I recommend checking out Alice Domurat Dreger’s Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, which is one of the earliest works in the anglo world exploring intersex from a social perspective, and digs historically into the process through which western medical fields developed an entirely arbitrary distinction to biologically “sex” men and women, and how that was propelled into dominant social ideology.
Despite her more recent anti-trans talking points, back in the day Dreger’s work was a really big part of the developing intersex community (by community here I mean community as in, people beginning to “come out” as intersex or meet other intersex people and share their experiences and form an identity as intersex as opposed to the previously near-universal intersex experience of living in secret shame, believing you had an embarrassing and unique medical condition, or being left entirely in the dark as doctors performed surgeries on you and either never told your parents or your parents chose to bury it and lie to you).
I think a lot of queer theory pushed by english-american academia spends too much time focused on dividing “sex” and “gender” in an entirely arbitrary and hegemonic way, perpetuating the idea that sex has some essential biological immutability, which not only holds back trans theory, it completely erases intersex theory.
So, for anyone interested in reading a bit more about intersex:
Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock
Beyond Gender Binaries: The History of Trans, Intersex, and Third Gender Individuals, Rita Santos
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Dean Spade
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, Eric A. Stanley
Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World, Anne Fausto-Sterling
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, Anne Fausto-Sterling
Expanding the Rainbow: Exploring the Relationships of Bi+, Polyamorous, Kinky, Ace, Intersex, and Trans People, Brandy L. Simula, J.E. Sumerau, and Andrea Miller
Intersex, Catherine Harper
Intersex Matters: Biomedical Embodiment, Gender Regulation, and Transnational Activism, David A. Rubin
Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, Elizabeth Reis
Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis, Georgiann Davis
The Spectrum of Sex: The Science of Male, Female, and Intersex, Hida Vilori and Naria Nieto
Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience, Hilary Malatino
Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub
Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, Katrina Karkazis
Critical Intersex, Morgan Holmes
Intersex Rights: Living Between Sexes, Nikoletta Pikramenou
Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives, Stefan Horlacher
I recommend checking out Alice Domurat Dreger’s Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, which is one of the earliest works in the anglo world exploring intersex from a social perspective, and digs historically into the process through which western medical fields developed an entirely arbitrary distinction to biologically “sex” men and women, and how that was propelled into dominant social ideology.
Despite her more recent anti-trans talking points, back in the day Dreger’s work was a really big part of the developing intersex community (by community here I mean community as in, people beginning to “come out” as intersex or meet other intersex people and share their experiences and form an identity as intersex as opposed to the previously near-universal intersex experience of living in secret shame, believing you had an embarrassing and unique medical condition, or being left entirely in the dark as doctors performed surgeries on you and either never told your parents or your parents chose to bury it and lie to you).
Rare theory!!
I think a lot of queer theory pushed by english-american academia spends too much time focused on dividing “sex” and “gender” in an entirely arbitrary and hegemonic way, perpetuating the idea that sex has some essential biological immutability, which not only holds back trans theory, it completely erases intersex theory.
So, for anyone interested in reading a bit more about intersex:
Challenging Lesbian Norms: Intersex, Transgender, Intersectional, and Queer Perspectives, Angela Pattatuchi Aragón
Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States, Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, and Kay Whitlock
Beyond Gender Binaries: The History of Trans, Intersex, and Third Gender Individuals, Rita Santos
Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law, Dean Spade
Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, Eric A. Stanley
Sex/Gender: Biology in a Social World, Anne Fausto-Sterling
Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, Anne Fausto-Sterling
Expanding the Rainbow: Exploring the Relationships of Bi+, Polyamorous, Kinky, Ace, Intersex, and Trans People, Brandy L. Simula, J.E. Sumerau, and Andrea Miller
Intersex, Catherine Harper
Intersex Matters: Biomedical Embodiment, Gender Regulation, and Transnational Activism, David A. Rubin
Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex, Elizabeth Reis
Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis, Georgiann Davis
The Spectrum of Sex: The Science of Male, Female, and Intersex, Hida Vilori and Naria Nieto
Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience, Hilary Malatino
Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Julia Epstein and Kristina Straub
Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, Katrina Karkazis
Critical Intersex, Morgan Holmes
Intersex Rights: Living Between Sexes, Nikoletta Pikramenou
Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives, Stefan Horlacher
Thank you for this.