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Julie Kikuchi
Zora is a beautiful intersex person whom Cal meets in San Francisco. He lives in Zora’s house and works with her at a sex club called Sixty-Niners. Zora is proud of being intersex, and doesn’t want to identify as a woman even though she physically passes as a cis woman. She passes on her knowledge and pride about being intersex to Cal. Zora only dates lesbians, is a heavy drinker, and is writing a book about intersex people called The Sacred Hermaphrodite.
Zora Quotes in Middlesex
The Middlesex quotes below are all either spoken by Zora or refer to Zora. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 4: Hermaphroditus Quotes
There have been hermaphrodites around forever, Cal. Forever. Plato said that the original human being was a hermaphrodite. Did you know that? The original person was two halves, one male, one female. Then these got separated. That’s why everybody’s always searching for their other half. Except for us. We’ve got both halves already.
Related Characters:
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Explanation and Analysis:
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Zora Character Timeline in Middlesex
The timeline below shows where the character Zora appears in Middlesex. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 4: Hermaphroditus
...Cal doesn’t mind performing. He works with two other women, “so called,” named Carmen and Zora. After Cal called Bob from the park, Bob immediately picked him up and took him...
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...head remains afloat and out of sight of the audience, allowing him to talk to Zora and Carmen while he works. Sometimes Zora gives Cal tokes of a joint to smoke...
(full context)
...been born into the wrong body.” She is saving up money to have bottom surgery. Zora, meanwhile, is intersex, with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. She is more physically feminine than Cal ever...
(full context)
Zora tells Cal that intersex people have always existed, and that Plato said the first human...
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Cal mostly spends his days at home with Zora while she works on her book. Men adore Zora, but she only dates lesbians. She...
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...In Cal’s final weeks in San Francisco, he reads as much as he can of Zora’s texts about hermaphroditism. He meditates and attempts to get his soul to leave his body,...
(full context)
