Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

Alice Domurat Dreger

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English

Harvard University Press
01 March 2000

Gender studies, gender groups; Sexual behaviour; Physiology; Diseases & disorders; Surgery

Punctuated with remarkable case studies, this book explores extraordinary encounters between hermaphrodites--people born with ""ambiguous"" sexual anatomy--and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them.

Alice Dreger

focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles. While feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical hermaphrodites suggested a deeper question: just how many human sexes are there? Ultimately hermaphrodites led doctors and scientists to another surprisingly difficult question: what is sex, really?

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex takes us inside the doctors' chambers to see how and why medical and scientific men constructed sex, gender, and sexuality as they did, and especially how the material conformation of hermaphroditic bodies--when combined with social exigencies--forced peculiar constructions. Throughout the book Dreger indicates how this history can help us to understand present-day conceptualizations of sex, gender, and sexuality. This leads to an epilogue, where the author discusses and questions the protocols employed today in the treatment of intersexuals (people born hermaphroditic). Given the history she has recounted, should these protocols be reconsidered and revised?

A meticulously researched account of a fascinating problem in the history of medicine, this book will compel the attention of historians, physicians, medical ethicists, intersexuals themselves, and anyone interested in the meanings and foundations of sexual identity.

By: Alice Domurat Dreger
Imprint: Harvard University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 490g
ISBN: 9780674001893
ISBN 10: 0674001893
Pages: 268
Publication Date: 01 March 2000
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

* Acknowledgments * Prologue: But My Good Woman, You Are a Man! * Doubtful Sex * Doubtful Status * In Search of the Veritable Vulva * Hermaphrodites in Love * The Age of Gonads * Epilogue: Categorical Imperatives * Notes * Index

Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian of medicine and science and an award-winning writer.

Reviews for Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

Traces the history of the biomedical treatment of hermaphrodites during what Dreger calls the Age of Gonads.. ..She offers the reader a complex and lucid account of the process by which hermaphrodites moved from a public space (some as performers in traveling circuses and shows) to a private space where all hermaphrodite identities became increasingly shaped and defined by physicians who gained in power and prestige by intervening in the lives of these individuals...Dreger makes a convincing argument for a new approach to individuals born with ambiguous genitalia.--Heather Harris Journal of the History of Biology