* 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
Dreger has identified an important and suggestive topic, not only in the history of medicine, but for cultural history more generally. Hermaphrodites were, after all, only among the most striking members of the parade of anomalies that engaged the attention of both specialists and the general public at the turn of the century. Any liminal creature was apt to trigger anxieties about the defense of social as well as natural boundaries, and any breach of the barriers that divided the sexes was particularly unnerving. -- Harriet Ritvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology The casual browser who picks up this book and thinks that hermaphrodism has nothing to do with her or him is mistaken. Dreger illuminates the process by which medicine appropriated to itself the authority first to interpret and then to 'fix' sex difference. This is a specific example of a widespread but largely invisible phenomenon, in which cultural agendas are disguised as scientific authority. The medical abuse of individuals born with atypical sex anatomy in fact serves everyone who holds the unscientific belief that the world is divided neatly into two clearly distinguished sexes. Dregerhas written a book that should interest not only medical historians, professionals concerned with intersexuality, and intersexuals themselves, but everyone who thinks she knows her sex. -- Cheryl Chase, Director Intersex Society of North America
Alice Domurat Dreger is an American historian of medicine and science and an award-winning writer.
In her study of the medical response to human hermaphrodites, Alice
Dreger draws on over 300 scientific and medical commentaries in
France and Britain, of which over half the cases reported occurred
between 1860 and 1915...As Dreger observes, there was no single
opinion among doctors or the public at large about which traits
were essentially male or female, or even what they might signify.
In Britain, female facial hair was likely to be associated with
insanity, while in France it was more likely to be seen as a mark
of remarkable strength. Other interesting differences
emerge...Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex is richly
researched, detailed and fascinating.
*Times Literary Supplement*
This is a well-researched, sober history of a problem that Alice
Dreger shows has directly affected more people than we might think
and which shapes the sense of sexual identity of us all...Avoiding
preachy judgementalism, Dreger shows how deeply ingrained are our
assumptions about gender normality (sexual anatomy is destiny) and
on how flimsy a basis they have been grounded. The book offers us
all a lesson in self-awareness.
*Nature*
Alice Dreger ascribes the growing visibility of the hermaphrodite
to Victorian anxieties about gender-blurring social phenomena,
including homosexuality and feminism, as well as to improvements in
medical science. During the Victorian era, Dreger argues, a greater
number of women gained access to gynecological care, and as a
result, infant anatomy came under more professional scrutiny;
medical journals of the period, widely accessible for the first
time, publicized anomalous cases. Scientific knowledge of
embryological development began turning the one-time monster or
marvel into, in the words of the turn-of-the-century French doctor
Xavier Delore, 'a scientific matter and a degraded organism.'
*Lingua Franca*
Dreger...has found a rich mine in the clinical case histories of
hermaphroditism, which outline the physicians' complex struggle to
find a foolproof way of fitting individuals into a binary sexual
scheme.
*The Sciences*
This engaging, well-written book will benefit scholars and lay
readers interested in the history of sex, sexuality, gender, and
medicine. The book traces the evolution of what makes a person male
or female and shows how the answer has changed depending on when
the question was asked and where it was asked. Dreger has succeeded
in compelling the reader to ask the same question.
*New England Journal of Medicine*
The historic records of [hermaphrodites]...are carefully documented
by this meticulous author and merit study...To read this book is to
become aware of the tremendous complexity of human sexuality and
gender identity--beyond genitals, hormones, enzymes, and even
chromosomes and genes. Behavior, feelings, and values blend with
intellect and how each individual is sexually drawn to each
other.
*Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)*
Most people have heard the term 'hermaphrodite,' but aren't quite
sure what it means. [This book serves] as an introduction to that
topic, bringing the voices of intersex people...into dialogue
with...experts. Dreger also includes many fascinating historical
photographs. Her stories of detective doctors presiding over
'doubtful-sex gatherings' show how 'again and again, consultations
with fellow medical men almost invariably, rather than clearing up
confusion, resulted instead in deeper and broader doubt...Medical
men often discovered that too many diagnosers spoiled the
certainty'...What makes [this book] important and provocative also
makes [it] a little dangerous because [it] is so ahead of [its]
time.
*Women's Review of Books*
This is a very strange and a very good book, tackling an important
topic with humanity, and in a readable style. This is a subject
where biology, psychology and medical authority conflict, and where
prudery, ignorance and dogmatism drive people to suicide. Dreger
deals with the history of definitions of man or woman by myth and
by medicine, and provides case histories, together with photographs
of the problematic genitalia...As biologists, we should treasure
variation--if you doubt that for human sexuality, read this
book.
*Biologist*
Through a collection of dramatic and moving medical case histories
from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dreger argues that the
medical profession increasingly claimed the knowledge and authority
to determine 'true' gender and to effectuate such determination by
surgical means...[This] is a wonderful example that historical
writing is not merely about revisiting the past, but reshaping the
future. This book will prove fascinating and moving reading for
those concerned with the ways in which biomedical knowledge is
deployed in the service of the cultural regulation of gender and
sexuality.
*Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review*
[A] perceptive, erudite and superbly-written book...Concentrating
on late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and France,
Dreger analyses how defining and 'managing' hermaphroditism were
crucial to the destabilization as well as a simultaneous--and only
seemingly paradoxical--reinforcement of the sexual division of
humanity into male and female. In a surprisingly well-integrated
epilogue of the book, she establishes that present-day treatment of
hermaphrodites in America, in spite of phenomenal advancements in
surgical technologies and theoretical understanding of sexual
physiology, continues to be guided by ideas about the nature and
meaning of sex that would not have seemed unfamiliar to
fin-de-siècle doctors.
*Medical History*
In her compelling, highly engaging and carefully researched book,
Dreger charts the individual stories of many hermaphrodites--often
with accompanying photographs...[It is] vital reading for feminists
in that [it] offers detailed illustrations of scientific and
medical complicity with social norms of 'sex' and 'gender', and
raises important questions about how cultures enforce ideas about
'normal' bodily conditions and behaviours.
*Feminism & Psychology*
Dregerhas produced a well-written, lucid and sensitive account of
the medical treatment of hermaphrodites from the latter half of the
nineteenth century through to the present day...Dreger's
description of the way modern doctors persist in assuming that
they, and not the individual concerned or society, have the right
to define an individual's sex are particularly illuminating. This
book will be immensely interesting to historians working in this
area and anyone concerned with intersexuality.
*Social History of Medicine*
In her book, Alice Dreger sets out to convince the reader that the
history of hermaphrodites, or people of ambiguous sex, is an
important and interesting topic, and she more than accomplishes her
goal. Not only does she deliver, but she does so with grace, ease,
and compassion. This is a marvelous book, an unexpected surprise
which is as readable and engaging as it is informative...Within
pages of opening the book, I was enthralled.
*Journal of the History of Medicine*
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.
*Journal of the History of Biology*
Dreger has identified an important and suggestive topic, not only
in the history of medicine, but for cultural history more
generally. Hermaphrodites were, after all, only among the most
striking members of the parade of anomalies that engaged the
attention of both specialists and the general public at the turn of
the century. Any liminal creature was apt to trigger anxieties
about the defense of social as well as natural boundaries, and any
breach of the barriers that divided the sexes was particularly
unnerving.
*Harriet Ritvo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology*
The casual browser who picks up this book and thinks that
hermaphrodism has nothing to do with her or him is mistaken. Dreger
illuminates the process by which medicine appropriated to itself
the authority first to interpret and then to 'fix' sex difference.
This is a specific example of a widespread but largely invisible
phenomenon, in which cultural agendas are disguised as scientific
authority. The medical abuse of individuals born with atypical sex
anatomy in fact serves everyone who holds the unscientific belief
that the world is divided neatly into two clearly distinguished
sexes. Dregerhas written a book that should interest not only
medical historians, professionals concerned with intersexuality,
and intersexuals themselves, but everyone who thinks she knows her
sex.
*Cheryl Chase, Director Intersex Society of North America*
In Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Alice Dreger
illuminates life stories that had been recast, subsumed, and
ultimately 'disappeared' by the medical profession...Dreger's book
is clearly written and easy to read. Fascinating, entertaining,
disturbing, and thought-provoking all at once, it makes one ask,
'what is the difference between a male and a female?' and even more
unsettling, 'why does it matter so much in our society.'
*Synapse: University of California San Francisco Weekly*
This fascinating book consists of numerous case studies on
hermaphrodites (intersexes) and their abusive treatment by the
medical and scientific community during the late 19th century and
early 20th centuries in Britain and France... Dreger believes that
by studying the cultural history and climate that prevailed
relating to intersexuality at the turn of the last century, we may
be better able to understand the concept of gender, sex, and
sexuality. There are interesting sections on famous hermaphrodites
and hermaphrodites in love.
*Choice*
This history is important to our understanding of how the
categories of "male" and "female" have come to be understood in the
medical community. This history is also relevant to the current
questioning of modern intersex medicine
Overall, this book is well
written and considers important influences of history on the
treatment of hermaphrodites that have been previously ignored.
*The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease*
In Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, Alice Domurat
Dreger looks at the debates concerning intersexed peole which
circulated in the medical communities of France and Britain in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries. In so doing, Dreger has also
offered insight into our own fin-de-siècle quandaries about the
limits of usefulness of the concepts of sex and gender as
categorizations of human beings...Overall, Hermaphrodites and the
Medical Invention of Sex is an excellent book.
*Journal of Sex Research*
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