17th
What Do We Do About This? :: An Intersexual South African and Gender
Perhaps you’ve seen this on the news.
Caster Semanaya (a South African runner) recently blew away her competition in a race drawing attention to the possibility of elevated testosterone levels in her body. (S)he has since then undergone gender testing only to determine that (s)he has both the sexual organs of a man and a woman.
Throughout the media, it has brought attention to an important conversation about the differences of “sex” and “gender.”
Are sex and gender always the same thing? Some have suggested that gender is a culturally constructed, socialized part of identity while sex may in fact have to do with physical organs and levels of testosterone or estrogen.
Is this where we’re headed? Will testosterone or estrogen levels begin to become the validation of sex?
Semanaya of course is not the only person to bear within their body this physical anomaly. The language used to describe this reality in humans is referred to as androgynous, hermaphrodite or intersexual.
Ironically, I was actually watching the news when this story hit while simultaneously reading a book where the Franciscan priest, Father Richard Rohr, writing about gender and creation says,
“The spiritually whole person integrates within himself or herself both the masculine and the feminine dimensions of the human spirit. She or he is androgynous in the best sense of that term, which is derived from the two Greek words meaning “man” and “woman.” It is very fascinating that some tribes and civilizations actually considered the man-woman to actually be the shaman, the wise man, the spiritual seer. They were the image of Divine wholeness. Androgyny is the ability to be masculine in a womanly way and to be feminine in a manly way, if I can day to say it that way.”
I know there are a lot of socially and religiously conservative people who follow this blog (thanks for reading) and many of them hold traditional views of faith, sexuality and human identity. I’m wondering if some of you (anyone is actually invited to comment) could respond to the question:
“what do we say to an androgynous person about love, sex and marriage?”
What is a biblical sexual ethic for someone like Caster Semanaya who understands and identifies her gender as female, something that has been socialized and reinforced in her psyche, but bears within her body the sex of a male?
