The internets have been buzzing with news that Lady Gaga is possibly a hermaphrodite (or is “intersex” more appropriate? please enlighten me if you know), as video footage from one of her concerts shows her getting off a moped-like thing and pulling a Britney Spears in the audience’s direction.  If you look real hard at ~1:10 and squint your eyes, it kind of looks like there might be more going on down there than we had previously thought.

So of course lots of people are talking about how crazy/gross/maybe kinda hot this is, and whether she really has the parts she’s now purported to have or whether this is just a stunt.  I frankly don’t really care; she is who she is.  What I do hope is that this provokes meaningful conversation about the interplay between (biological) sex and gender, and the complex ways in which we choose to go about presenting our sexual identity to the rest of the world.

Because Lady Gaga is, without a doubt, the current mainstream artist most able to provoke those kinds of conversations.  She’s aware that she is as much performance artist as singer and she fully intends to provoke discussion about sex, sexuality and gender.  Let’s roll with it then, and talk about body parts, etc. regardless of the kind(s) that Gaga was born with.

Also, if this is true, it leads to endless possibilities for jokes about how her muffin is bluffin’.  Just saying.

On another note: here’s an interesting take on her unconventional fashion choices–that she’s doing it to emulate avant-garde architecture and design.