Books and selected journal articles on intersex issues, including fiction, peer-reviewed papers, and biographies.
Sociologist and intersex person Cary Costello has just published a great blog post at the Intersex Roadshow on how educational and scientific texts about a hermaphrodite fish are affected by the world view and beliefs of the writer. A central issue that makes life hard for intersex people is invisibility. Most people are unaware of…
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In the journal Transformations, Morgan Holmes writes about a third sex or gender. Morgan Holmes approaches the subject as a scholar and an intersex person; she was formerly a member of ISNA and is now an assistant professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada. The paper is recommended reading for people interested…
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Earlier this month, the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics published an opinion document, On the management of differences of sex development, Ethical issues relating to “intersexuality”. Copies are available via the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health in English. This is a brief review of the key points in that position document. Our…
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“In the Case of C and D” isn’t the only Australian case of which we are aware of an annulment of marriage due to one party being intersex, but obtaining good, detailed documentation on such cases can be a major challenge. Broadcast journalist Ian Richardson has done an amazing job in documenting the story of…
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Alice Dreger, Ellen K Feder and Anne Tamar-Mattis write in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 30 July 2012, on the “use of dexamethasone in pregnant women at risk of carrying a female fetus affected by congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)” in the West. To our eyes, this is not just an intersex issue but an LGBTI…
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Katrina Karkazis, Rebecca Jordan-Young, Georgiann Davis and Silva Comporesi write in The American Journal of Bioethics on new IAAF/IOC policies on hyperandrogenism in female athletes: In May 2011, more than a decade after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) abandoned sex testing, they devised new policies in response…
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Sociologist Georgiann Davis Ph.D. recently had published her paper on DSD in Sociology of Diagnosis, Advances in Medical Sociology, Volume 12, 155–182. The paper, “DSD is a perfectly fine term”: Reasserting Medical Authority Through a Shift in Intersex Terminology is a hugely important critique and highly recommended reading. The context Even though the diagnosis carried…
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The Journal of Sexual Medicine has published, in 2011, significant research on the subjective nature of “normal” female genitals. The study, by Reitsma, Mourits, Koning, Pascal and van der Lei, is entitled “No (wo)man is an island – the influence of physicians’ personal predisposition to labia minora appearance on their clinical decision making: a cross-sectional…
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The UN Committee against Torture sitting in Germany from October 31 to November 25 2011 has considered a German report on torture and other abuses and has produced a groundbreaking statement on intersex and torture: Intersex people 20. The Committee takes note of the information received during the dialogue that the Ethical Council has undertaken…
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Researchers at a cluster of Melbourne medical institutes, hospitals and universities have acknowledged in a letter to the editor of the International Journal of Andrology, The Official Journal of the European Academy of Andrology, that not all people with the XXY karyotype are male and that some may be female and some may be intersex….
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Critical Intersex by Morgan Holmes is not cheap, but it’s a recommended read. From the publishers’ description: To date, intersex studies has not received the scholarly attention it deserves as research in this area has been centred around certain key questions, scholars and geographical regions. Exploring previously neglected territories, this book broadens the scope of…
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OII Australia supports trans people in their call for human rights, in the same way we support all LGBTI peoples and other marginalized minorities. Sometimes, however, rights called for by one minority group can disadvantage another unless close strategic alliances are maintained so that proposed changes to the law do not accidentally impinge on rights….
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