Fixing Sex

Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience

Katrina Karkazis

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English

Duke University Press
11 November 2008

Human reproduction, growth & development; Plastic & reconstructive surgery

"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."

By: Katrina Karkazis
Imprint: Duke University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 23mm
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780822343189
ISBN 10: 0822343185
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 11 November 2008
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Part 1. What is Intersexuality? History and Theory 1. Taxonomies of Intersexuality to the 1950s 31 2. Complicating Sex, Routinizing Intervention: The Development of the Traditional Treatment Paradigm 47 3. From Socialization to Hardwire: Challenges to the Traditional Treatment Paradigm 63 Part 2. Making Decisions For and About a Baby with an Intersex Diagnosis 4. Boy or Girl? Bodies of Mixed Evidence and Gender Assignment 89 5. Fixing Sex: Surgery and the Production of Normative Sexuality 133 Part 3. Living the Medicalized Body 6. Waning and Deciding What is Best: Parents' Experiences 179 7. Growing Up under the Medical Gaze 216 8. The Intersex Body in the World: Activism and Social and Medical Change 236 Notes 291 References 321 Index 343

Katrina Karkazis is a Senior Research Scholar in the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford University.

Reviews for Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience

"""The cultural rules of gender are complex, and they are never more tested than in the case of intersex. Fixing Sex is a huge addition to the field, encompassing as it does the views of clinicians, patients, parents, and others. The topic is intrinsically interesting, but Katrina Karkazis's wonderful writing makes this a compelling story and a great read.""--Abraham Verghese, M.D., author of The Tennis Partner and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine, Stanford University ""With her fascinating field data, Katrina Karkazis exposes the contentious disagreements among theoreticians, physicians, intersex adults, and parents--and all that those debates imply about the changing landscape of gender and intersex management.""--Suzanne J. Kessler, author of Lessons from the Intersexed ""I couldn't put Fixing Sex down once I started it! Masterfully balancing all aspects of one of the most polarizing, contentious topics in medicine, this thoughtful book is destined to become the most recent authoritative treatise on intersex. Non-medical persons will find it easily digestible, yet it is a 'must-read' for every pediatrician and pediatric subspecialist caring for children with disorders of sex development.""--Kenneth C. Copeland, M.D., Jonas Professor of Pediatrics, University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, and former President of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society ""This meticulous, sensitive, and brilliantly executed book will transform our knowledge of intersexuality, gender, and the ethnographic study of medical practice.""--Gayle Rubin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Women's Studies, University of Michigan ""This book is a velvet-gloved punch to the gut. Fixing Sex is astonishing, a tale told straight from the mouths of affected adults, parents, and physicians in tender and lyrical prose. It resonated deeply with my memories of motherhood in the disorders of sexual development community. But the chapters devoted to clinicians made me weep. A physician myself, I remember my disbelief as the worlds of intersex and medicine collided in my own family. An extraordinary book for a wide audience, it is a huge step toward reconciliation and spiritual healing for its protagonists.""--Arlene B. Baratz, M.D., family and medical consultant, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group and Accord Alliance"