People without faces

Controlling discourse to objectify and silence marginalized groups

By Curtis E. Hinkle, Founder of OII, Organisation Intersex International

2005

The purpose of the following essay is to analyze the language used on ISNA’s website and how an organization which has such visibility concerning intersexuality has either consciously or unconsciously used discursive techniques which silence the very subjects of that discourse.

The following is an outline of the topics to be considered in this analysis:

• There is no substantive (noun) used for a person who is intersex.
  

• Preponderance of blogs hosted by non-intersexed people
  

• Constant focus on bodies
  

• Refusal to include gender as an important issue for intersexuals.
  

• Constant infantilization
  

• Proliferation of medical discourse
  

After reading through the site, I noticed that the most glaring use of language to objectify and marginalize intersexuals was the total absence of a noun for us. How could this be? To have no name, no substantive for the object you are speaking about means that the object of discussion is not substantial, of no real consequence. Otherwise, one would create a name, a substantive to categorize the object of discussion. Instead of using a noun such as intersexual or the old term hermaphrodite, which may not be biologically exact but which has very significant historical weight as a noun used to categorize us, we are constantly referred to as people with intersex, infants with intersex and then forced back into the male/female categories which our bodies have challenged in the first place.

Refusing to use a noun or coming up with one that many intersexuals might agree with has dehumanized the actual subjects of discussion because we must agree to be seen through the binary prism of male or female in order to be the topic of discussion. This is self-effacing and creates a vacuum into which those of us who were formally called hermaphrodites once again disappear, become objects without faces, the object we dare not name.

However, if you do a textual analysis of the site, you will come to this conclusion, i.e., there is no name for us here. This keeps the discourse very firmly in control of those who wish to speak about us as objects and this particular discursive technique underpins all the other techniques which devolve from it.

Some of the other discursive techniques which further represent the intersexual as an object without agency is the preponderance of blogs on the site by women who are not intersexed. This keeps the subject of the discourse as an object to be spoken about with no real first-person narrative in which the subject becomes the actual narrator.

By doing this we can keep the focus on bodies, not the people in the bodies. When we are spoken of, it is almost always about our bodies, another form of objectification, and in order to keep the object firmly objectified, all dialogue about gender is dismissed, despite the fact that the subject of gender is very important to almost all the intersexuals I have spoken with. However, to allow discussion about gender would humanize the object and challenge the very validity of the people who are talking for us, how they are looking at us, what words they are using and how they are not allowing us to speak about our identities, our day-to-day experiences in societies which have made no place for us. If you allow discussions of gender, you have to give the subject some voice because you are talking about their identities, not just their bodies.

Another discursive technique is the constant infantilization of the intersexual. By this I mean, most all the discussion is about us as infants and very young children. It is important to talk about this. However, by keeping the focus on that particular stage of our lives, others keep the power to speak for us because when we are constantly viewed as infants who cannot speak for ourselves, we must have someone else to speak for us. But we are adults now. Our lives have been enriched by all those who have loved us and supported us in our growth to adulthood. There are many issues which are important to us.

And lastly, the overwhelming use of medical discourse which keeps the whole topic within the framework of a pathology undermines the emancipation of intersexuals from the very institution which has consistently defined us out of existence. The purpose of medicalization of intersexuals is to make sure we do not exist as such, but as males and females. It is to normalize our bodies and our genders so that the status quo will not be destabilized.

These discursive techniques: 1) having no name 2) having women who are not intersexuals speak for us 3) refusing any discussion of gender and actual identity issues 4) infantilization 5) focus on bodies and 6) predominance of medical discourse, dehumanize us and once again we are the people without faces we found in the medical textbooks when we were children many years ago and cried in shame as we looked and saw ourselves, our own bodies on display as mere freaks. No voice, no face, and no place. So we hid and the shame continues.

For a list of articles by Curtis E. Hinkle: Click here