A contribution by Fabian Vogler
For me as an artist or figurative sculptor, the mere knowledge of intersex has greatly expanded and enriched my understanding of the world. By “coincidence” I found myself in a lecture by Dr. Katinka Schweizer on the topic of “Intersex and Transsexuality”, and the realisation that there is a difference shook my previous conditioning that was built on the gender-binary construct. At no time during my entire school or university education, whether in Germany, in Austria, Spain or Great Britain, had intersex ever been mentioned. Without knowing it, however, I had repeatedly depicted intersexual figures in my work for years, and for this reason alone, the existence of intersex seemed to me to be a revelation!
Personally always bored by the male stereotypes which I should have lived up to in my role as a man, shifting the task of maintaining a strict dichotomy towards expanding the concept of gender identity seems to me a great liberation. What fascinates me above all is that EVERY HUMAN is intersex as an embryo until at least the 7th week of pregnancy. Only then, depending on the situation, do female or male internal and external sex characteristics develop. Thus all our origins are the same and the information about these origins is in all of us. Internalising this is something I see as a great societal opportunity. Let’s embrace it!
