Lessons from the Intersexed

Lessons from the Intersexed
Author: Suzanne J. Kessler
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1998
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780813525303

Focusing on intersexuality, having physical gender markers that are neither female or male, the author examines the social institutions that are mobilized to maintain the two seemingly objective sexual categories. She argues that we need to rethink the meaning of gender, genitals and sexuality.

Making Sense of Intersex

Making Sense of Intersex
Author: Ellen K. Feder
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0253012325

A philosopher offers a framework for the treatment of intersex children, and a moral argument for responsibility to them and their families. Putting the ethical tools of philosophy to work, Ellen K. Feder seeks to clarify how we should understand “the problem” of intersex. Adults often report that medical interventions they underwent as children to “correct” atypical sex anatomies caused them physical and psychological harm. Proposing a philosophical framework for the treatment of children with intersex conditions—one that acknowledges the intertwined identities of parents, children, and their doctors—Feder presents a persuasive moral argument for collective responsibility to these children and their families. “In a voice both urgent and nuanced, Feder squarely faces the complexities that accompany the care of people with atypical sex anatomies in medical science. . . . Rich with cross-discipline potential, Feder’s engaging argument should provide a new approach for doctors and parents caring for children with atypical sex anatomy.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Feder’s book is a welcome injection of new ideas into feminist scholarship on intersex, post-Consensus Statement era.” —Women’s Review of Books “Is a work of philosophy capable of bringing insightful new perspectives or illuminating and forceful arguments to an urgent social matter so as truly to effect a felt change in the lives of people concerned by it? Feder’s book is capable of this effect. As such, it takes the risk of calling forth a new public, or a new readership, and so is a work whose appeal could well be ahead of its time. But its time should be here.” —International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics “Making Sense of Intersex significantly enhances our understanding of intersex and the ethical issues involved in medical practice more generally.” —Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal

Intersex Matters

Intersex Matters
Author: David A. Rubin
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438467567

Intersex Matters analyzes the medicalization of people diagnosed as "intersex," which is an umbrella term for individuals born with sexual anatomies various societies deem to be nonstandard. Through an examination of medico-scientific, scholarly, political, and popular archives from the mid-twentieth century to the present, Rubin argues that the medical regulation of atypical sex is fundamentally a feminist and a queer issue, and an intersectional and transnational one as well. Critical attention to intersex lives, bodies, narratives, and activisms profoundly reconfigures contemporary paradigms of sex/gender, race, health, normality, biopolitics, and human rights. Rubin charts the emergence of intersex rights activism in the global north and global south, thus demonstrating the value of understanding intersex experience when rethinking the vicissitudes of body politics in a globally interconnected world.

Fixing Sex

Fixing Sex
Author: Katrina Karkazis
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2008-11-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822389215

What happens when a baby is born with “ambiguous” genitalia or a combination of “male” and “female” body parts? Clinicians and parents in these situations are confronted with complicated questions such as whether a girl can have XY chromosomes, or whether some penises are “too small” for a male sex assignment. Since the 1950s, standard treatment has involved determining a sex for these infants and performing surgery to normalize the infant’s genitalia. Over the past decade intersex advocates have mounted unprecedented challenges to treatment, offering alternative perspectives about the meaning and appropriate medical response to intersexuality and driving the field of those who treat intersex conditions into a deep crisis. Katrina Karkazis offers a nuanced, compassionate picture of these charged issues in Fixing Sex, the first book to examine contemporary controversies over the medical management of intersexuality in the United States from the multiple perspectives of those most intimately involved. Drawing extensively on interviews with adults with intersex conditions, parents, and physicians, Karkazis moves beyond the heated rhetoric to reveal the complex reality of how intersexuality is understood, treated, and experienced today. As she unravels the historical, technological, social, and political forces that have culminated in debates surrounding intersexuality, Karkazis exposes the contentious disagreements among theorists, physicians, intersex adults, activists, and parents—and all that those debates imply about gender and the changing landscape of intersex management. She argues that by viewing intersexuality exclusively through a narrow medical lens we avoid much more difficult questions. Do gender atypical bodies require treatment? Should physicians intervene to control the “sex” of the body? As this illuminating book reveals, debates over treatment for intersexuality force reassessment of the seemingly natural connections between gender, biology, and the body.

Alex As Well

Alex As Well
Author: Alyssa Brugman
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2015-01-20
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 1627790152

Alex is ready for things to change, in a big way. Everyone seems to think she's a boy, but for Alex the whole boy/girl thing isn't as simple as either/or, and when she decides girl is closer to the truth, no one knows how to react, least of all her parents. Undeterred, Alex begins to create a new identity for herself: ditching one school, enrolling in another, and throwing out most of her clothes. But the other Alex-the boy Alex-has a lot to say about that. Heartbreaking and droll in equal measures, Alex As Well is a brilliantly told story of exploring gender and sexuality, navigating friendships, and finding a place to belong.

Radical Hospitality

Radical Hospitality
Author: Nour Halabi
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2022-12-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1978827741

Radical Hospitality: American Policy, Media, and Immigration re-imagines the ethical relationship of host societies towards newcomers by applying the concept of hospitality to two specific realms that impact the lives of immigrants in the United States: policy and media. The book calls attention to the moral responsibility of the host in welcoming a stranger. It sets the stage for the analysis with a historical background of the first host-guest diads of American hospitality, arguing that the early history of American hospitality was marked by the degeneration of the host-guest relationship into one of host-hostage, normalizing a racial discrimination that continues to plague immigration hospitality to this day. Author Nour Halabi presents a historical policy and media discourse analysis of immigration regulation and media coverage during three periods of US history: the 1880s and the Chinese Exclusion Act, the 1920s and the National Origins Act and the 2000s and the Muslim travel ban. In so doing, it demonstrates how U.S. immigration hospitality, from its peaks in the post-Independence period to its nadir in the Muslim travel ban, has fallen short of true hospitality in spite of the nation’s oft-touted identity as a “nation of immigrants.” At the same time, the book calls attention to how a discourse of hospitality, although fraught, may allow a radical reimagining of belonging and authority that unsettles settler-colonial assumptions of belonging and welcome a restorative outlook to immigration policy and its media coverage in society.

Intersex Matters

Intersex Matters
Author: David A. Rubin
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2017-09-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438467559

Analyzes intersex debates through a queer feminist, intersectional, and transnational lens. Intersex Matters analyzes the medicalization of people diagnosed as “intersex,” which is an umbrella term for individuals born with sexual anatomies various societies deem to be nonstandard. Through an examination of medico-scientific, scholarly, political, and popular archives from the mid-twentieth century to the present, Rubin argues that the medical regulation of atypical sex is fundamentally a feminist and a queer issue, and an intersectional and transnational one as well. Critical attention to intersex lives, bodies, narratives, and activisms profoundly reconfigures contemporary paradigms of sex/gender, race, health, normality, biopolitics, and human rights. Rubin charts the emergence of intersex rights activism in the global north and global south, thus demonstrating the value of understanding intersex experience when rethinking the vicissitudes of body politics in a globally interconnected world. “Intersex Matters is conceptually sharp, thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and offers an account of intersex that we’ve never seen before. It is a remarkable book.” — Gayle Salamon, Princeton University “The scholarship is sound and well written. The book makes a significant contribution to the literature and further adds to our knowledge of intersex.” — Georgiann Davis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Being Boys; Being Girls: Learning Masculinities And Femininities

Being Boys; Being Girls: Learning Masculinities And Femininities
Author: Paechter, Carrie
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2007-07-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0335219748

This book is about how boys and girls learn to be men and women. Drawing on a wide range of studies, the author examines how masculinities and femininities are developed and understood by children and young people, in families, in schools, and with their peers.

Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex

Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex
Author: Megan Walker
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2022-01-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030914755

This edited collection interrogates how social and cultural representations of individuals with intersex variations impact how they are understood and treated from legal and medical perspectives across the world. Contributors consider how novelists, filmmakers, artists, and medical professionals have represented people with intersex variations, and highlight the importance of ethical representation and autonomy to encourage wider cultural and medical knowledge of intersex variations as a naturally occurring phenomenon. The text also examines the ways in which individuals with intersex variations are represented and viewed in India, Italy, Pakistan and Israel, as well as how this impacts decision making for the individuals, families and medical providers. This book argues that reactions to intersex variations will not change unless they are no longer presented as treatable disorders. It positions representation at the forefront, shifting the emphasis away from a concern for maintaining gender norms to upholding the human rights of intersex people. This volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars in intersex studies as well as policymakers and activists.

Intersex Embodiment

Intersex Embodiment
Author: Fae Garland
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1529217377

This book examines the divergent medical, political and legal constructions of intersex. The authors use empirical data to explore how intersex people are embodied through these frameworks which in turn influence their lived experiences. Through their analysis, the authors reveal the factors that motivate and influence the way in which policy makers and legislators approach the area of intersex rights. They reflect on the limitations of law as the primary vehicle in challenging healthcare’s framing of intersex as a ‘disorder’ in need of fixing. Finally, they offer a more holistic account of intersex justice which is underpinned by psychosocial support and bodily integrity.