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In reading the transcripts from the Oprah show, I was interested in Hida's remark that "the reason she is comfortable with her intersex body is that she never felt pressure to choose a gender." I found this statement somewhat shocking, for I can't imagine growing up in a society in which there wasn't a pressure to choose a gender. Aside from the way in which parents raise children, schools are structured around a gender binary, which allows for clear distinctions between "boys" and "girls." I would imagine that not assigning oneself to either category would lead to intense social ostracization. Even if the intersex individual can make sense of her gender ambiguity, her peers may not. Most children come to understand their bodies through the lens of gender. For example, when a young girls asks her mom about her genitalia, her mother will likely respond with something along the lines of, "that's your vagina, and it's what makes you a girl and will one day make you a woman." While I understand that such explanations pose multiple problems for transgender individuals, I'm not sure response would work/make sense to a child. In other words, how do children come to understand and accept their "private parts" or those sections of their body kept hidden. Is it possible to not subscribe meaning to them? Is there a way to teach children about their sex that's separate from helping them understand their gender? This brings me to my next question, which is whether or not it is possible to raise a child without assigning a gender. In cases of children born with DSDs where the sex is truly ambiguous, how should the gender be determined? How would not raising a child in a gendered manner have negative psychological effects? How does society need to change if children are to be raised without assigned genders? Are such changes even feasible? Lastly, are their any circumstances under which you (Katie Baratz) suppport gender assignment surgery, aside from when it is a "medical necessity"?