Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex - Softcover

Reis, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1421441845 ISBN 13: 9781421441849

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021

Synopsis

This renowned history of intersex in America has been comprehensively updated to reflect recent shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices.

In Bodies in Doubt, Elizabeth Reis traces the changing definitions, perceptions, and medical management of intersex (atypical sex development) in America from the colonial period to the present. Arguing that medical practice must be understood within its broader cultural context, Reis demonstrates how deeply physicians have been influenced by social anxieties about marriage, heterosexuality, and same-sex desire throughout American history

In this second edition, Reis adds two new chapters, a new preface, and a revised introduction to assess recent dramatic shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices. Human rights organizations have declared early genital surgeries a form of torture and abuse, but doctors continue to offer surgical "repair," and parents continue to seek it for their children. While many are hearing the human rights call, controversies persist, and Reis explains why best practices in this field remain fiercely contested.

About this title

About the Author

Elizabeth Reis is an associate professor in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the History Department at the University of Oregon and author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England.

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1421441845
• ISBN 13: 9781421441849
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 288