Main description:

Recognizing the value of interdisciplinarity and drawing on literature, art, history, ethics and philosophy, this book brings together scholars and activists to inform medical practice and education related to bodies designated intersex. This volume celebrates interdisciplinarity and, crucially, illustrates how it can be harnessed to address the often-troubling co-opting and misunderstanding of intersex-specific concerns within existing humanities discourses. It provides an exciting cross-section of the interdisciplinary work that is emerging in the newly crystalizing study of intersex.

The contributors use vital humanities-based approaches that focus on how we can utilize language, storytelling, and history to change how intersex individuals are diagnosed and treated. It shows us how essential it is to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge offered by both medicine and the humanities when considering how we might improve the lives of those diagnosed intersex. Importantly, it challenges us to transform approaches to treating those diagnosed as intersex and to reform understandings of what it means to be intersex.

Contents:

Introduction

Following the Trail of Sex in the Medical and Health Humanities: An Introduction
Drs. Katelyn Dykstra, University of Manitoba and Shoshannah Bryn Jones Square, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Part 1: Theoretical Approaches to Intersex in/and the Medical and Health Humanities

1.Quantum Bodies: Reading Intersectionality through the Superposition of States
Dr. Lisa DeTora (Associate Professor of Writing Studies and Rhetoric, Hofstra
University, USA)

2.Introducing Mad Intersex Studies
Dr. Celeste Orr (Visiting Assistant Professor, Gender and Sexuality Studies, St.
Lawrence University, USA) and Meg Peters (Doctoral Candidate, University of Ottawa, Canada)

3."Ontological Homelessness," Sexology, and Identity: Some initial thoughts on Intersex Studies as Critical Lens in Literary Studies
Dr. Katelyn Dykstra (Sessional Instructor, Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, University of Manitoba; Director of Operations, enVision Community Living, USA)

Part 2: Intersex, Medicalization, and Disability

1.Did Bioethics Matter? A History of Autonomy, Consent, and Intersex Genital Surgery.
Dr. Elizabeth Reis (Professor, Macaulay Honours College, CUNY, USA)

2."Intersex Community in India and the Rights of Persons with Disability (RPwD) Act"
Prashant Singh (Advocate, Supreme Court of India; Member of Srishti Madurai, an intersex advocacy group in India), Gopi Shankar (Intersex Asia), Meghna Sharma (Programme Officer-Research and Advocacy at National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People in India)

3.Current and Historical Medicalization of Intersex Athletes in Sport
Dr. Sarah Teezel (Associate Professor, University of Manitoba, Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management)

Part 3: Intersex, Life Narratives, and Imaginative Literature

1.Intersex: Magical Structures and Invisible Differences
Lesley Gallacher (Therapist)

2.Herculine Barbin, Panizza's A Scandal at the Convent, and the Medico-Gothic Narrative of Intersex Transition
Nowell Marshall (Graduate Student, University of Navada, Reno)

3.Intersex, Empathy, and Embodiment: Inspiring Prosocial Change Through Imaginative Literature
Dr. Shoshannah Bryn Jones Square (Faculty, Department of English, Kwantlen Polytechnic University)