While I'm contemplating the findings of my recent surgery (not terrible, but not good either), and the surgeon's recommendations for therapy (2 "evils" with no "better of" between them), I find myself still ruminating on themes from Middlesex.

Over 2 months before I'd even picked up the novel, I happened across a site on Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. I found this statement fascinating: "So in a genetically male (XY) foetus the active intervention of male hormones (androgens) is needed to produce a fully male system. A female body type with female external genitalia is the basic underlying human form."

It seems to me that if society accepted this basic scientific concept, a lot of time-honored ideas about sex and gender roles (not to mention a few foundational myths) would need to be reconsidered.

In the mean time, I find the prospect of excising my own internal female genitalia so emotionally wrenching that, as my male primary-care physician recently pointed out, I can barely bring myself to say the "H" word.