Koyama-san’s visit, to me, was all about shifting analytical perspectives. As a newcomer to both intersex topics and disability theory, Koyama-san’s presentation of intersex characteristics as disorder intrigued me. My limited understanding of intersex always placed the issues involved solely in the realm of LGBTQ studies. Approaching intersex from a disability perspective, therefore, challenged my preconceptions of intersex individuals (or people with DSD) and also the connotations that “disability” carries. On a related note, spending time with Koyama-san did not only shed light on to the unfriendliness of general facilities toward physically disabled individuals, but her visit also forced me to be self-conscious of the actions I took around people with disabilities. I think my self-consciousness emerged from the preconceptions I hold regarding disability.
Another topic on which Koyama-san presented was transracial adoptions. This issue stimulated a very engaging discussion on our class chalk site. Several of us had difficulties accepting her arguments that presented a somewhat unilateral process in transracial and international adoptions. Her presentation, however, convinced me on a broad theoretical level, the racist and orientalist structure of these adoptions. The images, rhetoric, and ideologies behind some of the adoption agencies and media portrayals feed into this larger structure perpetuating race and geographical area hierarchies. While I see all this as an outsider, I am still ambivalent as to where I stand on the issue of transracial and international adoptions. It still seems like it is a personal decision that prioritizes individual children’s interests first. I see the dangerous structure Koyama-san depicted in the adoptions, especially when contextualized in contingent historical events and periods. If anything, Koyama-san’s presentation and her visit complicate the debate, problematizing an accepted practice–which, I think, is her aim in the first place.
