Normalizing Medicine: Between “Intersexuals” and Individuals with “Disorders of Sex Development”
- 21 February 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Health Care Analysis
- Vol. 17 (2), 134-143
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-009-0111-6
Abstract
In this paper, I apply Michel Foucault’s analysis of normalization to the 2006 announcement by the US and European Endocrinological Societies that variations on the term “hermaphrodite” and “intersex” would be replaced by the term, “Disorders of Sex Development” or DSD. I argue that the change should be understood as normalizing in a positive sense; rather than fighting for the demedicalization of conditions that have significant consequences for individuals’ health, this change can promote the transformation of the conceptualization of intersex conditions from “disorders like no other” to “disorders like many others.” Understood in these terms, I conclude, medical attention to those with atypical anatomies should be recast from a preoccupation with “normal appearance” to the concern with human flourishing that is the proper object of medical attention.Keywords
This publication has 12 references indexed in Scilit:
- What's in a Name?: The Controversy over "Disorders of Sex Development"Hastings Center Report, 2008
- Fixing SexPublished by Duke University Press ,2008
- Divergence or Disorder?: the politics of naming intersexPerspectives in Biology and Medicine, 2007
- Self-TransformationsPublished by Oxford University Press (OUP) ,2007
- Consensus statement on management of intersex disordersArchives of Disease in Childhood, 2005
- Changing the Nomenclature/Taxonomy for Intersex: A Scientific and Clinical RationaleJournal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2005
- Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at BirthNew England Journal of Medicine, 2004
- Sex Reassignment at BirthArchives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 1997
- LETTERS FROM READERSThe Sciences, 1993
- HERMAPHRODISM: RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING CASE MANAGEMENTJournal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 1956