San Francisco State University

Graduate Student, Women and Gender Studies

Humanities

Thesis Title: Intersexed Embodiments and the Cripping and Queering of the Borders of Identities

About

My project focuses on the confronting embodiments of intersexed people who's conditions of their very being disrupt discourses of sex, gender, sexuality and (dis)ability.  Whereas most gender/sexuality based communities (such as homosexuality) have argued for the release of being tied to disability (as a defect of gender, psychology or the body), intersexuality is still very much bound to the medical world as a disorder (both by doctors and for the most part, those who are intersexed). The materiality of androgyny can both disrupt discourses framing binaries in sex to be a natural truth as well as produce knowledges of a homogeneous third sex, which I argue reinstates the truth of essentialized femaleness versus maleness.  My primary texts will come from four sources of discussions/expressions:  internet forums, podcasts, blogs, and grassroots documentaries where intersexed individuals are expressing their embodiments and articulating their identity formations.  I will discuss how these embodiments are at the crossroads of Crip Theory and Queer Theory and explore the question:  in what ways do the embodiments by intersexed individuals snap, stretch, weaken and/or reinforce the borders of identity? 

See my YouTube channel, join the conversation and read the full thesis from my webpage:  http://sites.google.com/site/crownofnature/

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