Annabel: An in-depth look at intersex issues

Riddle Fence editor Shoshanna Wingate discusses Kathleen Winter’s novel Annabel with T.F. Milquetoast, an intersex advocate with Organisation Intersex International.

From the introduction, by Shoshanna Wingate:

Annabel, by Kathleen Winter, is the story of a child born in Labrador, a child with both a penis and a vagina; born to parents who are not in agreement over how to raise him. It tells the tale of Wayne, so named by his father [Treadway], and Annabel, the secret daughter nurtured by his mother [Jacinta] and the midwife present at his birth [Thomasina].

Below is an excerpt from the full interview, which appears in Riddle Fence #7.

T.F.: Treadway, as with some people, and some doctors, look at intersex people as a dilemma that requires action. Thomasina and Jacinta see it just as a matter of fact. They see it as something they don’t need to do anything with right away or it’s sort of a static thing that we can just accept. Thomasina’s words were, I think, there’s room enough in this world to accept this child.

Jacinta and Thomasina were okay with raising the child true to form but Treadway saw their point of view, which was non-intervention, as being indecisive action. He thought, well if you’re not going to take action, then I’m going to make the decision that this child should be raised male. So you have that dichotomy between them throughout the whole book. In fact, I kind of was surprised that the parents stayed together. I’ve seen marriages break up over a lot less than that.

S.W.: But they were in such a traditional environment.

T.F.: Exactly. I think that’s the only reason they managed to work through it. You know, this hit home for me in a lot of ways, too, ’cause I swear that I saw a lot of my father in Treadway and it kind of freaked me out. I saw a lot of myself, too.

When we talk about the whole idea of protecting the child…there’s a horrible phrase that someone came up with in the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that says having an intersex child is a “social emergency“ and I’ve always felt that, you know, that’s not true. It’s not a social emergency unless you let it become a social emergency. There’s a quote from the head of ISNA, her name is Cheryl Chase, and she even said that trying to protect intersex children leads to a cycle of what she calls the three S’s: surgery, secrecy, and shame. And you get that all throughout this book.

One of the things that struck me is that in Winter’s treatment of Treadway, he’s pushing for surgical intervention and his wife and Thomasina are pushing in the opposite direction. It brought up the idea that people think, “Okay I’m protecting my child from harm, but at a cost.” Because you can do harm through ignorance that’s as bad as the harm that people do through malevolence. That was my final thought: Was Treadway doing the right thing?

To purchase Riddle Fence #7, and the interview, go here.