Fixing Sex

Intersex, Medical Authority, And Lived Experience
Nominee, Margaret Mead Award 2010 | Finalist, Lambda Literary Award 2009

ABOUT THE BOOK

What happens when a baby is born with “ambiguous” genitalia or a combination of “male” and “female” body parts? Clinicians and parents in these situations are confronted with complicated questions such as whether a girl can have XY chromosomes, or whether some penises are “too small” for a male sex assignment. Since the 1950s, standard treatment has involved determining a sex for these infants and performing surgery to normalize the infant’s genitalia. Over the past decade intersex advocates have mounted unprecedented challenges to treatment, offering alternative perspectives about the meaning and appropriate medical response to intersexuality and driving the field of those who treat intersex conditions into a deep crisis. Katrina Karkazis offers a nuanced, compassionate picture of these charged issues in Fixing Sex, the first book to examine contemporary controversies over the medical management of intersexuality in the United States from the multiple perspectives of those most intimately involved.

Drawing extensively on interviews with adults with intersex conditions, parents, and physicians, Karkazis moves beyond the heated rhetoric to reveal the complex reality of how intersexuality is understood, treated, and experienced today. As she unravels the historical, technological, social, and political forces that have culminated in debates surrounding intersexuality, Karkazis exposes the contentious disagreements among theorists, physicians, intersex adults, activists, and parents—and all that those debates imply about gender and the changing landscape of intersex management. She argues that by viewing intersexuality exclusively through a narrow medical lens we avoid much more difficult questions. Do gender atypical bodies require treatment? Should physicians intervene to control the “sex” of the body? As this illuminating book reveals, debates over treatment for intersexuality force reassessment of the seemingly natural connections between gender, biology, and the body.

“The cultural rules of gender are complex, and they are never more tested than in the case of intersex. Fixing Sex is

a huge addition to the field, encompassing as it does the views of clinicians, patients, parents, and others. The topic

is intrinsically interesting, but Katrina Karkazis’s wonderful writing makes this a compelling story and a great read.”

— Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone

“This meticulous, sensitive, and brilliantly executed book will transform our knowledge of intersexuality, gender,

and the ethnographic study of medical practice.”

— Gayle Rubin, author of Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader

“Katrina Karkazis’s stimulating book, Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, masterfully

examines the concerns and fears of all those with a stake in the intersex debate: physicians, parents, intersex adults,

and activists …. Karkazis’s honest, multi-pronged approach poses critical questions.”

— Elizabeth Reis, author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex

“[A] sensitive yet trenchant critique. Were medical authorities to engage with Karkazis’s important book, and

I strongly recommend they do, they might recognize their latent hypocrisy and be humbled by their professional hubris.”

— American Ethnologist

“With her fascinating field data, Katrina Karkazis exposes the contentious disagreements among theoreticians, physicians,

intersex adults, and parents—and all that those debates imply about the changing landscape of gender and intersex management.”

— Suzanne Kessler, author of Lessons from the Intersexed

“This book is a velvet-gloved punch to the gut. Fixing Sex is astonishing, a tale told straight from the mouths of affected adults,

parents, and physicians in tender and lyrical prose. An extraordinary book for a wide audience, it is a huge step toward

reconciliation and spiritual healing for its protagonists.”

— Arlene B. Baratz, physician and intersex/DSD advocate

“The strength of her book is in pulling together the multiple social worlds of intersex: stories of doctors, activists, parents,

and adults with intersex are presented alongside scientific and clinic histories, taxonomic controversies, treatment battles,

and the quest for technological fixes to corporeal and ontological problems. The book offers a nuanced analysis of medical

authority without crucifying doctors, and at the same time embodies a humanistic commitment to compassion, choice, and care

in addressing the needs of intersex people.”

— Women’s Review of Books

“Karkazis allows patients, their families, and their physicians to speak for themselves. The lived experiences that Karkazis weaves

into her book are a poignant reminder of the inadequacy of patient education and of social support for many of the patients and

their families …. If the goal of an author is to promote new ways of seeing, then Karkazis has succeeded well and has done so eloquently.”

— New England Journal of Medicine

“In addition to interviewing individuals with intersex syndromes and their parents, Karkazis interviewed the clinicians socially authorized

to assign and surgically produce gender. Hearing them express in their own words their professional convictions, private doubts, misplaced loyalties,

and mounting uncertainties adds a previously missing dimension to the discussion. The accumulated layering of these varied perspectives

makes this an insightful, disquieting, appalling, and heartbreaking book.”

— American Anthropologist

“Karkazis … has produced a valuable, compelling account of historical, medical, and lived perspectives on the condition known as intersex or

disorder of sex development …. Karkazis’s adroit scholarship—science illustrated in human terms—makes a vital contribution to a complex,

inadequately understood subject. Highly recommended.”

— Choice