Thoughts on Hermaphroditism

Hey ya'll!!!

So I am supposed to be writing an essay on hermaphroditism right now and the lived experienced and embodied gendered identities of inter-sexed individuals when my thoughts were naturally drawn to the previous incident regarding the gynamdromorphic butterfly, that had become a small-time celebrity attraction at the London Museum of Natural History (you may click the link to read more on that). As is only expected, this was because hermaphroditism in butterflies are quite rare, supposedly only one in a million butterflies will end up like this, and the result is quite simply astonishing with the butterfly possessing the wing patterns of the two genders. Indeed, this rare occurrence, which has caused visitors to flock to the butterfly exhibit of the London Museum, is treated as a true miracle in nature, something beautiful and to behold as it is as rare as it is magnificent...I even took the liberty of finding a picture of a different specimen for all of you to see.

Mosaic Gynandromorph of papilio species.

Beautiful, isn't it? Though, I can't help but wonder why hermaphroditic humans are not treated with the same amount of recognition and respect? Why is it that upon birth they are treated as freaks and must then go under the knife to be 'rehabilitated' and 'normalized'? As said by Cheryl Chase in one of my articles, and I quote this loosely as I do not have her paper with me right now ... it is not something good, to have the opinion's and beliefs of others, surgically imposed upon one's own body. Besides, who could ever dream of 'normalizing' something that was made so uniquely beautiful in the first place? Just some food for thought.