Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

by Alice Domurat Dreger

Paperback, 2000

Status

Available

Call number

616.694

Genres

Collection

Your library

Publication

Harvard University Press (2000), Paperback, 268 pages

Description

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.… (more)

User reviews

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Dreger interweaves a thoughtful discussion of modern definitions of gender and sex as she tells the story of how “medical men” from France and Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century struggled with the definition of sex in their increasing encounters with

“hermaphrodites,” people whose biology didn’t fit the normal expectations for either men or women. She provides helpful context for the reasons why these doctors sought to draw hard boundaries when there were none, offering a relatively gracious critique while most certainly enjoying her ability to label medical eras with names such as “The Age of the Gonads.” In her final pages, Dreger is not nearly as forgiving when it comes to our own times, where, she argues that “in spite of all the cultural changes that have occurred” the medical profession continues to be “largely driven by the engines that drove it in the nineteenth century,” forcing intersexed bodies into a conformity that is driven largely by a desire for “clarity”, often even to the detriment of health.

The subject matter here is very much focused on the medical aspect to sex/gender without providing the personal and psychological descriptions of such historical people. Dreger explains that this is simply because of the lack of data from the time period she covers - only recently have intersexed people themselves had a voice, leaving a gap then in the history as to the feelings and experiences of the very people under scrutiny.

For those readers who are not interested in the history per se, but in the current state of medical affairs and definitions, the sections of most interest are the prologue (1-14) which provides a context for why definitions of sex should be re-visited and questioned, “current-day explanations and typing” & “question of frequency” (35-45), and the epilogue (167-201), which gives some short biographical sketches and talks extensively about modern-day medical procedures on infants of sex/gender “fitting”.

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