Intersex Matters Biomedical Embodiment, Gender Regulation, and Transnational Activism

Analyzes intersex debates through a queer feminist, intersectional, and transnational lens. Intersex Matters analyzes the medicalization of people diagnosed as “intersex,” which is an umbrella term for individuals born with sexual anatomies various societies deem to be nonstandard. Through an examination of medico-scientific, scholarly, political, and popular archives from the mid-twentieth century to the present, Rubin argues that the medical regulation of atypical sex is fundamentally a feminist and a queer issue, and an intersectional and transnational one as well. Critical attention to intersex lives, bodies, narratives, and activisms profoundly reconfigures contemporary paradigms of sex/gender, race, health, normality, biopolitics, and human rights. Rubin charts the emergence of intersex rights activism in the global north and global south, thus demonstrating the value of understanding intersex experience when rethinking the vicissitudes of body politics in a globally interconnected world. “Intersex Matters is conceptually sharp, thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and offers an account of intersex that we’ve never seen before. It is a remarkable book.” — Gayle Salamon, Princeton University “The scholarship is sound and well written. The book makes a significant contribution to the literature and further adds to our knowledge of intersex.” — Georgiann Davis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas