Unintelligibility, personhood and curriculum silences of intersex bodies in the Life Orientation high school classroom : a case study
Abstract
Despite an increase in the research that promotes affirmative gender and sexual diversity in
the South African Life Orientation (LO) education, there remains an uncomfortable silence on
intersex bodies. In the absence of distinctive binary classifications of external genitalia, learners
with variant intersex characteristics are incapable of integration into socio-educational
environments. This article explores how individuals with variant intersex characteristics learn
about the self in relation to society within LO lessons. It extrapolates factors that influence the
educational and psycho-social agency in and around the classroom. This phenomenological
study has drawn on in-depth interviews with six individuals with variant intersex
characteristics post schooling. The evidence shows that the LO curriculum privileges distinct
genital developments as a marker of normal human development and means of gender
identification. Previous studies found that the mutually exclusive biological sex characteristics
drawn from XY (male) and XX (female) chromosomal development were major determinants
of social sexual and gender embodiment in puberty lessons. Lensed through the theory of
unintelligibility, bodies that deviated from this normative development were seen as
ambiguous and derogatively referred to as hermaphrodites. Their personal identities were
marred with constructions of freaks and abnormality. Vilifying personhood rhetoric impacted
the social skills of intersex learners and their peers. Learners with intersex bodies were
uncomfortable to engage with the gender binary curriculum content, facilities and school
culture. Silences on intersex bodies in the LO curriculum made these learners feel invisible
which led to early school dropout. This article argues for the integration of intersex knowledge
that affirms, humanises and protects all gender, sexual expressions and sex characteristics in
the school context. The LO curriculum is well-positioned to disrupt problematic constructions
of intersex bodies as deficit and embarrassing by including variant sex characteristic
developments as a norm.
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- TD: 2022 Volume 18 [28]