Interdisciplinary and Global Perspectives on Intersex

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   • Megan Walker

   Pages 1-13

3. Representing Intersex

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

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   2. Intersex in Fictional Films Throughout History: Towards a Cinema of Inclusion?

      • Eva De Clercq

      Pages 17-38

   3. ‘Declining to Describe’: Intersex Narrators and Textual Visibility

      • Chiara Pellegrini

      Pages 39-54

   4. The Importance of Narrative in Intersex Representation: A Literary Reading of John Money’s Case Histories

      • Megan Walker

      Pages 55-71

   5. Toxic Sexing: Aaron Apps’ Intersex Poetics in Our Chemically Altered Age

      • K. J. Dykstra

      Pages 73-88

   6. ‘This Is What I Am and Who I Am’: Exploring Authorship and Ethics in Intersex Research and Reflective Diaries

      • Charlotte Jones

      Pages 89-105

   7. When Bioethics Fails: Intersex, Epistemic Injustice and Advocacy

      • Morgan Carpenter, Christopher F. C. Jordens

      Pages 107-124

   8. Afterword to “Representing Intersex”

      • Peter Hegarty, Chris North

      Pages 125-137

4. Global Intersex

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139

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   2. Examining Autonomy and Consent in Gender Assignment Decisions on Intersex People in India

      • Arpita Das

      Pages 141-154

   3. An Apparent Paradox: The Bio-medicalisation of Intersex Variations in Italy

      • Michela Balocchi

      Pages 155-175

   4. A Critical Analysis of the Transgender (Intersex) Persons Act, 2018, in Pakistan Versus United Nations Recommendations

      • Kamran Qureshi

      Pages 177-195

   5. Towards an Inclusive Approach to Harmful Practices: The Case of Western Elective Surgeries on Intersex Children

      • Ino Kehrer

      Pages 197-218

   6. The Geneticisation of Intersex Bodies in Israel

      • Limor Meoded Danon

      Pages 219-239

   7. Western Management of Intersex and the Myth of Patient-Centred Care

      • Lih-Mei Liao

      Pages 241-262

   8. Global Intersex, an Afterword: Global Medicine, Connected Communities, and Universal Human Rights

      • Morgan Carpenter

      Pages 263-280

5. Back Matter

   Pages 281-284

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This edited collection interrogates how social and cultural representations of individuals with intersex variations impact how they are understood and treated from legal and medical perspectives across the world. Contributors consider how novelists, filmmakers, artists, and medical professionals have represented people with intersex variations, and highlight the importance of ethical representation and autonomy to encourage wider cultural and medical knowledge of intersex variations as a naturally occurring phenomenon. The text also examines the ways in which individuals with intersex variations are represented and viewed in India, Italy, Pakistan and Israel, as well as how this impacts decision making for the individuals, families and medical providers. This book argues that reactions to intersex variations will not change unless they are no longer presented as treatable disorders. It positions representation at the forefront, shifting the emphasis away from a concern for maintaining gender norms to upholding the human rights of intersex people.

This volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars in intersex studies as well as policymakers and activists.

• transgender
• gender binary
• nonbinary
• genital surgery
• circumcision
• gender assignment

"​This is the first interdisciplinary collection of essays in critical intersex studies to bring together a truly international collection of perspectives from both academic and activist writers, and it injects new life into resources for scholars and activists alike. Readers will find a solid introduction to challenges and progress in the effort to secure human rights protections for intersexualised persons around the world, and a solid scholarly base from which to think about emerging questions in the critical intersex studies. The essays collected here challenge alliances too often taken for granted, and question fundamental matters of ‘representation’ in cultural, political, and clinical contexts. This is an indispensable contribution to the field."

• School of English and Journalism, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

  Megan Walker

Megan Walker is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on exploring intersex narratives in a range of texts and she has a keen interest in further developing intersex knowledge, visibility and acceptance in academia and beyond.