Intersexuality and God Through the Ages

[cbayer]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/09/intersexuality-and-god-through-the-ages.html



Candida Moss

11.09.14

The idea that intersexed bodies are “birth defects” is perpetuated by a lack of familiarity with intersexuality. But it wasn’t always this way.

This week news broke that the Vatican would be inviting representatives of the world’s religions to a conference in late November on the “Complementarity of Man and Woman.” The conference’s attendees will be drawn from 23 countries and include speakers from Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam as well as conservative Protestants like mega-church pastor Rick Warren. After the recent media storm over the “softening” of the Church’s position on same-sex marriage and divorce, the announcement of a conference on the “complementary” (read: different and not necessarily equal) roles of men and women has flown completely under the radar. It just doesn’t fit public perceptions of Pope Francis.

Feminists should be concerned about the invocation of traditional roles. But in this discussion there’s a bigger issue here: when will religious groups talk about intersexuality?

Ignorance about the existence of persons with intersex conditions is hardly limited to the religious. Also known as hermaphroditism or DSD (“differences of sex development”), intersex is a general term used to describe a whole range of conditions in which a person’s sexual anatomy does not fit conventional definitions of male and female. Sometimes intersex happens at birth but sometimes it is revealed later in life—most commonly at puberty.

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