Not sure how this came to my attention in the last few days. Probably more of "one thing leading to another."
Although I find it odd that this is sponsored by Proctor and Gamble and feel cynical about their financial motives, I was moved and enlightened by what Alok had to say. Our public library has a copy of his small format 64-page book published in 2020, Beyond The Gender Binary, in their section for teenage readers and so I put a copy on hold. I've finished reading the book this morning.
Excerpt:
"Indigenous people and people outside the Western world have long existed outside of the gender binary: two-spirit among American Indians, hijra in South Asia, waria in Indonesia, muxe in Mexico, just to name a few. In many of these societies, people outside of the binary were and continue to be recognized as leaders."
Until I learned that an intersex child was born around 13 years ago to a member of R's extended family in the San Francisco Bay Area, I did not realize that intersex children have been born as long as there have been children in the world. The doctors involved could not determine whether the newborn was male or female. However, the parents decided that what they wanted was a boy and surgery was performed on the infant. I did not meet, only heard of, that child who is a teenager by now. I have wondered how that child has fared as a boy and now a teenage boy. I wonder if that teenager will find Alok's book and feel supported in whatever choices there are to be made or not made.
Alok writes:
"The fact that doctors still perform non-consensual and non-medically necessary surgeries on intersex people just because they are different shows how binary sex -- like binary gender -- is a political construction. These people are not accidents or malfunctions; this is how human diversity works."
Listening to the discussion with Alok Vaid-Menon and reading his book, I'm grateful to have heard what I needed to hear about his experience of simply being human.
