Androginos, Modern Medicine, and the Difficulty of Entry into the Gender Binary
By Ariel Caplan | Published: April 3, 2012
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"Congratulations, it's a..." The sentence welcoming a new baby into the world rolls off the tongue; the last word, eagerly anticipated, reveals whether "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!" A single chromosomal variation carries significant import for the baby's destiny, in both sociological and spiritual realms. Yet for a small number of newborns, it is far from clear what the future holds. Chromosomal and developmental aberrations can create a situation where the most basic of questions – "Is it a boy or a girl?" – has no easy answer, and a child is barred entry to the privileges (and challenges) of life as a member of either gender.
The struggle of the hermaphrodite or pseudohermaphrodite – the individual with objectively unclear gender identity – is not new. (We will use the accepted medical terminology, but for the reader's benefit, we will note that the colloquial term is "intersex"; the states we will address can be clustered under the title "intersex conditions" or "disorders of sexual development.") Rabbinic literature is full of references to the tumtum and the androginos – the former being of uncertain gender because the genitals are obscured, the latter possessing physical characteristics of both genders. However, lacking clear methods of gender determination beyond the obvious visual inspection – which, in these cases, cannot constitute conclusive proof in either direction – Hazal treat these cases as safek (doubt), ruling stringently in many instances to account for both possibilities.[ii] A practical modus operandi is provided, but the halakhic confusion and the psychological yearning for gender identity remain unresolved by Hazal's treatment of the subject.