Why Would I Like a Book About a Hermaphrodite?

When I first picked up Middlesex, I was surprised to learn that it was a book about a hermaphrodite.  (The title of the book suddenly made a whole lot more sense.)  I thought, I probably won’t like this book because I won’t be able to relate.  I searched my brain to see what I knew about hermaphrodites.  In the back of my brain, I distantly remembered an article I read from the New York Times that discussed the controversial topic of intersex women in competitive international sports such as the Olympics.  (The article is called “The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes” by Ruth Padawer for those of you that are curious.)  It featured an Indian women named Dutee Chand that had come from a poor rural area, who had illiterate parents that were basket-weavers, and who had earned luxuries such as food by running, food that her family would normally not be able to afford.  When her gender was questioned, she was subjected to a series of tests to prove that she was a woman.  But, alas, she failed.  It was found that she had more androgens than the usual woman.  So then it was declared that she would be banned from participating in competitive sports.  This woman was shocked.  She was told during the series of tests she had to endure that it was standard procedure.  She was only thinking of a way to earn her family extra privileges by doing something she loved.  She asked, “Why should I change the way I look on the outside, if I was raised as a woman, identify as a woman, and have to compete with other women that may have other advantages such as coming from a privileged background?”

Dutee Chand

            It makes you wonder what she feels like, having her gender questioned when all she has known is that she is a girl.  Likewise, the narrator in Middlesex must have questioned what happened to her.  The narrator mentions that she is born a girl, but then born again as a boy.  In the first few pages, the narrator sounds matter-of-fact, like he (or she) has accepted who he is.  He hints at a budding relationship with Julie in the part we have read so far, and a possible previous relationship with a girl, and perhaps her brother.  Although I had some reservations about this book, I find myself eager to join the journey of the various events that lead up to the narrator’s birth and his life afterwards.  It makes me curious about how he is going to figure out that he is a hermaphrodite, how he deals with it, and how he is going to grow relationships as he gets older.