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Take A Third Option: Multigender In Middlesex, Cohen M. Edenfield

The Corinthian

Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex presents a protagonist, Calliope, coming to terms with hir gender identity. For some critics, the final stage of this development is Calliope’s return to hir family and decision to live as a man. By this understanding, they mistakenly conflate the end of that narrative with the narrative of the framing device, set in the present. They ignore the fact that Cal’s time as a firmly-defined man is even worse than hir time as a woman, a sad reality that has not changed in the present.