Who Gets to be Normal?

I recently came across an illuminating documentary on Peacock called Every Body, about three outspoken intersex activists: Alicia Weigel, River Gallo, and Saifa Wall. We meet each of them and learn how gender is very much on a spectrum, rather than strictly male or female. Even though it sounds rare, it actually includes hundreds of thousands of people; they've just always been told to keep their true identity a secret to blend into mainstream society. No more.

Once known as "hermaphrodites", intersex individuals have always existed, and they were treated terribly by the medical community. As part of this shameful history, we learn about David Reimer, who wasn't intersex, but lost his penis in a circumcision accident; then he became part of a gender experiment by Dr. John Money. David's case became the basis of how intersex babies were treated and experimented on in hospitals; medical textbooks taught that gender was socially learned, instead of innate in the person. In their view, everything could be corrected by surgery and hormones to make the person "normal" in their definition. I remember hearing about Reimer's story before, back when he appeared on Oprah's show with his mom. Doctors convinced his parents to raise him as a girl Brenda, and Money acted like it was a total success, but it wasn't; in yearly meetings, Money was cruelly abusive to both David and his twin brother too. David finally rebelled as a teenager and learned the truth, so he became male again, undoing what Money did to him. He could have stayed hidden to keep his privacy, but instead he worked with a different doctor to expose Dr Money's failed experiment and advocate for no one else to suffer what he did.

Weigel relates scary and bizarre medical treatment in their case too; doctors seem always focused on a future heteronormative sex life for the child without ever asking the child what they want, or even just delaying treatment until a child can understand and make the decision for themself. Weigel in fact relates this to transphobia too, and protests the Texas bathroom bill aimed to force trans people to use the wrong bathrooms. I admire Weigel for fighting for others' rights and pointing out the hypocrisy of anti-trans bigots claiming that they want to protect children from surgery and "mutilation", when it's actually intersex kids that are having unnecessary surgeries too young. This is a moving and eye-opening film.