The Unnatural Management of Intersexuality

During the second semester of my Freshman year, I had the opportunity to conduct a semester long research project. The purpose of the project was to tie two, seemingly unrelated, classes together and to present what was found at St. Cloud State University's annual Honor's Colloquium. At the time I was taking my very first Women's Studies course--Gender and The Body. At first I had no idea what I wanted to do for my project. I knew that I was interested in the concept of gender, since it was completely new to me, but other than that I had no idea. At the time I was also enrolled in an entry level biology class. I decided to tie these two classes together and to do my project on nature versus nurture. I wanted to know what aspects of a person were due to their genetic make-up and what aspects were due to the society in which they lived. As I began to research the topic, however, I began to realize that it was nearly impossible to differentiate between nature and nurture--they are so completely interconnected. As I came to realize that I had absolutely nothing for my project, I became very discouraged. I scheduled an appointment with my Women's Studies professor at the time, Beth Berila, in hopes that she would be able to help me. As I was talking to her about my previous research, she suggested that I look to people/situations that challenge the norm concerning nature versus nurture. As I began to research this topic, I came across the phenomenon of intersexuality. The more research that I did, the more I became interested in the topic. I read and watched movies about intersexuality whenever I had time. My project eventually transformed into research on The Unnatural Management of Intersexuality. My thesis in the paper states that physicians lead us to believe that their decisions concerning intersexuality are based solely on biological factors when, in reality, social factors are greatly influential.

I decided that I wanted to further inform others as to the issues concerning the current management of intersexuality for my Women and Computers' final project. I have converted my research paper into two short videos using GoAnimate. In class we talked a lot about accessibility and different ways of communicating information to others. It is my hope that the videos can effectively communicate my research in a way that is not seen as daunting (as many academic papers are). Some of the dialogue from these videos are taken directly from my paper. I feel that it is important to note that these videos are by no means the extent of my research. They are simply an introduction and their purpose is to raise awareness about the issue. Hopefully they will spark an interest. If anyone is interested in actually reading my paper, feel free to comment below and let me know!

My video can be found in two parts:

Intersexuality Part I 



Intersexuality Part II