 7.6 billion, even this lower estimate is still an awful lot of real people – something like 1.4 million. A broader definition puts the proportion at 1.7%, or as many  as 129 million, worldwide.

For Intersex Awareness Day, I share links to some previous posts on intersex. First, there’s the story of How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology. Sally  Gross was assigned male at birth, and as an adult became a Catholic Dominican priest and a teacher of moral theology in England. However, Sally was in fact intersex, with internal organs primarily female. When this became known, it led to a decision to transition – and the forced expulsion from the priesthood. Later, she returned to her native Cape Town, where she founded Intersex South Africa.





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gender, History, Science, Sexuality and gender

Gender and “Ideological Colonialism”

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In Washington D.C. for a National Prayer Breakfast, Cardinal Robert Sarah has escribed gay marriage as “poison” and attacked transgender rights as a form of ideological colonialism.

“[T]hrough a demonic ‘gender ideology,’ a deadly impulse that is being experienced in a world increasingly cut off from God through ideological colonialism.”

Cardinal Sarah, is an African, as am I by origin. I leave aside here his lamentable disregard for the Catechism’s plain instruction that homosexuals (and, by extension, transgender people) should be treated with “respect, compassion and sensitivity”. Instead, I simply draw attention to the cardinal’s woeful ignorance of our continent’s history, of the the nature of colonial ideology – and of basic biology. Continue reading Gender and “Ideological Colonialism” →

gender, Sexuality and gender, Transgender

Binary “Gender Ideology” Refuted: The Complexities of Gender

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Ever since the 2014 Family Synod, some Catholic bishops (and Pope Francis himself) have expressed criticism of what they refer to as “gender ideology”, by which they seem to mean gender theory. Gender theory, however, is not by any stretch an “ideology”, but a sound academic attempt to understand the complexities of gender as encountered in the real world. The only “ideology” I’m aware of about gender, is that espoused in Vatican doctrine, which reduces everything to a simplistic binary; everyone is either male or female, with distinctive roles appropriate to each; and that our primary social purpose is to find a suitable mate of the opposite gender, marry, and produce offspring. This is simplistic, patent nonsense, which should be obvious to anyone who simply observes the reality outside the lens of what is fondly believed to be the “traditional” family structure. There are many societies around the world in which traditional family structures recognized more than two genders. The hijra of South Asia are one example of a socially recognised third gender, now being recognised in government documents in some countries. Some Native American societies recognized even more than three genders.

gender-breakdown-3
The complexity of gender (graphic from the Catholic transgender)

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Senate committee recommends new anti-discrimination law be passed listing ‘intersex’ separately as a protected identity 

Gina Wilson, President of Organisation Intersex  International (OII)Australia

21 FEBRUARY 2013 | BY ANNA LEACH

Following calls from LGBTI rights groups and legal experts, the Australian Senate committee drafting the new Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill has recommended that ‘intersex’ be included as a category in its own right in the proposed law.
‘The committee recognizes that intersex individuals are often the subject of discrimination in public life, and that as such there is a need for protection on the basis of intersex status in Commonwealth anti-discrimination law,’ said the report published today.
The report said the committee agreed with campaigners that ‘intersex is a matter of biology rather than gender identity,’ so protection from discrimination was not covered by the definition of gender identity in the draft bill.
‘This is a profoundly important report in that it recognizes that intersex is a “matter of biology rather than gender identity”, and reflects “innate biological characteristics”,’ said Gina Wilson, president of Organization Intersex International Australia (OII Australia).
‘Internationally it represents best practice, proposing the explicit inclusion of intersex people in anti-discrimination legislation for only the second time anywhere [after Tasmania].’
The Senate committee’s report added that ‘since intersex status is a condition related to the innate biological characteristics of an individual, it should not be an attribute to which any religious exceptions apply’.
Regarding religious exceptions, the committee recommended that they be removed from religious groups who provide services, but remain for employment.
Wilson thanked the many LGBTI rights groups and legal experts, including New South Wales Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby, the National Association of Community Legal Centres and Australian Human Rights Commission, who added their voices to the call for ‘intersex’ to be listed separately on the Bill.
If passed, the new law would protect the rights of sexual orientation and gender identity minorities from discrimination in Australia for the first time.
‘This is an historic reform that is long overdue, and will provide significant benefits to sex and gender diverse Australians,’ said the Senate committee’s report.
Victoria Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby (VGLRL), OII Australia and TransGender Victoria released a joint statement today calling for the government to pass the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill into law before the next election.
‘We urge the government to adopt the recommendations of the committee and pass the legislation as soon as possible, to deliver on its commitment to introduction discrimination protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” said VGLRL convener Anna Brown.
Intersexion, a documentary about the difficulties that intersex people face in society, is showing at Sydney Mardi Gras film festival this month and Melboure Queer Film Festival next month.

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Other denominations/faiths, Sexuality and gender

Intersex, Women Bishops, and the Body of Christ

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The story of Rev. Sally / Selwyn Gross neatly encapsulates the challenges of intersex people to Roman Catholic rules on the ordination of women. Male-identified at birth, Selwyn was raised as male, and became a Catholic priest. When medical tests revealed that internal biology was primarily female, Sally transitioned – and was forced out of the priesthood.
In the Anglican church, there is no problem with the ordination of intersex people, as there is no bar to women’s ordination in the first place, nor are there barriers to promotion – up to the rank of bishop. Then the stained – glass ceiling is struck, for intersex people and for women. We know from science that the intersex phenomenon is entirely natural and complex, including a small but significant proportion of the human population. The absolute division of us into a neat two-part binary, is simplistic and a dangerous ground on which to base rules for ordination (or for marriage, for that matter).
The theologian Dr Susannah Cornwall has specialised in the intersex challenge to theology, notably in her book “Sex and Uncertainty in the Body of Christ” . In a new paper, reported on in the Church Times, she applies these considerations to the debate raging in the English Church over women bishops.   The trigger for her intervention came in a paper by those opposed to women bishops,”The Church, Women Bishops and Provision”which argued “When we stop receiving Christ in his essential maleness, his humanity becomes obscured”.
Essentially male?




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gender, Sexuality and gender

Beyond Male and Female: Gender Trouble, Biology Trouble

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There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

– Galatians 3:28
In the context of religion, Christians should be familiar with the quotation from Galatians (even if some, such as in the Catholic Church, are unwilling to take the words literally, and apply them to ordination). From the world of science though, it is becoming clear that there is a truth in the words that goes way beyond a theological concept, and is instead, a substantial measure of quite literal truth. It may well be that there really is “neither male nor female”, at least not in the absolute binary sense that modern Western culture assumes. This has major implications for Christian sexual and gender theology.”

 

Judith Butler’s “Gender Trouble” was a seminal work in the early development of feminism and queer theory, and later of queer theology.  Butler’s central achievement was to demonstrate the fluidity of gender, which she described as “performance”.  The fluidity of gender however, also extends to biology. Far from a simple binary world composed of biological males and females, with perhaps a smattering of people with indeterminate gender (once described as hermaphrodites), modern science has shown that there are a far greater range of conditions that may be loosely described as “intersex” than previously realized – and that there are a surprising number of these people, some of whom will not even know of their true sex until they meet a need for some kind of medical testing (as with the case of the South African athlete Caster Semenya, who had no idea she was not fully female until she won a medal at the Beijing Olympics, competing as a woman). The same problems beset Sally Gross, who was raised as a male and ordained a Catholic priest, until the discovery that biologically she was in fact primarily female.

What is a Male?

To illustrate some of the complexities around biological sex, I want to share with you some extracts from two books that I have found helpful in extending my own understanding, Brian McNaught’s “Sex Camp”“, and Virginia Mollenkott’s Omnigender.

“Sex Camp” is a fictionalized presentation in novel form, of a real-life program that used to be run in New York state, in which groups of people from diverse backgrounds were brought together  in a secluded rural setting each summer, for serious training and discussion of matters around sexuality, gender, and faith.

In one chapter,  ”Bill” delivers a presentation to the group on “Gender Identity & Expression”.  This is from his introduction to the topic:

“When we talk about “Biological Sex,” and ask the question, we’re asking about it chromosomally, hormonally, gonadally, as well as with reference to the internal and external genitalia, and to brain dimorphism,” he said, writing the words on the whiteboard. Chromosomally, we are talking in terms of xx equalling a girl, and xy equalling a boy. Hormonally, we’re talking about ovaries for girls, and testicles for boys. With regard to internal genitalia, we’re talking about the Mullerian Structures for girls (fallopian tubes and uterus), and the Wolfian structures for boys (prostate, seminal vesicles, and vas deferens). Externally, we’re talking about the clitoris for girls, and the penis for boys. Brain dimorphism refers to the differences in the male and female brains.” 

Let’s pause, to digest this. I count six different methods of determining  a person’s sex.

  • chromosomes
  • hormones
  • gonads
  • internal genitals
  • external genitals
  • brains

The results of applying all of these to a single person will not always coincide. If they do not, how are we to decide, is this person “male” or “female”?

Furthermore, these measures do not yield simple binary opposites.

The problem with all of this is that not all girls are XX or boys XY, we all have the same hormones but in different level, we’re all born with clear gonadal or genital differences, and brain dimorphism isn’t a reliable indicator. So the question remains, “What is a male?”

Hormones

Some of this is familiar. External genitalia can be ambiguous (as they were at birth for Sally/Selwyn Gross, whose story I presented earlier). In these cases, parents and doctors typically make a decision to impose one or other gender on the child, and raise her/him accordingly. But the assigned gender may differ sharply from the other, less easily visible determinants. But let’s consider for now, just those hormones.

The male hormone testosterone and the female hormone oestrogen are familiar, and popularly taken as markers for masculinity or femininity. (Just consider the verbal expression, “testosterone-fuelled….”) to describe actions taken to be unequivocally masculine).   Some men take testosterone hormone supplements to adjust their physical appearance to a more conventionally “masculine” model, or to excel at masculine sports. For transsexuals, hormone therapy is commonly a major part of the transitioning process. But we all know that “men” differ in their degree of testosterone – and have a modicum of oestrogen too, and “women” differ in their oestrogen levels – but have some testosterone, too. Using hormonal measurement alone as a criterion, does int make any sense at  all to even think of someone as wholly male, or wholly female?

 Chromosomes

Chromosome patterns also do not fit the simple “xx” or “xy” binary split we are familiar with. In addition to x and y chromosomes, there are “blanks”, indicated as “o” – and some people have more than the usual two.

“With chromosomes”, Bill continued, “the male sperm determines the outcome. What happens, however, if instead of adding an “x” or a “y” chromosome to the female’s “x”, the male shoots a blank sex-determining chromosome and the child is born “xo?” 

The answer is –  Turner’s syndrome. There are many other variations from the simple xx/xy of popular understanding.

One out of every 1600 live births are “xo”. You can also get “xxx,” which will be a female, but there are a significant number who may have mental retardation. You can also get an “xxy”, which will often be a tall, infertile male.  We call this Klinefelter’s Sybdrome. You can get an “xyy”, and you can get an “xxyy”, which is a pure, bilateral hermaphrodite.”

And you can get an “xyxo”, which will be a short male whose gender and orientation are up for grabs”.

“The point is”, Bill said with a satisfied look, “that nature is not neat. Biological sex is not an easy issue. Further, when we talk about “male” and “female”, we’re talking about “sex”, “sexual identity”, and “sex role”. When we ask the question, “What is a male?” we’re not just asking about chromosomes, hormones, gonads, genitals and differences of the brain. We’re asking about sexual identity and sex role. We’re asking about both the assignment and rearing, as well as gender identity differentiation. ”  

“Sex Camp”” is about much more than the ambiguities of biological sex and gender identity – this topic is just one of many in a a book which is packed with helpful, reliable information about sex and sexuality, and is also (as you would expect from the title) great fun to read.

I turn now to another book, in a more conventionally serious manner, by a respected theologian – and focussed exclusively on this topic.



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Catholic_Church, gender, Sexuality and gender

How a Woman Became a Dominican Priest, and Teacher of Moral Theology

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So: just how does a woman become a Catholic priest in a major religious order? Sally Gross did just that: her story, with the explanation of just how it was possible, reveals some gaping holes in Catholic theology on women’s ordination and on sexuality, and problems in how governments deal with gender. It is also a moving personal story, of personal journeys, geographic, spiritual and biological, which are about as far-reaching as it is possible to go in one life-time.
The complex story is told at some length at the Natal Witness, which I have attempted to summarize below, quoting verbatim some extracts to illuminate key points. (Even in summary, it is lengthy – but stick with it. It graphically illustrates some critical deficiencies in Vatican thinking on sexuality and on ministry, which I touch on in conclusion).
The journey from Selwyn to Sally has taken Gross to the outer limits of human identity, both physically and psychologically and incorporated every dimension of her life: political, social and religious. Her experience has implications for all of us, and our institutions, both secular and religious, because our society insists on the existence of only two sexes, male and female.

Intersexed at birth, raised as a boy.

Gross is one of a small but significant, greatly misunderstood, minority of people who are loosely grouped together as “intersex”.
Biologically, hormone tests show she is clearly female, but at birth her external genitals appeared to be ambiguous, but essentially male. S/he was raised as a boy, complete with the ritual circumcision demanded by the Jewish faith of the family. However, s/he always knew that there was something “wrong”.
“Since the time I became conscious of myself as a very young child I had sense of something being awry in the area of gender, about my own bodiliness,” says Sally Gross. “I didn’t know exactly what it was, but there was a sense of things being awry, being different.”
He grew up as a Jewish boy in South Africa, but as a young man, became drawn to the Catholic Church, in part because he believed it to be more actively speaking up and acting against the evils of apartheid than his own Jewish religious leaders. He was baptised a Catholic in 1976. The following year he left the country, when his political activism against apartheid was becoming personally dangerous, going first to Botswana, then to Israel (where his parents then were).

Life as a Catholic Priest




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