Bezdomne ciała w bezdusznym świecie
Homeless Bodies in a Merciless World

Summary/Abstract: “Does a body which constitutes pure matter unaffected by culture exist? Is there a body that exists beyond a qualifying gender?” From the moment of birth the human body is forced into a merciless social mechanism based on two categories: being a girl or being a boy, a woman or a man. The classification of genders does not accommodate a third possibility. But it is impossible to ignore the trauma of people whose bodies evade the either/or distinction. Intersexuals find it extremely hard to find their place in a society guided by laws which have been instituted with cultural and biological genders, in which the appointed role of boy or girl is reflected by anatomic features. The fact that they possess the attributes of both genders makes life very difficult for intersexuals. They are often subjected to surgical procedures in early childhood and doctors decide which sexual organs should be left in place and which should be reconstructed. Joanna Mizielińska gives us moving accounts from people who underwent such painful procedures and who prove that the artificial system determined by culture and science is wrong. As adults these people feel incredibly torn and ‘in-between’. They are uncertain of their own identities. They change genders and sexual orientations and lead a suspended existence hoping to find their place in the world. Some of them are unable to take the pressure and commit suicide. Homelessness is the price that they pay for not meeting the sharp gender distinction criterion. It is not their personalities and individualities that count, but the fact that they introduce confusion into the restricted framework of the modern world and its glaring paradoxes. The prevalent cultural and biological gender ideology loses its seemingly unshakable justification when confronted with the intersexual. By wounding the helpless body with a scalpel it demonstrates its power and, at the same time, reveals its ineffectiveness. It proves that without human interference the approved cultural rules and the assumed natural order are disturbingly frail.

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