Emi san’s talk on DSD was very interesting in that the issue provokes us to think about how individuals determine “anomaly” and minority status based on social structure. It reminded me of my older sister with slight limb deformity caused by childhood polio who grew up in Japan constantly sensing a various reactions to how her fingers looked. Every time she entered a new community, i.e. a group of classmates or coworkers whom she would have to regularly meet in school or workplace, she first had to explain the cause of her deformity and then to demonstrate that she was as smart and friendly as everyone else, which usually assured others to treat her as a “normal.” This repeated conscious performance of being “normal” has been a major part of her social and personal life, and as she grew up, she seems to have greatly internalized the value of being “normal,” and, perhaps naturally, now became a rather conservative adult who highly values meritocracy. In her view, for example, poverty in urban America is mainly attributable more to the lack of poor residents’ effort than to social structure and government policies. Considering what my sister has gone through as she grew up in Japan, however, it is clear that her opinion, too, is a product of social constraints that kept demanding her to be “normal” all the time. For her, being “normal” meant to make much effort in academic achievement and following the mainstream consumerism. In the process of asserting her “normalcy,” it could be the case that she ended up holding a critical view on other marginalized groups.
Koyama san talked about various perceptions of the DSD/intersex from different directions, some look at it as a medical condition and other as a gender identity. Her talk inspired me to think how we tend to overlook that we are encased in social structure where some efforts to assert rights or serve interests, whether they are disabled, sexual minorities, their parents etc., could sometimes result in enforcing social sense of normalcy and in effect reproducing stigmatized groups.
