Masculinizing a Feminine World

Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex is a bestselling fictional novel that explores the complexities of human sexuality and its influence on identity. Told from the perspective of Cal “Calliope” Stephanides, the novel spans across three generations, switching intermittently from stories of past generations to the present year of 1996, to explain the rich social and biological histories behind Cal’s intersex condition. Cal was a genetic male who had a recessive genetic condition called 5-Alpha-reductase deficiency. In this condition, genetically born males, meaning they have an X and Y chromosome and male gonads, do not produce enough of a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and thus fail to develop external sex organs before birth. Once the individual reaches puberty, however, the individual begins to virilize and develop masculine characteristics (see http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/5-alpha-reductase-deficiency).

A complete understanding of Cal’s syndrome requires a trip back in time to 1922, during which time a brother and sister of Greek ethnicity named Lefty and Desdemona fled their hometown of Smyra, which was under siege by the Turks. The pair did not have a typical sibling bond though; they loved each other in a way that surpassed familial affection and represented romantic passion. After fleeing the city the couple embark on a treacherous journey to America, during which time they stage a budding romance and simulated courtship, less to fool other travelers and more to delude themselves into thinking they were not biologically related. The couple took advantage of their journey to reinvent themselves, getting married aboard the ship and arriving in American as husband and wife. Little did Desdemona and Lefty know that they each had a mutated gene on their 5th chromosome. In America they moved to Detroit to live with their cousin Sourmelina, a radical, Americanized woman, and her husband Jimmy. Desdemona and Lina both end up becoming pregnant at the same time, bearing a son Milton and a daughter Theodora, respectively. This period marks the time in which Desdemona, after learning about the genetic complications that can ensure if family members interbreed, began worrying about the future of her family. After Milton’s birth Lefty and Desdemona’s relationship changed; they were no longer passionate and egalitarian lovers but instead drifted apart. In his efforts to distance himself Lefty opened a bar in the basement of the house, and later forced Desdemona to seek employment as well. Desdemona finds a job as a silk worker in a Mosque in the black ghetto. She overhears the minister’s sermons on sin and guilt, and thus becomes more sure that her ancestry is doomed because of her ungodly relationship with her brother. Years pass, and Desdemona leaves her work and Lefty sets up a bar and grill. In the meantime, Milton and Theodora, or “Tessie,” mature, fostering a relationship that mirrored that of Desdemona and Lefty, except that instead of siblings the two are cousins. In an attempt to thwart the growing attraction between Milton and Tessie, Desdemona sets Tessie up with Michael Antoniou, a pious man who intends to become a preacher. However, her matchmaking efforts ultimately fail, and Milton and Tessie marry. Michael ends up marrying Zoe, Milton’s sister and Desdemona and Lefty’s daughter. Thus, the novel explains the complicated web of genetics that allowed for a recessive autosomal condition to survive and eventually come into fruition.

In the midst of recounting his ancestor’s tales, Cal describes his present life in Berlin. He mentions that he has been dating a woman named Julie, and often suggests that, having been raised a girl, he finds it difficult and frightening to allow himself to becoming intimately involved with women. Looking back at 1954, Cal reports how he was conceived, and how from “her” birth, concurrent events served as bad omens. Over the years Desdemona becomes more involved in religion, obsessed with the desire to purge herself of the sins of her incest; additionally, as Milton becomes busier with his restaurant his relationship with Tessie becomes strained. In June 1967, as the consequence of race riots, the restaurant burns down, and the insurance coverage allows the family to move to a nicer neighborhood on a street appropriately named Middlesex. Middlesex serves as Cal’s childhood home, the place in which “she” and her brother, who she calls Chapter 11, grew up. Looking back at his childhood, Cal recognized that there was always a sexual undercurrent to his female friendships, yet that he was too young to notice it and understand it at the time. When Cal reached age 12, she begins to feel left behind; all of the other girls show signs of physical maturation while she remains prepubescent; when she did finally begin to develop it was in the form of a growth spurt. Nonetheless, the era of adrogyny allowed her true sex to remain concealed. During this time Cal becomes friends with a girl referred to as “The Obscure Object.” Cal’s interest in females becomes stronger, and she tries to mask this feeling by having sex with Jerome, the Object’s brother. Ultimately, the Object unconsciously recognizes Cal’s sexuality, and the best friends share a short lived romance.

Shortly after Cal and the Object openly acknowledge their feelings for each other, Cal gets into an accident, after which she is taken to the hospital and her true sexuality is identified. Now recognized as a male, he receives the diagnosis of 5-alpha-reductase-deficiency. Her doctor believes that Cal was just a girl with too much male hormones and that his socially developed gender identity overrode his biological and genetic make-up, asserting the dominance of nurture over nature with regards to identity. Cal, who at this point is unwilling to admit to others his masculine drives, runs away to California to avoid gender assignment surgery. He finds a job at a club called the 69ers, which exploits his intersex condition for profit. He works with two other intersex individuals in his act, who educate him about intersexed conditions. Towards the end of the novel, in another break into the present, Cal tells Julie the truth of his condition and their relationship continues to develop. The last story of the past involves Milton going to meet someone who fallaciously told him that he was hold Cal for ransom. The “kidnapper” turned out to be Michael, who was unhappy in his marriage with Zoe and felt debilitated and weak in the relationship. At the end of the book Cal returns home for his father’s funeral and reveals his new masculinity to his family members. Upon explaining his transformation to Desdemona, Cal learns the complicated history behind his genetic mutation. On the whole, the book examines how biological forces such as sex and race can provoke social discrimination. Furthermore, the plot highlights the complex interplay of nature and nurture in creating identity.

Cal’s transformation from a baby girl to an adolescent boy can serve as a metaphor for the masculinizing a feminine world; modern American society is characterized by biological and genetic technologies that enable scientists to reshape and redefine the natural order of the environment. Specifically, rBGH allows farmers to figuratively create “intersexed” cows, Dairy cows’ role to produce milk casts them into a symbolically feminine role, and their milk production carries emblematic ties to womanhood and fertility (http://www.springerlink.com/content/q105231q23783665/). Scientific technology, on the other hand, is typically associated with masculinity (http://www.springerlink.com/content/t437638652780432/fulltext.pdf and http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1393046.pdf). Thus, the infusion of dairy cattle with a scientifically manufactured hormone merges symbols of womanhood and manhood, fusing together masculinity and femininity to redefine nature in a way that surpasses literal molecular alterations to incorporate metaphoric reconstructions as well.