Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Elizabeth Reis

Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex Reviews

• 
  Amy

  This book has been equal parts infuriating and fascinating. People have a history of being less than kind to those who diverge from the norm, and intersexuals are no different. Due to the historical focus of this book, and horrible treatment of intersexuals, possible triggers for readers of this history include abuse of social power, forcible surgery, and other intersexual issues, as well as the discussion and use of the historical language of intersex. The author uses these terms, stories, and social treatments in discussing historical views of intersex individuals, and in no way advocates their use.
  I came across this book when looking through research articles for a paper on intersexuality. I ordered the book and immediately found it engaging and well-written. A good book makes you feel things, and this is a text one can easily get emotionally involved in.
  Reis has research enough to back up her claims, but never lets her writing feel tedious or dry. Photos are included in the chapters; she discusses her feelings on this aspect, and her ultimate decision to proceed with their inclusion, showing readers the consideration put into writing this book. While you may not agree with some of her decisions, you can certainly understand her reasons for them.
  Read the rest of my review here:
  https://vulvaink.wordpress.com/2017/0...
• 
  Dasha

  In Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (2021) Reis investigates the cultural history of American doctors and laypeoples’ perception and treatment of those bodies that anatomically diverged from the bodily binary of male and female. Reis’s first chapter establishes how America’s early colonial period viewed these individuals as “monsters” or as punishment from their mother’s sins or imagination (p. 7). The second chapter describes how doctors and laypeople began to focus on affirming gender stability among “hermaphrodites.” In contrast to this focus on gender, the third chapter demonstrates how by the late nineteenth century and the theory of sexual inversion, the focus shifted towards sexuality. Intersex individuals received “treatment” based on their sexual attraction and how that could be fit into a heteronormative framework. Chapter four describes how doctors in the early twentieth century increasingly focused on the gonads to determine the “correct” sex of individual, permitting that the sex fit into the heteronormative marriage model. Doctors stresses the importance of consent in any surgeries that performed (p. 83). However by the Cold War period, psychology, such as John Money’s research, greatly influenced treatment of intersex individuals, as Reis details in her fifth chapter. The idea that social conditions could shape the individual of male or female, with surgical interventions up to eighteen months, took hold in this period. This meant that more children and babies were treated, based on which treatments would result in ideal child rearing practices, without patients’ consent and often without parents’ fully informed consent. These treatments often failed with many people experiencing gender dysphoria later in life despite years of social conditioning (p. 119). During the second half of the twentieth century consent became increasingly important in treating the general population, yet ambiguous bodies remained an exception to this policy. Reis’s final two chapters are new to the second edition and bring to light the ethical concerns of operating on children defined with ambiguous sexual development. Though covering a long period of time, Reis argues that the treatment and understanding of intersex individuals have been and continue to be constrained by social factors such as a heteronormative culture, a strict male/female binary, and an ongoing conflation between gender and sex.
  Reis utilizes medical records, medical journals, and authoritative medical textbooks to reconstruct the history of intersex people and their relationship with the medical field in America. There is also a focus on legal and institutional changes such as certain states’ decision to enact protective legislation to prevent medically unnecessary procedures on infants, children, and teens (p. 185). She frames her research within a largely structuralist approach, such as that described by David Halperin in How to do the History of Homosexuality (2002) as Reis, while acknowledging the different terms used historically, identifies the category of intersex people from the eighteenth century all the way up to present day with only slight variations in how the medical field defined the category. For example, in the early American colonial period physicians’ largely believed that a true hermaphrodite did not exist but this belief shifted over into the nineteenth century.
  
  I believe the greatest weakness of this analysis is that Reis is not able, likely due to limitations of sources and how she read her sources, to highlight how intersex individuals’ nonconforming bodies exerted agency and influenced the system they existed within.
• 
  SHIP (formerly The CSPH)

  Possible triggers for readers include the discussion and use of the historical language of intersex, including such terms as ‘hermaphrodite’ and ‘monster.’ The author uses these terms as a discussion of historical views of intersex individuals, and in no way advocates their use. Intersexed individuals had to claim total male or femaleness, typically based on who they were attracted to. Their personal identity did not matter, as their relationships had to reflect heterosexual values, as the institution of marriage was more important than an individual’s happiness. Intersex people also produced a fear of the ability to change gender, and thus disrupt the patriarchy; the fear of changing gender also led to a fear of changing race, which would completely upend the power structure of society. While this history is an infuriating read due to the past treatment of intersex individuals, it is also an important one. Knowing our history can help us to learn how to handle our future, and fix the problems of the present.
• 
  Stephen Cranney

  Like a lot of books coming from gender studies folks it gets quite didactic at times, almost like a 21st century version of a medieval morality play, "and thus we see that they should have... postcolonial....patriarchy...repression." But despite the irksome amateur philosophizing I'm giving this book five stars, since it's one of the first to systematically tackle the history of intersexuality, which is important both in its own right as a characteristic of a significant number of people, and for what it means for our understanding of sex and gender in general; everybody should at least skim it.
• 
  Jade Lauron

  I was hoping for something a bit more comprehensive culturally, probably because I failed to read the subtitle "An AMERICAN history of Intersex". My fault, not the book's. The history is pretty redundant, meaning the book is likewise redundant, and mostly consists of ways doctors have messed up patients with this condition through their own hubris.
• 
  Emily

  This was really readable and a sensitive treatment of a potentially touchy topic. However, it got a little repetitious for my taste, which perhaps is inevitable when you cover a long time period. It was thought-provoking and an interesting read.
• 
  Hanna

  Interesting and enlightening. Clearly organized and thoughtfully written.