Antlered Does and Cactus Bucks
Don Unger, The University of Mississippi
Page 1 Panel 1
Medium shot of adult me sitting at a desk and looking at my laptop. I am a middle-aged white man with wavy, graying, black hair and glasses.
CAPTION: My earliest memories are of being in a hospital. I was 4.
Page 1, Panel 2
Close up of what I am reading on my laptop: an article from The Charlotte Observer titled “What is a cryptorchid buck? Hunter just killed one of the rare creatures in Tennessee.”
CAPTION: I was there for surgery.
Page 1, Panel 3
Extreme close up of text from the article, which reads:
“Cryptorchid bucks are healthy but abnormal animals that suffer from a birth defect involving their testicles, leading people to mistake them for ‘antlered does,’ the state posted on Facebook on Saturday.
As a result, the creatures have traits of both genders, the strangest of which is a full growth of hair, or velvet, that remains on their antlers throughout their life, experts say.”
CAPTION: On the morning of the surgery, I called my parents at 4 am.
Page 1, Panel 4
Close up of little me speaking into the phone. I am 4 years old.
DONNIE: I want to go home.
Page 1, Panel 5
Close up of my mom speaking into the phone.
MOM: Donnie, go back to bed. We will see you soon. We love you.
Page 1, Panel 6
Wide shot of me sitting in a concrete room with toys and furniture for small children.
CAPTION: Instead of going back to bed, I went to the playroom.
____________________
Page 2, Panel 1
Medium shot from below of a nurse wielding a needle and looking menacing.
CAPTION: Memories of the surgery stick with me, but only fragments.
CAPTION: Before surgery, a nurse stuck me with a needle over and over again.
Page 2, Panel 2
Close up of my father yelling.
DAD: Can’t you see you’re hurting him!
Page 2, Panel 3
Wide shot from above of me walking around the room and wearing a hospital gown. A nurse is holding my hand.
CAPTION: The day after the surgery, a nurse forced me to walk around my hospital room.
Page 2, Panel 4
Close up of me wincing in pain.
Page 2, Panel 5
Medium shot of my mom handing me a wrapped gift.
MOM: We got this for you. We’ll be taking you home soon.
Page 2, Panel 6
Medium shot of me opening the gift and looking excited. It’s a Han Solo doll.
DONNIE: Han Solo!
____________________
Page 3, Panel 1
Wide shot in a living room. Ii am sitting on the floor across from two other children.
CAPTION: I didn’t think much about the surgery until I tried to show the incision scar to my friends.
DONNIE: Wanna see?
BOY: Yeah.
GIRL: Sure.
Page 3, Panel 2
Close up of me pulling up the bottom of my shirt with one hand, and pulling down the top of my pants with the other. I am wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.
Page 3, Panel 3
Close up of my babysitter, Mrs. O’Neil.
MRS. O’NEIL: Donnie! Pull up your your shorts! You can’t do that!
Page 3, Panel 4
Medium shot of me looking confused.
CAPTION: Then, I learned there was something about my surgery that wasn’t “normal.”
Page 3, Panel 5
Silhouette of me sitting on the floor looking dejected.
CAPTION: Something I should keep to myself.
______________________
Page 4, Panel 1
Wide shot of me sitting on a couch with my dad.
CAPTION: When I was in middle school, I asked my dad about the surgery.
Page 4, Panel 2
Close up of my dad.
DAD: You had surgery so that you could have kids someday.
Page 4, Panel 3
Medium shot of my dad and I sitting on the couch.
ME: What does that mean?
DAD: Ask your mother.
Page 4, Panel 4
Close up of me looking confused.
CAPTON: At that point, I knew I liked boys. I knew that wasn’t “normal” either.
Page 4, Panel 5
Wide shot of my bedroom. The Han Solo doll is on a dresser. There are posters for various 80s things. I am lying on my bed, wearing headphones.
CAPTION: Growing up, I connected my attraction to boys to my surgery. I didn’t know how or if they were related, but I thought about it a lot.
Page 4, Panel 6
Medium shot where I am sitting on a couch with my first boyfriend.
CAPTION: My first boyfriend had the same condition, but for whatever reason, his parents never pursued surgery.
______________________
Page 5, Panel 1
Over-the-shoulder shot of my parents who are sitting in front a desk and speaking with a doctor.
CAPTION: Cryptorchidism is a condition where one or both of the testes do not descend into the scrotum prior to birth.
Page 5, Panel 2
Wide shot of a hospital nursery.
CAPTION: It is the most common “genital defect” in babies born with a penis, affecting 3-4% of these children according to the American Medical Association.
Page 5, Panel 3
Medium shot of surgical instruments used in an orchiopexy.
CAPTION: Doctors tell parents that it increases the child’s risk of testicular cancer and cause infertility if left untreated. Treatment means an orchiopexy, where a doctor moves the undescended testis or testes into the scrotum.
Page 5, Panel 4
Wide shot of an operating room with the surgery going on.
CAPTION: The medical community does not consider cryptorchidism alone to be an “intersex state.” They define orchiopexy as a “repair surgery.”
Page 5, Panel 5
Wide shot of a buck drinking from a stream near a wooded area.
CAPTION: The Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) takes a different approach, arguing that intersex is a socially constructed term meant to reflect the biological variation that occurs in nature.
Page 5, Panel 6
Medium shot of the same scene, but the buck is gone. There are sound effects of a gunshot.
CAPTION: As ISNA notes: “Nature doesn’t decide where the category of ‘male’ ends and the category of ‘intersex’ begins, or where the category of “intersex” ends and the category of ‘female’ begins. Humans decide.”
CAPTION: Bang!
CAPTION: Specifically doctors, parents, and hunters.