This is the third article in a series of partnerships between AN and Façadomy, a journal that reflects on issues in contemporary identity through the lenses of art and architecture. The first was “Female-ness, Corb, and Contraband;” the second was “Male-ness: Masculinity and Suffocation.”
An Intersex individual is someone who describes themselves as Intersex
Intersex is a medical term that describes the anatomy/genetics of a body born with a variation between what is traditionally understood as Female and Male. Variations are endlessly diverse and do not always include genitalia. Norwegian sexologist Esben Esther Perelli Benestad uses the term to describe the gender of an individual who identifies as Intersex. In 2016, nearly 25 percent of the world’s population has access to a legal Intersex identification at birth with India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh as major contributors. The remaining 75 percent of the world (including the United States) are only left with the options of Male or Female. Intersex children are often surgically and/or hormonally “corrected”(mutilated) at birth or near puberty to fit within the dominant societal sex/gender categories of Male and Female. Because these measures are taken so early on, Intersex individuals often grow to identify with another gender later in life. In this respect, they become, for instance, Male-to-Intersex (MtI) or Female-to-Intersex (FtI).
Pronouns: Et al
The SESC are municipal cultural buildings in Brazil and the SESC Pompeia is perhaps the ultimate.
Within it exists an expanded definition of culture—possessing everything from exhibition spaces to basketball courts. The SESC Pompeia has conversation areas, chess tables, dining areas, a sports building with rock-shaped windows, outdoor areas where you can pretend to be on the beach, a skateboard park and a library.
It is a building that changes sex as you walk through it.
—Andreas Angelidakis
AN ANGEL OPENS UP THE RUSTED GATES THAT MAKE WHOLE AN EMBANKMENT. THE ANGEL FLUTTERS WITH THE FORCE OF CORPOREAL FIGURES WHOSE POWER INSPIRES A SLIPPAGE OF FEAR TO PANIC IN THE VIBRATING SOULS OF DOCTORS, LAWYERS, PRIESTS AND BIOLOGISTS WHO CUT AWAY WINGS. A HYPER-SWIFT CLOSING AND RE-CLOSING OF PERCEPTIVE ABILITIES AND MAN-MADE WOUNDS IMPERCEPTIBLE TO THE HUMAN EYE IN ITS MICRO-REPETITIONS.
WHAT BETTER WAY TO RE-ARTICULATE SPACE AND TIME THAN THROUGH A BODY LITERALLY BEYOND THE SCOPE OF, YET STILL WITHIN, THE WORLD OF MAN (AND WOMAN). THE PHALLIC/VOID DIVISION COLLAPSES, NOT AT THE LEVEL OF META-PHOR BUT IN FLESH. ANGELS CAN ONLY BE REPRESENTED IN GESTURES BECAUSE THEY ELUDE PLACE. THEY’RE AMONG US. THEY FIRST APPEARED IN DREAMS AND THEN IN MATERNITY WARDS. OTHERS BROKE THROUGH FLESH IN MID-LIFE CRISES. THEY ARE DIVINE MUTANTS, WHOSE BODIES CRAWL UNDER, FLY OVER AND BREAK THROUGH THE GATEWAY TO THE MODERN SYMBOLIC ORDER. THEY STRUGGLE TO SAY I. SPACE AND TIME REFRACT ON THE SURFACE OF SKIN THAT EMITS, VIBRATES OUTSIDE OF THE WAVELENGTHS OF SEXUAL TRUTH. MULTIPLE IN FORM—HYPERTROPHY, HYPOSPADIA, TRUE AND PSEUDO, MALE AND FEMALE—AN ELSEWHERE TO THE ELSEWHERE.
—Juliana Huxtable
