Doubts and Certainty

How many times in your life have you thought, "What makes me a woman/man?" I doubt I had ever wondered this before I picked up Sexing the Body. I have had a child, so I know my body is capable of female reproduction. Therefore I am female, right? But female and male are gender constructions. Thus far Sexing the Body had intervened in my perception of doubt and certainty, determinism, how culture and society dictate our 'self,' and the Cartesian split.

I sat in our truck, parked outside the cabin in Wisconsin, and read the section in Sexing about Maria Patino. After reading I turned to my husband and asked, "If a person has been raised a girl but then discovers she has a Y chromosome and testes is she a girl or guy?"
He looked at me then asked, "Could she have kids?"
"No."
"Because she didn't want to or because she can't?"
"Can't," I answered.
"Why?" he asked.
"She didn't have female reproductive organs," I said.
"She's a he."
"But why?" I asked.
"She can't have kids. She has a Y chromosome. She's a guy."

I sat there mulling everything over as we drove up the steep slope away from the cabin, suddenly doubting everything I knew about sex and gender. How could the human body get it so wrong and not decide what would seem to be one of the most basic human determinants, sex? Could everything I know about sex and gender be completely wrong? More than anything else I asked why. Are gender and sex so separate that they should be held on separate planes? Is this a Cartesian argument? Was Maria a woman because nurture had told her she was? Or was she a woman because nature had failed to provide her with testosterone? Was this nature or nurture? But, on a social/cultural level, to quote Fausto-Sterling "why should we care if there are individuals whose "natural biological equipment" enables them to have sex "naturally" with both men and women?" (pp8) She provides her own answer for that because it blurs the lines between genders.

Now I sit here, on a comfy couch, reflecting on what I've read. I have, thus far, thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am satisfied with the numerous examples, end notes, and learn something new each time I page through this book, which I am able to do because I enjoy reading it and like the informative yet casual tone of Sexing. But I have to reflect on one more question, the last proposed for this topic which reads:

Does this bring her closer to "truth," "the facts," and/or "reality"? Why?

One of my TA's had TRUTH tattooed on her wrist. I asked about it one day and she responded something like this - Truth does not care what you think. Truth does not care who you are. Truth doesn't care what your politics are. Truth doesn't care who you love. Truth does not have ideals. Truth is not subjective. It just is. - So when asked, does this book, research, bring her closer to the truth, I have no idea. I have no idea what "truth" or "the truth" is. Does this bring her closer to facts? Maybe, but I can't know, I'm not her. Does this bring her closer to reality? Yes, only because reality is subjective.

But doubts, I am full of them. And as for certainty, I don't know if I will ever have absolute certainty in anything. Anything.