1st Edition
Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics, DSD Critical Approaches
People with variations of sex characteristics (VSC) are born with chromosomal, gonadal, and/or anatomical diversities that do not fit the typical definition of male or female. This book develops a social science of VSC, Intersex, and Disorders of Sex Development (DSD).
Issues of bodily autonomy, sex, gender, and sexuality are highly topical. Yet, little is heard about people with VSCs, or the unique issues they face. This book is a collaborative project between intersex and endosex (nonintersex) authors that gives uninitiated readers a way into the complex debates surrounding IVSC. It breaks new ground theoretically whilst also presenting novel empirical material from a range of international sources. Issues of power, discrimination, identity, and agency are key to understanding the current situation for people with VSCs.
Bridging between intersex studies, medical literatures, and broader social science debates, this text will be of interest to those working in practice and policy positions, as well as students and scholars across a range of disciplines, especially those studying social inequality, embodiment, healthcare, sex and gender, LGBTQ+ issues, disability, globalisation, and political change.
1. Introduction to Variations of Sex Characteristics, Intersex, and DSD
Surya Monro
2. Understanding People’s Lived Experiences
Surya Monro and Adeline Berry
3. Social Theories
Surya Monro and Sean Saifa Wall
4. Critical Approaches to Medicine and Healthcare
Surya Monro and Daniela Crocetti
5. Activism, Advocacy, and Alliances
Daniela Crocetti and Surya Monro
6. International Dynamics
Surya Monro
7. Human Rights, Equalities and Citizenship
Morgan Carpenter and Surya Monro
Biography
Surya Monro is Professor in Sociology and Social Policy based at Loughborough University, UK. Surya has published substantially in the fields of gender, sex, and sexuality, notably on LGBT and on Intersex issues. She is the author of Gender Politics: Citizenship, Activism, and Sexual Diversity (2005) and co-editor of Queer in Africa (2018).
Adeline Berry is a transgender and intersex research fellow at the University of Huddersfield. Their PhD research focuses on the life experiences and needs of older European intersex people. Their research interests include mental health, healthcare, gender, sex, sex work, and epistemic injustice.
Morgan Carpenter is an Associate Professor of Practice at Sydney Health Ethics in the University of Sydney School of Public Health. His doctoral research focused on epistemic injustice and the human rights and health of people with innate variations of sex characteristics. Morgan Carpenter has lived experience of an innate variation of sex characteristics.
Daniela Crocetti is a Research Fellow in medical anthropology at Bar-Ilan University. Their research has addressed the social history of the gendered body, genetic testing, rights mobilisation in medical contexts, intersex rights, and parenting journeys.
Sean Saifa Wall (he/him/his) is a Black queer intersex activist and rising scholar. Since graduating from Williams, he has worked on many research projects that amplify the voices of queer, transgender, and people of colour communities. Saifa was a Marie Skłowdoska-Curie fellow on the INIA project and received his PhD from the University of Huddersfield in April 2024.
"Stunningly far-reaching and extensively researched, Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics, DSD: Critical Approaches demonstrates intersex issues are not merely those of sex and gender, but also race, age, sexuality, location, and colonization. Uniquely intersectional and interdisciplinary, the authors offer novel conceptual approaches to social policy, medicine, sociology of sex, theorizing the body, and activism that can be mobilized by scholars across disciplines. This book is also an urgent invitation to intersectional thinkers and those in social scientific fields to take up interphobia as a serious point of inquiry. It is outstanding!"
Celeste Orr, Wendy J. Robbins Professor in Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of New Brunswick Fredericton Campus, Canada
"Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics, DSD: Critical Approaches is an essential read, offering global perspectives on intersex and centering the work of intersex scholars. Featuring original research into areas that have historically been overlooked in empirical analysis such as intersex aging, it presents a critical contribution to the social sciences and beyond. It spans an array of fields, incorporating not only scholarly insights but also reports and resources from organizations at the forefront of intersex advocacy. Thoroughly documented and deeply relevant, Intersex, Variations of Sex Characteristics, DSD: Critical Approaches promises to be a landmark resource for researchers and pedagogies."
Dr. Amanda Swarr, Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Washington, USA
"This ambitious, timely, and comprehensive volume reverses a longstanding social erasure of people with variations of sex characteristics. On the one hand, it places their lives in the broadest possible frame, investigating issues of health, power, injustice, activism, embodiment, and human rights, all while resisting reductionist simplifications. On the other hand, it makes an emphatic claim for what a reconceived critical intersex studies—drawing on the legacies of intersectional feminism, queer theory, and disability studies—can offer to social theory generally, as well as to our collective visions of a more just future."
Steven Epstein, Professor of Sociology and John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University, USA
