intersexbookclub

[intersexbookclub]

Reminder :) We're meeting this Friday!

As usual, finishing the book is not mandatory! If you want to jump around in the book, these are stories most mentioned as favourites on the goodreads page for the book:

"This Secular Technology" x4 "Three Partitions" x3 "Standing on the flood banks" x3 "Given Sufficient Desperation" x2 'Forest spirit, Forest spirit" x2

April pick: The Trans Space Octopus Congregation

We liked our February pick Power to Yield so much we've picked another short story collection by Bogi Takács for April: The Trans Space Octopus Congregation.

When we’re meeting As usual, we meet on the last Friday of the month. We will be meeting to discuss the book on Fri April 26, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. A list of content warnings is available at the front of the book. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, our pick for May is Icarus by K. Ancrum!

We're also meeting on Fri April 5th at the usual time (15:30 Eastern) for a social hour devoted to arts & crafts! We'll be talking knitting, crocheting, and other crafts.

#book picks #event reminders #events #intersex books

[intersexbookclub]

Summary: Power to Yield (Feb 2024)

We assembled on 2024-03-01 to talk about our February book pick: Power To Yield and Other Stories by intersex author Bogi Takács. The book is a collection of science fiction & fantasy short stories.

This was a first for our book club in that we spent the whole session gushing about the book. Everybody loved it. We haven’t been giving books ratings thus far but this one would get a 5/5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟.

Overall takes:

vic: I loved it, I loved it so much. The stories all felt so different. Disability and intersex were very normalized and not shoehorned, it just felt so good. 

Michelle: the worlds in this book felt so richly crafted. This book reminded me that short stories can be the bomb! I got gender euphoria from seeing characters use neopronouns!!! So refreshing and exciting to see them in text. That was how I got started with them, I wrote characters like that and then I was like.... moi? It’s just so joyfully affirming. 

Bnuuy: I only read “Folded into tendril and leaf” and started "The 1st interspecies solidarity fair and parade" but it deeply impressed me. 

Elizabeth: I'm not really a short story person. I find I take a while to get immersed in a book, and I don't like the switching from story to story so much. And as someone who does not like the short story genre, I liked this collection, which I feel says a lot. 

Intersex themes:

Intersex representation throughout the book that feels both casual and important at the same time. It’s normalized in a way that feels tremendously validating. Takács also importantly depicts a variety of intersex characters in terms of gender (binary vs genderqueer), type of variation, and age. Folded into tendril and leaf depicts a romance with an intersex character that does not sexualize or fetishize being intersex. ❤️

Intersex sea creatures, always a classic 🦑 - clear example in the Good Friday story.

Plants as intersex. 🍃 A bunch of stories throughout the book involved somebody turning into a plant. We talked about how this turned out to be a fruitful (lol) metaphor since so many plants are cosexual or dichogamous, there’s so much variety and difference in plant reproduction and it disrupts our ideas of what sex is. Bnuuy pointed out that botany can also just be an affirming thing for intersex people to learn about, e.g. a flower with both male and female reproductive parts is called a “perfect flower”! It’s valued rather than described as a deficiency.

In the fantasy story Power To Yield, the doctor feels the pain of his patients as he treats them, which per Elizabeth: “feels like such an intersex and/or disability fantasy”. Pain may not always be avoided but having doctors feel and be aware of our pain would change the patient-doctor dynamic so much.

Neopronouns: there are a lot of neopronouns used in a variety of settings for a variety of characters, disrupting ideas of gender and sex in ways that felt joyfully inclusive and affirming. As Michelle put it: “we get a glimpse of the world outside the binary in a kind of ecstatic way. Like, hey, you don't have to be male or female. You can be intersex and something else. And you can be trans. Like, it's just so, like, joyfully affirming. Genuinely like a rainbow-colored feeling.” 🌈 (also, reading neopronouns in context is a great way to learn how to use them!)

Other themes:

System change happens through people relating to each other differently. As vic put it: “Bogi really showed that the people are the system and the system is made of people”. Such as in the Spy-Turns-Into-A-Plant story the ways that Hasidic people were combining old and new cultural practices to include intersex & genderqueer people, in the Solidarity Fair story everybody noticed the trader was missing, and in Power To Yield there’s a need for all of the possible neurotypes. 

Mentorship: the book defies the conventions of the mentorship trope. A lot of times in media, mentors are marked for death once their apprentice has learnt what they need, but here the mentors stick around and continue to be in their apprentices’ lives in different ways.

Survival stories that were communal in mindset rather than rugged individuals. We see characters putting the pieces back together after catastrophic events such as wars and invasions. There’s an optimism that we can survive catastrophe. We liked the depictions of joy and competence. Michelle identified a Talmudic theme of "You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it”, throughout the book.

Other things we liked:

The prose. Michelle praised it as approachable. Xe also commented: “Bogi has an authorial voice that feels well read. People who don't read so much have a particular style and it can be hard to read, they have a hard time expressing themselves... and this was the opposite of that!”

Disability representation that felt realistic. For example, a character being constantly exhausted due to being drained of blood, and a character worried about breaking an ankle while walking through uneven terrain. Disability wasn’t skimmed over nor was it romanticized, just treated with good humour as a quotidian kind of limitation.

Representation of old people. There’s a big range of characters’ life stages. Old characters are active and given things to do, and got to have personalities beyond “old”. For example, the old sociologist in the solidarity fair story was open-minded and competent. She didn’t want to sit around and be a granny. 

Not being US-centric: in speculative fiction there’s a way of talking about or relating to things that can feel very American (vic: “even though they’re in space, they act as though they’re in California”) and Takács doesn’t do this, which we appreciated. As Michelle put it: “There’s a definite immigrant vibe to the book.”

Representation of Jewish characters. Not everybody could relate to the Orthodox Jews but not every story needs to be relatable.

All these forms of representation come together. As vic put it: “the disability politics, intersex, the trans stuff… It all felt so normal and was incorporated in a way that felt so seamless. It felt really good reading it,  didn't feel like any of it was shoehorned in.. Just like, yep, normal people living their normal lives and we're not making anyone feel weird about their differences. Usually with books that have people that are different from the mainstream in some way it's kind of clunky: even if it's #OwnVoices, it still reads as self-conscious and apologetic. But this book all read very un-self-conscious and very comfortable.”

What we didn’t like:

Elizabeth doesn’t like the order in which the stories were presented. Ze felt the first few stories were fine but didn’t showcase what the book has to offer. Ze recommended to the group to start with:

"Folded into tendril and leaf" (medium length)

"The 1st interspecies solidarity fair and parade" (medium length)

"The ladybug, in flight" (very short)

"Power to yield" (novelette)

Bnuuy and vic started reading with Elizabeth’s recommended stories, and this may have influenced the conversation.

After the book discussion, vic went back and re-read the stories in order, and mentioned they also didn’t vibe with the order of the stories as presented in the book.

Stories of note:

“Folded into Tendril And Leaf”: we liked the water caltrop description and visualization. It was Elizabeth’s favourite: “The reason I put that on my list of recommendations is it was just such a big, warm hug of fiction. It's such a tender story, but at the same time it grapples with really serious stuff. I've brought it up before that I'm a sucker for any sort of intersex at puberty story because that's the kind of intersex I am. But also the intersex people as plants theme really landed here.” Elizabeth also praised how there was a character who realized their privilege that they didn't have to follow the news.

“The 1st interspecies solidarity fair and parade”: we liked the realism of the organizing, and we all wanted stories from this setting, especially about the aliens that were genocide survivors. It was Bnuuy’s favourite, enjoying its comedy and how it flips stereotypes of Gen Z/Alpha by having them be the older generation in this future. The depiction of an alien who presents as though she is a cat was amusing; vic described it as: “Yeah, the image of a gigantic, floating metallic orb  meowing so that it can be more relatable to humans is, I think, a huge non-binary mood.”

“Power to Yield”: we appreciated the depiction of autistic special interest (and it has its own word: abuwen!) that is realistic without either romanticizing or spectacularizing it. It shows how a special interest can happen suddenly, it can be overpowering, it can sometimes be inappropriate, it can be unpleasant for the person as they neglect other parts of their life. We could all relate. The depiction of asexual BDSM also stood out; per vic: “oh, I guess it can not be a sex thing!”

“The Ladybug, in Flight”: Michelle was horrified (in a good way) by the slow consensual cannibalism. Whereas vic read that one as practical and utilitarian in an autistic way, like sometimes autistic people will horrify others for practical things.

“Volatile Patterns”: Michelle is very crafty and this was xer favourite: “the story talks about  reappropriating motifs and being like, no, you're doing it wrong. We can show you how to do it right. It's fine. Just stop doing it the wrong way. Like, especially clothing attacking people was very funny to me because it reminded me of a game called Fall in London, where in certain areas of the world, everything is sentient.”

“A Technical Term, Like Privilege”: This one vic highlighted as a favourite: “I often feel sad about the place where I live, because it is a rental and it's not getting cared for the way it deserves to be. So the metaphor of the house needing your blood was apt. I've read a few rental horror metaphors, and they were all bad. So I was really happy to read this one.” Also, the disability representation: “when the character in the house story came up with a good, reasonable solution and then was SHOT DOWN it was so real”.

Overall: out of all the books we’ve read thus far for the book club, this is the one everybody was most positive about. It was a joy to read and we recommend it! 💜

#intersex book club #intersex books #intersex literature #intersex fiction #queer books #queer fiction #queer scifi #intersex #actually intersex #ownvoices #book review #book reviews #book summary #book summaries #book club

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Upcoming events

This Friday April 5, we're hosting a knitting hour on our discord! 🧶 Bring any crafting projects you'd like to work on or talk about - or just yourself if you're curious to hear about other people's projects!

Time: 15:30 Eastern / 19:30 UTC Discord: https://discord.gg/j4rp3jYgyn And on Friday April 19th we are hosting a session for after/extra-thoughts about book picks! If you've read any of our book picks and missed the meeting, or you've had more thoughts about the book, we'd love to hear them! Same time (15:30 Eastern / 19:30 UTC), same discord!

These one-off events are in addition to our regular book club meetings, which are held on the last Friday of every month. Our upcoming book picks are:

APRIL 2024: The Trans Space Octopus Congregation by Bogi Takács (Apr 26)

MAY 2024: Icarus by K. Ancrum (May 31)

JUNE 2024: Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex by Reis (Jun 28)

Hope to see you there! 💜

#intersex book club #intersex #intersex books #actually intersex #knitting #queer crafts

[intersexbookclub]

April pick: The Trans Space Octopus Congregation

We liked our February pick Power to Yield so much we've picked another short story collection by Bogi Takács for April: The Trans Space Octopus Congregation.

When we’re meeting As usual, we meet on the last Friday of the month. We will be meeting to discuss the book on Fri April 26, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. A list of content warnings is available at the front of the book. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, our pick for May is Icarus by K. Ancrum!

We're also meeting on Fri April 5th at the usual time (15:30 Eastern) for a social hour devoted to arts & crafts! We'll be talking knitting, crocheting, and other crafts.

#intersex book club #book picks #intersex books #intersex fiction #ownvoices #own voices #intersex literature #actually intersex #intersex #trans fiction #trans books #queer scifi

[intersexbookclub]

March pick: Envisioning African Intersex pt 2

Continuing our trend of alternating between fiction and non-fiction, our pick for March is the second half of Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine, by Amanda Lock Swarr.

This is an academic text, so we won't be reading the whole thing! The book is split into two parts, one on colonial history and one on resisting colonial intersexism. To make things manageable we will be reading only the second part! There are three substantive chapters and an epilogue:

Chapter 3: Defying Medical Violence and Social Death, Sally Gross and the Inception of South African Intersex Activism

Chapter 4: #HandsOffCaster: Caster Semenya's Refusals and the Decolonization of Gender Testing

Chapter 5: Toward an "African Intersex Reference of Intelligence": Directions in Intersex Organizing

Epilogue: Reframing Visions of South African Intersex

Like most academic books, each chapter is a self-contained unit. You can pick and choose which chapters to read, and read them in whichever order you choose. (Starting with the epilogue is a common tactic!)

To ensure everybody has access to the book, a pdf copy is available through the discord.

Content notice: as you might expect, this book will discuss intersexism, colonialism, and racism.

When we're meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Mar 29, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish all four chapters to participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, we’re reading sci-fi short story collection The Trans Space Octopus Congregation for April!

#intersex book club #book picks #intersex books #intersex studies #queer theory #gender studies #postcolonialism #postcolonial literature #post colonial studies

[intersexbookclub]

Reminder we'll be meeting this upcoming Friday (Feb 23) to talk about Power To Yield! As usual we meet at 15:30 Eastern / 20:30 UTC.

If you're picking it up last-minute, my favourite story was "Folded into tendril and leaf"! 🍃

Our pick for March is the second half of Envisioning African Intersex - we'll be meeting March 29 at the usual time.

February pick: Power To Yield and Other Stories

This February we'll be reading Power to Yield and Other Stories, the latest sci-fi & fantasy short story collection by intersex ownvoice author Bogi Takács (e/em/eir or they/them).

The book is being released on February 6, and Takács has generously provided the club with an advance reader copy! You can also support the author by pre-ordering a copy here.

Advance reader copies (ARCs) are copies of books sent to book reviewers before a book is released, to contribute publicity for the book's release. We've chosen to read the book in February so people who would prefer to acquire a non-ARC copy can join in too!

You can access the ARC through the discord; it is in epub format. Note the expectation in using an ARC is that you would participate in reviewing the book publicly (and honestly), be it through the book discussion summary we will do collectively, and/or reviewing on your own platform(s).

When we’re meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Feb 23, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. A list of content warnings is available at the *back* of the book. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, know we alternate fiction & non-fiction picks. Our current & upcoming picks are:

DECEMBER 2023: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire (Dec 23)

JANUARY 2024: Envisioning African Intersex by Amanda L Swarr (Jan 26)

FEBRUARY 2024: Power To Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács (Feb 23)

March will a non-fiction pick, but we haven't decided yet, so let us know on Discord what you'd prefer!

For April we are thinking of reading a book by YA sci-fi/romance intersex author K Ancrum, but we haven't yet decided which. Let us know in the Discord what you'd prefer! We meet on the last Friday of every month.

#intersex book club #event reminders

[intersexbookclub]

2023-12-22 Across the Green Grass Fields

For our December book, we read YA portal fantasy novella *Across the Green Grass Fields *by perisex author Seanan McGuire. Elizabeth nominated the book after seeing this review of the book by intersex author JS Fields, who was also a sensitivity reader for the book.

Overall impressions

Elizabeth was stoked for a book with quality intersex-at-puberty representation that was also refreshingly pleasant to read!

vic read the first half, and liked how the book asks you to think about how to parent intersex kids, as well questions about agency and children. Also the book is really sweet; it is warm and caring.

Bnuuy was upset that the book did not take an unambiguous anti-bullying stance, and failed to hold its protagonist Regan accountable for her role in ostracizing her friend Heather when Heather was insufficiently girly.

Vo felt it was very heavy hitting at the beginning, but the book only sort of returned to it. There’s all these scenes where Regan doesn't feel like one of the other girls, and then in the Hooflands she's able to become herself.

Michelle’s view as an author was that from a craft perspective, the ending felt rushed [SPOILERS] xe would have liked to see her meet her centaur family again, see the anti-monarchist revolution that Regan incited. [/SPOILERS]

Intersex analysis

A totally incommensurate amount of intersex representation is intersex-at-birth stories, even though tons of intersex variations become evident at puberty. While Regan’s AIS was known from birth, she doesn’t start to show physical differences until puberty, and her parents don’t tell her until then.

A big reason many of us liked this book was how it delivered on conveying the social & psychological aspects of being intersex at puberty. The author is perisex and perisex authors tend to over-focus on the anatomical aspects and fail at depicting the social/psychological parts. 

The horror that Regan experiences at realizing she is intersex and her terror of transgressing gender roles was something many of us could relate to. Many of us spoke up about our personal experiences going through atypical puberties and getting picked on for it. In the sharing of personal stories, many of us pointed out how our parents added to the shaming. Regan’s parents, while very imperfect, at least did not ruthlessly double down on gender presentation like so many of our parents did!

Many of us were excited to see intersex representation that is *literally anything other than ambiguous genitals*! This book was not fetishy in a way that is very rare to see from a perisex author, and felt like a good example of how a perisex author can do intersex representation well. 

This book does an excellent job prompting the reader to think about how to best parent an intersex child. The parents of the protagonist are depicted as kind of bumbling but good-intentioned and fail in some key ways that lead to Regan running away. It invites the reader to think about what they should do differently.

Parenting Intersex Kids

We spent a good hour talking about the decisions made by Regan’s parents and how they set her up for failure. Her parents made the decisions not to tell Regan she had AIS until she noticed she was different, which gave us the impression they saw the AIS as a negative they needed to shield her from.

Bnuuy pointed out the parents, before telling Regan she had AIS, should have first established that “hey you don’t have to experience things like everyone else”. Regan had anxiety about not starting puberty, and the parents focused instead on revealing she was intersex. vic pointed out they gave a different answer than what she had actually asked.

vic was concerned that the parents didn’t sit Regan down and explain that the world HATES intersex people and those who don’t conform and so you need to be careful about who you tell. Vo agreed that if you don’t set people up for the realities of the situation they will be facing, you’re setting them up to fail. 

Bnuuy pointed out how the parents called Regan a “perfect girl”, when what they needed to do was deconstruct that. Vo asked what they would do if down the line Regan stopped being a “perfect girl”. We discussed how the language of “perfect girl” conveys that we measure people by how good they are as a girl/woman, and that teaching your kid they need to be perfect to be loved is messed up. 

Michelle pointed out there was a nice moment of implied trans solidarity when Regan’s parents told her that “if you say you’re a girl then you’re a girl”. 

Elizabeth pointed out the parents didn’t encourage Regan to support non-conformity, to have her play in non-stereotypic ways. They also seemed way too happy to accept Regan saying she was okay with the situation rather than keeping Regan home from school the next day to process it.

Bnuuy pointed out they could have made Regan apologize to Heather, and was disappointed the mother did not make that happen. Even if Regan didn’t know she was intersex at the time, the parents did know, and should have been able to connect that letting bullying happen would eventually lead to Regan being bullied.

We did note that Regan’s parents protected Regan from surgery as an infant and were supportive of her bodily autonomy. This is important! But it was great to see parents held to a higher bar than whether or not you subject your child to unnecessary and irreversible cosmetic surgery as a child.

Book summary (mild spoilers)

The book has two distinct parts: it starts in our world, centring on protagonist Regan as she enters adolescence. She has embraced social conformity, even though it has led to shun her friend Heather after a mutual friend (Laurel) decides that Heather is gross for wanting to play with a snake. 

When Regan’s parents tell her she AIS at age 10, it triggers a series of events that involve Laurel shunning Regan for having AIS and Regan running away through a portal. 

Once through the portal, Regan arrives in the Hooflands, a world of centaurs. She is adopted by a family group of unicorn ranchers, who nurture her and give her actual agency. She is expected to be the harbinger of some sort of social upset, which she refuses to participate in. Instead, she grows up with her family for five years before she finally feels ready to play her role as a hero. 

What we liked about the book

The intersex representation (see above!), it was very normalizing without any awkward fourth-wall breaks to infodump on the reader

The story is sweet and warm, while also remembering that “kids are not little sugary robots that are happy all the time” (per vic)

In the Hooflands, Regan is given agency and grows as a person; the implicit message is that autonomy and agency are necessary for children to grow.

A few of us were just happy to have horses 🐴

Anti-monarchist plot yesssss

What we didn’t like

The ending. Regan never gets to say goodbye to her adopted family nor see the revolution she instigates. The book ends with her returning to our world, getting ready to enter her bioparents’ house, so we never see her reunite with her bioparents. 

This also means that the first part of the book (events that lead to her running away) and the second part of the book (the Hooflands) never really come together. We all agreed that the book didn’t do enough to resolve or return to the first part of the book, leaving the story feeling incomplete.

There were POV/narrator changes that multiple people found confusing; it was unclear when it was Regan’s thoughts vs an omniscient narrator.

Regan is a coward and a bully. She grows as a character but never really makes things right with her friend Heather. That Regan doesn’t reflect on how she was a bully nor properly redeemed was particularly upsetting to Bnuuy, who found it difficult to sympathize with Regan after she participated in the ostracism of Heather.

Mixed feelings

Some of us preferred the first part of the book, others preferred the Hooflands part.

A few people were surprised Regan was the main character, given how badly she’d behaved at the start, and assumed Heather would be the main character

Not everybody could empathize with Regan, that social ostracisation is something young girls understand they need to avoid at all costs. Some of us felt that although Regan’s behaviour was bad it was understandable. That children don’t have fully developed moral compasses and shouldn’t be judged by adult standards. Michelle recommended “Cat’s eye” by Margaret Atwood for capturing issues of girlhood in greater detail than this book did.

Other thoughts on the book

Most of us related to Heather, who did nothing wrong and was arbitrarily ostracized. Many of us shared stories of being bullied as children & adolescents and how for many of us it happened without any clear inciting event or reason.

A few of us saw Regan’s friendship with Chicory as sapphic or queerplatonic

Michelle pointed out there’s a possible reading of the book where the Hooflands weren’t real - that Regan had dissociated for years and only at the end of the book snapped out of. This is not what the book seemed to be going for, but it was an interesting thing to consider.

Overall assessment: the intersex representation was lauded by all of the intersex people in the call as an example of how a perisex author can do justice to intersex representation. However, the bullying subplot was a notable weakness, given its lack of resolution in the ending. Bullying is a serious issue that has lifelong effects, and intersex people are vulnerable to bullying, so we would have liked a clear moral message on this front.

#intersex book club #intersex books #intersex fiction #intersex literature #intersex representation #intersex #actually intersex #queer fantasy #queer fiction #queer YA #AIS #book summaries #book summary #book reviews #book review

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Reminder this is next week!

If you're curious for more intersex studies, we just posted two posts summarizing chapters from Critical Intersex, our December book pick:

Chapter 4, on the history of the DSD term

Chapters 5-7, on legal and historical perspectives on intersex in continental Europe

January Pick: Envisioning African Intersex

Continuing our trend of alternating between fiction and non-fiction, our pick for January is Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine, by Amanda Lock Swarr.

This is an academic text, so we won't be reading the whole thing! To make it manageable, we will be reading the first three chapters:

The Introduction: Pathologizing Gender Binaries

Chapter 1: Colonial Observations and Fallacies

Chapter 2: Intersex in Four South African Racial Groups in Durban

To ensure everybody has access to the book, a pdf copy is available through the discord.

Content notice: this book will be talking about the history of intersexism, colonialism, and racism.

When we're meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Jan 26, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, we’re reading YA portal fantasy Across the Green Grass Fields this month (December), and in February we will be reading the sci-fi short story collection Power To Yield.

We'll be reading another non-fiction selection in March, but it is not yet decided, so let us know in the Discord what would interest you!

#event reminders

[intersexbookclub]

Summary: Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex

For many of us, Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex (2009) turned out to be a particularly rich source of information about intersex history. So I (Elizabeth) have decided to give a fairly detailed summary of the chapter because I think it’s important to get that info out there. I’m gonna give a little bit of commentary as I go, and then a summary of our book club discussion of the chapter.

The chapter is titled “(Un)Queering identity: the biosocial production of intersex/DSD” by Alyson K. Spurgas. It is a history of ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, and how it went from being a force for intersex liberation to selling out the movement in favour of medicalization. (See here for summary of the other chapters we read of the book!)

Our high level reactions:

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): Until I read chapter 4, I didn't really realise how reactionary “DSD” was. It hadn't been clear to me how much it was a response to the beginning of an organized intersex advocacy movement in the United States.

Michelle (@scifimagpie): I could feel the fury in the writer's tone. It was a real barn burner.

Also Michelle: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

Introducing the chapter

The introduction sets the tone by talking about how in the Victorian era there was a historical shift from intersex being a religious/juridical issue to a pathology, and how this was intensified in the 1950s with John Money’s invention of the optimal gender rearing model. 

Spurgas briefly discusses how the OGR model is harmful to intersex people, and how it iatrogenically produces sexual dysfunction and gender dysphoria. “Iatrogenic” means caused by medicine; iatrogenesis is the production of disease or other side-effects as a result of medical intervention.

This sets scene for why in the early 1990s, Cheryl Chase and other intersex activists founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). It had started as a support group, and morphed significantly over its lifetime. ISNA closed up shop in 2008.

Initially, ISNA was what we’d now call interliberationist. They were anti-pathologization. Their stance was that intersexuality is not itself pathological and the wellbeing of intersex people is endangered by medical intervention. They organized around the abolition of surgical intervention. They also created fora like Hermaphrodites With Attitude for the deconstruction of bodies/sexes/genders and development of an intersex identity that was inherently queer. 

The early ISNA activists explicitly aligned intersexuality in solidarity with LGB and transgender organizing. There was a belief that similar to LGBT organizing, once intersex people got enough visibility and consciousness-raising, people would “come out” in greater numbers (p100).

By the end of the 90s, however, many intersex people were actively rejecting being seen as queer and as political subjects/actors. The organization had become instead aligned with surgeons and clinicians, had replaced “intersex” with “DSD” in their language.

By the time ISNA disbanded in 2008 they had leaned in hard on a so-called “pragmatic” / “harm reduction” model / “children’s rights perspective”. The view was that since infants in Western countries are “born medical subjects as it is” (p100)

Where did DSD come from? 

In 2005, the term “disorders of sexual differentiation” had been recently coined in an article by Alice Dreger, Cheryl Chase, “and three other clinicians associated with the ISNA… [so as] to ‘label the condition rather than the person’” (p101). Dreger et al thought that intersex was “not medically accurate” (p101) and that the goal should be effective nomenclature to “sort patients into diagnostically meaningful groups” (p101).

Dreger et al argued that the term intersex “attracts the interest of a large number of people whose interest is based on a sexual fetish and people who suffer from delusions about their own medical histories” (Dreger et al quoted on p101)

Per Spurgas, Dreger et al had an explicit agenda of “distancing intersex activism from queer and transgressive sex/gender politics and instead in supporting Western medical productions of intersexuality” (p102). In other words: they were intermedicalists.

According to Dreger et al, an alignment with medicine is strategically important because intersex people often require medical attention, and hence need to be legible to clinicians. “For those in favor of the transition to DSD, intersex is first and foremost a disorder requiring medical treatment” (p102)

Later in 2005 there was a “Intersex Consensus Meeting” organized by a society of paediatricians and endocrinologists. Fifty “experts” were assembled from ten countries (p101)... with a grand total of two actually intersex people in attendance (Cheryl Chase and Barbara Thomas, from XY-Frauen). 

At the meeting, they agreed to adopt the term DSD along with a “‘patient-centred’ and ‘evidence-based’ treatment protocol” to replace the OGR treatment model (p101)

In 2006, a consortium of American clinicians and bioethicists was formed and created clinical guidelines for treating DSDs. They defined DSD quite narrowly: if your gonads or genitals don’t match your gender, or you have a sex chromosome anomaly. So no hormonal variations like hyperandrogenism allowed.

The pro-DSD movement: it was mostly doctors

Spurgas quotes the consortium: “note that the term ‘intersex’ is avoided here because of its imprecision” (p102) - our highlight. There’s a lot of doctors hating on intersex for being a category of political organizing that gets encoded as the category is “imprecise” 👀

Spurgas gets into how the doctors dressed up their re-pathologization of intersex as “patient centred” (p103) - remember this is being led by doctors, not patients, and any intersex inclusion was tokenistic. (Elizabeth: it was amazing how much bs this was.)

As Spurgas puts it, the pro-DSD movement “represents an abandonment of the desire for a pan-intersexual/queer identity and an embrace of the complete medicalization of intersex… the intersex individual is now to be understood fundamentally as a patient” (p103)

Around the same time some paediatricians almost came close to publicly advocating against infant genital mutilation by denouoncing some infant surgeries. Spurgas notes they recommended “that intersex individuals be subjected (or self-subject) to extensive psychological/psychiatric, hormonal, steroidal and other medical” interventions for the rest of their lives (p103).

This call to instead focus on non-surgical medical interventions then got amplified by other clinicians and intermedicalist intersex advocacy organizations.

The push for non-surgical pathologization hence wound up as a sort of “compromise” path - it satisfied the intermedicalists and anti-queer intersex activists, and had the allure of collaborating with doctors to end infant surgeries. (Note: It is 2024 and infant surgeries are still a thing 😡.)

The pro-DSD camp within the intersex community

Spurgas then goes on to get into the discursive politics of DSD. There’s some definite transphobia in the push for “people with DSDs are simply men and women who happen to have congenital birth conditions” (p104). (Summarizer’s note: this language is still employed by anti-trans activists.)

The pro-DSD camp claimed that it was “a logical step in the ‘evolution in thinking’” 💩 and that it would be a more “humane” treatment model (p105) 💩

Also that “parents and doctors are not going to want to give a child a label with a politicized meaning” (p104) which really gives the game away doesn’t it? Intersex people have started raising consciousness, demanding their rights, and asserting they are not broken, so now the poor doctors can’t use the label as a diagnosis. 🤮

Spurgas quotes Emi Koyama, an intermedicalist who emphasized how “most intersex people identify as ‘perfectly ordinary, heterosexual, non-trans men and women’” (p104) along with a whole bunch of other quotes that are obviously queerphobic. Note from Elizabeth: I’m not gonna repeat it all because it’s gross. In my kindest reading of this section, it reads like gender dysphoria for being mistaken as genderqueer, but instead of that being a source of solidarity with genderqueers it is used as a form of dual closure (when a minority group goes out of its way to oppress a more marginalized group in order to try and get acceptance with the majority group).

Koyama and Dreger were explicitly anti-trans, and viewed intergender type stuff as “a ‘trans co-optation’ of intersex identity” (p105) 🤮

Most intersex people resisted “DSD” from its creation

On page 106, Spurgas shifts to talking about how a lot intersex people were resistant to the DSD shift. Organization Intersex International (OII) and Bodies Like Ours (BLO) were highly critical of the shift! 💛 BLO in particular noted that 80-90% of their website users were against the DSD term. Note from Elizabeth: indeed, every survey I’ve seen on the subject has been overwhelmingly against DSD - a 2015 IHRA survey found only 3% of intersex Australians favoured the DSD term.

Proponents of “intersex” over “DSD” testified to it being depathologizing. They called out the medicalization as such: that it serves to reinforce that “intersex people don’t exist” (David Cameron, p107), that it is damaging to be “told they have a disorder” (Esther Leidolf, p107), that there is “a purposeful conflation of treatment for ‘health reasons’ and ‘cosmetic reasons’ (Curtis Hinkle, p107), and that it’s being pushed mainly by perisex people as a reactionary, assimilationist endeavour (ibid).

Interliberationism never went away - intersex people kept pushing for 🌈 queer solidarity 🌈 and depathologization - even though ISNA, the largest intersex advocacy organization, had abandoned this position.

Spurgas describes how a lot of criticism of DSD came from non-Anglophone intersex groups, that the term is even worse in a lot of languages - it connotes “disturbed” in German and has an ambiguity with pedophilia and fetishism in French (p111).

The DSD push was basically entirely USA-based, with little international consultation (p111). Spurgas briefly addresses the imperialism inherent in the “DSD” term on pages 118/119.

Other noteworthy positions in the DSD debate

Spurgas gives a well-deserved shout out to the doctors who opposed the push to DSD, who mostly came from psychiatry and opposed it on the grounds that the pathologization would be psychologically damaging and that intersex patients “have taken comfort (and in many cases, pride) in their (pan-)intersex identity” (p108) 🌈 - Elizabeth: yay, psychiatrists doing their job! 

Interestingly, both sides of the DSD issue apparently have invoked disability studies/rights for their side: Koyama claimed DSD would herald the beginning of a disability rights based era of intersex activism (p109) while anti-DSDers noted the importance in disability rights in moving away from pathologization (p109).

Those who didn’t like DSD but who saw a strategic purpose for it argued it would “preser[ve] the psychic comfort of parents”, that there is basically a necessity to coddle the parents of intersex children in order to protect the children from their parents. (p110) 

Some proposed less pathologizing alternatives like “variations of sex development” and “divergence of sex development” (p110)

The DSD treatment model and the intersex treadmill

Remember all intersex groups were united that sex assignment surgery on infants needs to be abolished. The DSD framework that was sold as a shift away from surgical intervention, but it never actually eradicated it as an option (p112).  Indeed, it keeps ambiguous the difference between medically necessary surgical intervention and culturally desired cosmetic surgery (p112). (Note from Elizabeth: funny how *this* ambiguity is acceptable to doctors.)

What DSD really changed was a shift from “fixing” the child with surgery to instead providing “lifelong ‘management’ to continue passing” (p112), resulting in more medical intervention, such as through hormonal and behavioural therapies to “[keep] it in remission” (p113).

Cheryl Chase coined the “intersex treadmill’: the never-ending drive to fit within a normative sex category (p113), which Spurgas deploys to talk about the proliferation of “lifelong treatments” and how it creates the need for constant surveillance of intersex bodies (p114). Medical specialization adds to the proliferation, as one needs increasingly more specialists who have increasingly narrow specialties.

There’s a cruel irony in how the DSD model pushes for lifelong psychiatric and psychological care of intersex patients so as to attend to the PTSD that is caused by medical intervention. (p115) It pushes a capitalistic model where as much money can be milked as possible out of intersex patients (p116).

The DSD treatment model, if it encourages patients to find community at all, hence pushes condition-specific medical support groups rather than pan-intersex advocacy groups (p115)

Other stuff in the chapter

Spurgas does more Foucault-ing at the end of the chapter. Highlight: “The intersex/DSD body is a site of biosocial contestation over which ways of knowing not only truth of sex, but the truth of the self, are fought. Both intelligibility and tangible resources are the prizes accorded to the winner(s) of the battle over truth of sex” (p117)

There’s some stuff on the patient-as-consumer that didn’t really land with anybody at the book club meeting - we’re mostly Canadians and the idea of patient-as-consumer isn’t relatable. Ei noted it isn’t even that relatable from their position as an American.

***

Having now summarized the chapter, here's a summary of our discussion at book club...

Opening reactions

Michelle (M): the way the main lady involved became medicalized really made my heart sink, reading that.

Elizabeth (E): I do remember some discussion of intersex people in the 90s, and it never really grew in the way that other queer identities did! This has kind of helped for me to understand what the fuck happened here.

E: It was definitely a very insightful reading on that part, while being absolutely outraging. I didn't know, but I guess I wasn't surprised at how pivotal US-centrism was. The author was talking about "North American centric" though but always meant the United States!!! Canada was just not part of this! They even make mention of Quebec as separate and one of the opposing regions. I was like, What are you doing here, America? You are not the entirety of our continent!!!

E: The feedback from non-Anglophone intersex advocates that DSD does not translate was something that I was like, "Yes!" For me, when I read the French term - that sounded like something that would include vaginismus, erectile dysfunction - it sounds far more general and negative.

M: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

E: it was very assimilationist in a way that was very upsetting. I knew intellectually that this was going on. There was such a distinct advocacy push for that. The coddling of parents and doctors at the expense of intersex people was such a theme of this chapter, in a way that was very upsetting. They started out with this goal of intersex liberation, and instead, wound up coddling parents and doctors.

Solidarities

M: I feel like there's a real ableist parallel to the autism movement here… It dovetails with how the autism movement was like, "Aww, we're sorry about your emotionless monster baby! This must be so hard for you [parents]!" And it felt like "aw, it's okay, we'll fix your baby so they can interface with heterosexuality!" [Note: both of us are neurodivergent]

E: A lot of intersexism is a fear that you're going to have a queer child, both in terms of orientation and gender.

E: You cannot have intersex liberation without putting an end to homophobia and transphobia.

M: We're such natural allies there!

E: I understand that there are these very dysphoric ipsogender or cisgender people, who don't want to be mistaken as trans, but like it or not, their rights are linked to trans people! When I encounter these people, I don't know how to convey, "whether you like it or not, you're not going to get more rights by doing everything you can to be as distant as possible."

M: it reminds me of the movements by some younger queers to adhere to respectability politics.

E: Oh no. There are younger queers who want respectability politics????

M: well, some younger queers are very reactionary about neopronouns and kink at pride. they don't always know the difference between representation and "imposing" kinks on others. In a way, it reminds me of the more intentional rejection of queer weirdos, or queerdos, if you will, by republican gays.

E: I feel like a lot of anti-queerdom that comes out of the ipso and cisgender intersex community reads as very dysphoric to me. That needs to be acknowledged as gender dysphoria.

M: That resonates to me. When I heard about my own androgen imbalance, I was like, "does that mean I'm not a real woman?" And now I would happily say "fuck that question," but we do need an empathy and sensitivity for that experience. Though not tolerance for people who invalidate others, to be honest.

E: The term "iatrogensis" was new to me. The term refers to a disease caused or aggravated by medical intervention.

M: So like a surgical complication, or gender dysphoria caused by improper medical counselling!

The DSD debate

ei: i think the "disorder" discussion is really interesting. in my opinion, if someone feels their intersex condition is a disorder they have every right to label it that way, but if someone does not feel the same they have every right to reject the disorder label. personally i use the label "condition". i don't agree with forcing labels on anyone or stripping them away from anyone either.

M: for me, it felt like a cautionary tale about which labels to accept.

ei: i'm all around very tired of people label policing others and making blanket statements such as "all people who are this have to use this label”... i also use variation sometimes, i tend to go back and forth between variation and condition. I think it's a delicate balance between being sensitive to people's label preferences vs making space for other definitions/communities.

We then spoke about language for a bunch of communities (Black people, non-binary people) for a while

E: one thing that was very harrowing for me about this chapter is that while there was this push to end coercive infant surgery, they basically ceded all of the ground on "interventions" happening from puberty onward. And as someone who has had to fight off coercive medical interventions in puberty, I have a lot of trauma about violent enforcement of femininity and the medical establishment.

ei: i completely agree that it's psychologically harmful tbh…. i was assigned male at birth and my doctors want me to start testosterone to make me more like a perisex male. which is extremely counterproductive because i'm literally transfem and have expressed this many times

Doctors Doing Harm

M: for me, the validation of how doctors can be harmful in this chapter meant a lot.

E: something that surprised me and made me happy was that there were some psychiatrists who spoke out against the DSD label. As someone who routinely hears a lot of anti-psychiatry stuff - because there's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of psychiatry, as a discipline - it was just nice to see some psychiatrists on the right side of things, doing right by their patients. Psychiatrists were making the argument that DSD would be psychologically harmful to a lot of intersex people.

ei: like. being told that something so inherently you, so inherently linked to your identity and sense of self, is a disorder of sexual development, something to be fixed and corrected. that has to be so harmful

ei: like i won't lie i do have a lot of severe trauma surrounding the way i've been treated due to being intersex. but so much of my negative experiences are repetitive smaller things. Like the way people treat me like my only purpose is to teach them about intersex people …. either that or they get really creepy and gross. I’m lucky in that i'm not visibly intersex, so i do have the privilege of choosing who knows. but there's a reason why i usually don't tell people irl.

M: intersex and autism have overlap again about how like, minor presentation can be? As opposed to the sort of monstrous presentation [Carnival barker impression] "Come see the sensational half-man, half-woman! Behold the h-------dite!" And like - the way nonverbal people are also treated feels relevant to that, because that's how autism is often treated, like a freakshow and a pity party for the parents? And it's so dehumanizing. And as someone who might potentially have a nonverbal child, because my wife is expecting and my husband and she both have ADHD - I'm just very fed up with ableism and the perception of monstrosity.

Overall, this was a chapter that had a lot to talk about! See here for our discussion of Chapters 5-7 from the same volume.

#intersex #intersex studies #queer theory #gender studies #actually intersex #intersex rights #intersex activism #intersex books #book reviews #book summaries #paper summaries #lit review #critical intersex #intersex history

[intersexbookclub]

Summary: Chapters 5-7 of Critical Intersex

After our first foray into academic intersex studies, people were curious for more, so for November we read a subset of the edited volume Critical Intersex. It was published in 2009 and was edited by Morgan Holmes, an intersex sociologist. We read Chapters 4-7. 

As it turned out, Chapters 5-7 were all fairly similar - they all went over the modern-era history of intersex from a legal/bureaucratic perspective in The Netherlands (Ch 5), and Germany (Ch 6 & 7). Chapter 4 was on the history of the Intersex Society of North America.

We’re gonna split the book/discussion summary into two posts - this one for Chapters 5-7 and a separate post for Chapter 4.

First, some quick summaries of the chapters:

Ch 5: Do I Have XY Chromosomes? By Margriet van Heesch  

This chapter provides a history of how AIS has been treated by doctors in the Netherlands from the 1880s to the 2000s. Treatment models changed several times during this time period, affected by shifting scientific understanding of the basis of sex as well as social changes in the late 20th century towards greater informed consent 

An important shift happened in the 1960s: a new treatment model for intersex emerges, led by John Money at Johns Hopkins University in the USA. This posits that gender identity is a result of genital appearance and parenting in the early years’ of an infant/toddler’s life. They believed that the clinical goal should be to “erase all doubts about the sex of children with intersex conditions” (p123) 

All three of the chapters talk about this paradigm, but none of them use a pithy name for it. As it turns out there is a name for it; its practitioners called it the optimum gender rearing model, or OGR model.

Heesch explains how the OGR model led to a dynamic where Dutch doctors would “protect” AIS women from learning that they have XY chromosomes. Women would AIS would still sometimes find out, by accident or through a lot of digging, and Heesch’s chapter focuses on interviews and life stories of women with AIS who were treated this way.

Interestingly, John Money himself argued “‘in all cases of genital deformity, whatever the diagnosis and whatever the rearing, it is psychologically advantageous to be straightforward and honest in talking with the child about the facts of his or her condition’” (p 133) - emphasis ours.

This part of Money’s treatment model did not make it into Dutch practice. Money was fairly accepting of homosexuality, whereas Dutch doctors openly declared a “wish to make intersex children into happily married adults … Medical prevention of homosexuality became disguised as the medical prevention of social problems.”

Heesch also interviewed women with AIS and relays their life stories. The stories are fairly grim and the usual sorts of stories about AIS (e.g. removing “cancerous tumours”). Notably, the women who did find out about being intersex expressed a desire to meet other women with the same condition (p138) in contrast to doctors’ approaches to hide information and connections from their patients.

Ch 6: Intersex, a Blank Space in German Law? By Angela Kolbe

In Germany, “there is no law to define what a man is, what a woman is, or how many sexes exist. the legal system simply assumes an obvious distinction between male and female, and structures laws to acknowledge only two sexes.” (p147)

As such, you cannot register a baby as as intersex, rather than female or male, on a birth certificate. 

Interestingly, German law used to include a category for altvil, which Kolbe translates as “hermaphrodites”. The altvil were in German law as early as the Sachsenspiegel of 1230. The Sachsenspiegel encoded that “hermaphrodites, dwarfs and imbeciles could inherit neither land nor titles” (p149).

Kolbe then goes over a history of different laws and what they had to say about intersex people. Overall the picture is that intersex people had more limited rights than perisex people. Multiple historical laws set forth a “preponderance rule”, to assign intersex people to a binary gender based on the preponderance of sex characteristics; these laws encoded who was to make this determination and when. 

Some laws (such as a law in 1794 Prussia) granted a right of choice: the intersex person (or their parents) could choose which binary gender they should be, and make a blood oath binding them to this gender. (Some laws penalized breaking this oath.)

After going through the history, Kolbe then explains the present situation in Germany.  The legal challenges from intersex people, and the unwillingness of the German government to deal with it.

Kolbe describes a court case in Colombia that set a new standard: they denied the parental right to consent to surgery on intersex infants. “The court found that the parents did not really understand the implications of the operation on their child’s life.” (p159) and created a new model of “qualified and persistent informed consent”. 

This Colombian model was a compromise between abolishing infant surgery and allowing parents to consent to surgery on behalf of their children - it required doctors to provide detailed information to parents, and it needs to be authorized in stages that are spread out to give “parents time to establish bonds with their child the way s/he is, and not to make a prejudicial decision based on shock at the baby’s appearance” (p159)

Kolbe discusses the Colombian model as a possible way forward for Germany, and then discusses other possible ways forward for Germany - should they make a legal third sex category? Or try to abolish gender categories in the law entirely? Kolbe details how gender is currently involved in German law and how it could be removed.

Ch 7: Who Has the Right to Change Gender Status? Drawing Boundaries between Inter- and Transsexuality by Ulrike Klöppel

In post-war Germany, the standard was to let intersex people pick their gender assignment - for infants with ambiguous sex at birth, they were given a provisional assignment. There was a clear commitment to defer plastic and hormone surgery until the intersex patient could decide what they wanted.

Klöppel documents how the “subject orientated” policy emerged in the early 1900s. Klöppel gives a history of medical treatment models in Germany, and how the subject-oriented model eventually lost out to the OGR model promoted by John Money.

Klöppel then provides a history of how trans people have been understood by German doctors, and common ground in how both trans and intersex were negatively impacted by laws that required all Germans to have a binary and unchangeable legal sex marker. 

Klöppel discusses the role doctors have played in pushing back on these laws, the relationship between the law and medicine, and the history of relevant legislation in Germany in the 20th century.

Shifting now into our book club discussion...

High-level Reactions To These Chapters

Elizabeth (Eliz): I already knew the basic timeline of the social construction of sex, so that wasn't new to me. But it was new to me that the Netherlands and Germany would be so different. The doctors lying to their patients was really something. And then the Germans being like, "yeah, the intersex person gets to pick their gender!" I wasn't expecting such differences between such similar countries.

Michelle (M): I come from a medical family background, so medical ethics are familiar to me, but the concept of simply not telling a patient what they were diagnosed with is horrifying to me.

ei: i honestly didn't read very much, and there wasn't anything in particular i wanted to discuss. mostly just interested in listening in on you guys' discussion!

Doctors

Eliz: The chapters were emotionally difficult to read; reading about doctors being paternalistic is never fun. It was interesting that John Money, the guy associated with infant surgeries, advocated being open and honest with the intersex children and what had happened to them. I still don’t know what tests were done on me as an adolescent and it’s been a barrier in my care to this day.

Eliz: Another thing about the chapters is the importance physicians have on surveilling intersex people. The DSD model frames intersex as a lifelong model that requires surveillance and intersession by a team of healthcare workers.

ei: doctors HATE when intersex people are queer or trans or "weird" in another way. They expect us to all be cishet and as "normal" as possible, and that ofc includes forcing "treatments" to erase our intersex traits! I hate when i look up my variation and get hit with "men with (variation)"

Eliz: yeah doctors have appointed themselves into the job of surveilling intersex people to make sure we never deviate

M: it's gender as a police state. "You're already a recidivist. Don't you dare worsen your condition!" It's probably why doctors hate when patients band together in case "these intersex people get wrong ideas."

ei: yeah. my gender has always been seen as a medical issue, specifically one to be "corrected". i've fought consistently against so many medical "treatments" that are meant to make me more similar to a perisex person

Eliz: yeah I noticed how in one of the chapters (Ch 5) the author was like “why didn’t the doctors tell the patients how to connect with people with the same condition?” given all the evidence it’s beneficial for intersex people to do so, and how the people that author had interviewed had - upon finding out they were intersex - immediately wanted to meet others with the same condition. I don’t know if the author had been asking rhetorically but it feels like the answer is because doctors are scared if we talk to each other we might realize we’re being mistreated.

ei: I think also, they don't want intersex people to feel like their variation is okay. they want to maintain the Medically Fucked Up narrative, and they don't want us meeting other intersex people because we might realize that being intersex is normal, natural, and okay.

Eliz: yeah doctors don’t want to give up control. I liked this line in Ch 6: “in current legal and political developments the issue of intersexuality, although still quite unknown, has stepped out of the silence into which medical science had banished it”

Ableism and Eugenics

Eliz: I thought the link between intersexism and ableism going back so long was fascinating. Like how in the 1200s, people who were intersex or disabled couldn't inherit land.

M: And like, with intersex people, I think there's a fear that - forgive the ableist language - we could "breed more freaks!"

Eliz: it’s super eugenicist

M: It always comes back to eugenicism!

Surveillance and Technology

Eliz: these chapters have a big theme of surveillance. The DSD model putting doctors in the role of surveilling us intersex people to ensure the conformity of our genders and sexual orientations. And this was interesting for me because that this isn't the issue I'm used to thinking of when it comes to surveillance and intersex. So many surveillance technologies like facial recognition or whatever assume a sex or gender binary, so technologies don't work right on intersex people because they're not designed for us. There's just ways in which a lot of technologies assume a binaristic, dyadic view of humanity that are quite hurtful.

Eliz: Chapter 7 reminded me of this paper I have really ambivalent feelings about, by a Science and Technology Studies (STS) named Mar Hicks. The paper is about how the computerization of the British Census made gender more difficult. For a long time, you could write whatever gender you wanted, and no one could reaaaally keep track. So if you transitioned, and presented yourself as a new gender when you moved, there weren't really birth certificates; people just had to take you at your word. The paper shows how technology changed this. I have mixed feelings about Hicks’ paper because there is zero mention of intersex people in it. Hicks is trans. It’s really frustrating to me how intersex people just don’t exist at all in the minds of perisex people, and this is a really frustrating oversight in Hicks’ work.

Questions about the authors

Eliz: I did wonder how many of the authors of the book chapters were intersex; they read more perisex because of referring to the intersex community with "they" and "them" language instead of “our”. If the authors of these three chapters were intersex they were doing a weird pretend-distancing thing that I dislike seeing in academic writing. It's also possible that the book wasn't as intersex-authored as you'd expect from the title.

M: not me forgetting that academic textbooks have multiple authors!

Eliz:  I don't know why so much of this scholarship is German! More Germans! Why? But I'm fascinated. What led to Germans being the leaders on intersex studies?

Jurisprudence, law, and politics

Eliz: Thinking of the chapters that were saying in the premodern era intersex people were just asked to decide what they gender wanted to be, and do a blood oath, like "this is my gender now!" As opposed to slotting you into female or male FROM birth, and experts need to be called in on which way you're going to go. The emphasis on trying to predict gender from birth feels so deeply counter productive. And because it’s so flimsy it requires all this extra work to enforce it.

Eliz: The Columbian compromise was surprisingly reasonable. There were still surgeries on children, but it was more acceptable, so I was kind of impressed. Good job, legal jurisprudence system.

M: You were adequate!

Eliz: One thing -getting more into ch 4 - there are a handful of countries that have banned intersex surgeries - like Greece - and I'm really curious to know how that happened, especially after ch 4, about the history of American intersex activism. What happened in Greece and Spain that was successful, in a way that hasn't been in these other countries, is something that I'm really itching to find out.

Germany

M: My feelings about the chapters were that there was a real simmering fury about sexual binarism in Germany. It seemed like a good opportunity for nonbinary and intersex people to have kinship and allyship there. I've come to identify more as a nonbinary person; I've always hated the word "woman," and that feels very connected to my intersexuality.

Eliz: there was this idea in the chapter that intersex people were just casualties of sexism that I didn't really like. I would have liked a lot more about the path forward with an X or I marker, rather than just removing gender categories altogether. I was also a bit "ehhhh" about the author dismissing Affirmative Action?! It's controversial, people don't like it, but it works! I felt that needed to be fleshed out more

Eliz: By the way, I looked it up, and Germany did legalize same-sex marriage in 2017.

M: that feels late!

ei: crazy that people think europe is like so progressive but then germany didn't even legalize gay marriage until after the united states

Germany since 2009

Bnuuy, who is German, gave us a very detailed update on what has happened in Germany since the book was published in 2009. Here’s a very brief summary of Bnuuy’s infodump, which you can read in the #23-11-critical-intersex channel on our discord:

Some court cases led to the courts ordering changes to the system to improve things for trans/intersex people, but German legislators absolutely failed to uphold the spirit of the constitutional rulings. The politicians have created a system that does the bare minimum of what the court ruled that in practice makes it incredibly difficult for trans & intersex people to change their gender markers. 

Legal sex marker change for trans people still requires sterilization and to sue to have a court recognize your gender change. The government is not allowed to out you as trans if you go this route. Whereas if you go the pathway intended for intersex people, this right isn’t there; the government can out you as intersex. 

The intersex pathway to sex marker change requires a doctor to write in your favour, and the government can’t check it. A diagnosis is required, and it’s not even for “intersex”, it’s for the German translation of DSD.

So a lot of trans people use the intersex pathway, since the doctor can write down ANYTHING to make it count as “intersex”. For nonbinary people it’s a real roll of the dice in the courts, and generally easier to go the route of “intersex”. It’s a super broken system. 

Bnuuy conveyed a deep feeling of frustration with German politicians for failing to do right by their trans & intersex constituents, and the frustration in more progressive politicians making big promises to fix the system and then not delivering at all.

Bnuuy also had an important PSA to make which is when you hear news that a foreign country has made some legal/political victory for queer people actually read about it - too many people see that Germany has blank and “diverse” on the books for gender markers and think these options are actually available to genderqueer & intersex people, but they’re not actually.

Our discussion continues here for chapter 4.

#intersex #intersex studies #queer theory #intersex book #gender studies #sociology #legal studies #book reviews #book summaries #intersex rights #lit review #critical intersex

[intersexbookclub]

Summary: Queen by JS Fields

So there comes a point in every book club where a book is picked that people are pretty meh on. This is the first book we read as a club where the general consensus was disappointment in the book. 🤷

Upfront we’ll say our collective disappointment was not in the intersex representation, which is the usual issue intersex people about intersex books, but rather in issues of storytelling and editing.

Liking book picks is not a requirement to participate in this book club! Art is subjective, and finishing the book is not an expectation in this book club.

Overall impressions:

Michelle (@scifimagpie): It read like a very meh episode of Star Trek. I didn't feel like it didn't accomplish what it set out to do in terms of intersex/trans experience in a woman-only planet. It tried to be quirky, but it was a slog. 

Bnuuy: definitely not a perfect book but I enjoyed the experience. It's weird around the edges. If you do read it don't expect it to be perfect. It has some interesting ideas even if it doesn't explore or execute them well.

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): This just wasn’t my cup of tea. I found the protagonist, Ember, just too unlikable, and the narrative kept going in ways I found confusing in an unpleasant way. I got a third of the way through before deciding to stop - might as well role model that you don't have to finish the book for book club 😅

vic: I didn’t really have many thoughts on it, was neutral about it. It wasn’t really my thing, and I agree with the points about it needing some editing.

The intersex content

The main character, Ember, has a chromosomal mosaicism. Does not have genital differences, does have hormonal differences, and has one ovary. 

Elizabeth shared that “it is nice to see a book where there’s an intersex character with a well-defined intersex variation that *isn’t* a genital one given that so overwhelmingly intersex representation in fiction is people with ambiguous genitalia, it’s completely incommensurate with how many intersex people do/don’t have ambiguous genitals. It gives perisex - and sadly a lot of intersex - people a skewed idea of what intersex is to a point that many people think intersex means ambiguous genitals.”

The main character’s intersex variation becomes a plot point when the main character pretends to be a dude, and passes a cheek swab because of her mosaicism.

Michelle opined that “on one hand the intersex representation was very casual and I liked that, it was just an intersex woman living life. On the other hand I didn't like how it felt like there was one plot point where her intersex matters and that was the only reason for it and so that didn't feel good.”

We all agreed it was disappointing the book didn’t get into gender more. 

There is a bit where Ember, the main character, does not really identify as female. But as Bnuuy put it, “it feels weird that would get brought up but Ember never talks about it… maybe Ember should have gotten the opportunity to say what her gender identity is.”

There is a scene where a character essentially asks the main character “since you’re intersex do you still identify as female?” and this felt pretty rude! 

The colony of plenty of trans and non-binary characters, which made it made it feel even more odd that Ember did not have discussions about her preferred pronouns, or talk about her feelings about gender.

Michelle voiced disappointment about this as a piece of ownvoice fiction: “the representation was there but ... you don't have to be comfortable with your identity when doing your #ownvoice or even authoritative-y, but there was a level of comfort that I expected to see that I didn't get out of the book. Also, why mention it if you're not gonna grapple with it?”

In terms of other intersex themes, Michelle saw a theme of the planet itself being kind of intersex. It was capable of more than people expected of it, it has unexpected fertility, and just felt intersex to xer. In xis words, “I had to squint, but it [the theme] was there.”

Michelle felt the book didn’t really deliver in terms of intersex representation because it was so incidental and under-explored

The main issue we identified with the book was editing

There were a lot of things we didn’t like about this book, sadly. 

We spent a bit of time speculating about the editing process, since so many complaints seemed to come down to an editing issue. The pacing was not very good, and there were too many plot sequences that came up in the discussion because people felt they were unrealistic or jarring.

Michelle felt it didn’t really come together.

The book had issues with genre

Michelle: this book has the bones of a horror novel, but then it didn't happen.... like hey was Ember’s relationship with her dead wife actually that good?

Bnuuy: the Taraniel imprint AI sliding more and more into making decisions against Ember's will could have been explored more

Michelle: there was so much potential in story, colonialism and having your land sold from out from you. A story of ‘this planet sucks but it's what we got so we're making a home of it’ rather than going back to Earth would have made for a more intersex story

Elizabeth: I read Manhunt recently and had expected from description that it'd be an intersex take on that kind of story but then it was instead a workplace drama, then it was a pirate kidnapping story, then it was a land rights drama... Overall it wound up feeling like a bad space colonization story with highly implausible science

Michelle: would have been better to just have it magical realism!

Elizabeth: from what I read and hear in this discussion the book needed to narrow down its purpose, like to be a horror story vs space romp vs pirate story

Michelle: I thought it was supposed to be a rip-roaring space adventure that had gender themes, but I don't think author understood difference between nodding at something and exploring them

Worldbuilding was another thing that we didn’t like about the book

We all agreed the collapse of Earth felt implausible. For example, the bit in the book that humans could live without vegetation got a strong “NO WE CAN'T” from Elizabeth. The order of things felt very sus to Elizabeth (“why would it start with trees and shrubs dying?”)

Michelle: why are rabbits and beetles the main fauna on Queen? Doesn't make sense to me, why are there no rodents, how are they making it work in -40 conditions

Bnuuy & Michelle felt the rabbit cult was weird (Elizabeth did not read that far)

We all agreed the book fumbled at exploring the authoritarian government of the planet.

Bnuuy: I wanted more of an explanation of what is up with those rules on the planet. I did not understand the structure, the presidium, etc. Not sure I processed the backstory but the timeline of Queen was also confusing to me.

Bnuuy: the second equator thing was not explained well, nor the mella, wanted a map

Michelle: I don't like books that assume the Earth is fucked

Michelle: not sure I feel about the concept that the Earth is falling apart so we're sending people to different planets to colonize, here's your women only planet.

Character issues

Elizabeth: the characters felt unreal, what kind of sister leaves her husband for the sister? And Ember just is completely incapable of working with the pirates or adapting to the situation, yet she is supposed to be an adult scientist

Bunny felt there should be more stuff of Ember grieving over Taraniel: “she doesn't seem like the person who would move on quickly. Would have been better to write [the romance with Asher] as a potential romance that needs a significant amount more time.”

Michelle didn't like it played for laughs to have partner sleep on the couch

Michelle: the pirates didn't feel piratey, they kind of resource hoard, expected underdogs

What we liked

The character Varun. He was Bnuuy’s favourite part of the book. Michelle liked that Varun's masculinity is not questioned, though society around him is invalidating him.

Michelle liked the shenanigans in the workplace, the friendship between Nadia and Varun.

Bunny liked the composition of the characters: there's a lot of female characters and some trans guys, and while not liking how it was set up, liked the resulting mix

Elizabeth liked finding a book where there’s an intersex character with a well-defined intersex variation that *isn’t* ambiguous genitals, and spoke about how sad it is this is where the bar is.

Bnuuy liked the dynamic between the colonists and the mella [pirates], and the colonists being forcefully marked as mella; as well as how the mella are pretty queer.

Michelle liked the concept of terraforming not working.

Bnuuy: one thing I did really like was the start of each chapter having a little short text of background

Michelle: I did like that storytelling element, but the actual content made me go "aaaahh?” 

Final thoughts

Michelle: I went into the discussion thinking this was a three-star book, and discussing it has me bringing it down to two. Still glad I read it, if nothing else glad I read a book I wouldn't have otherwise!

#intersex #intersex book club #book summaries #book reviews #intersex books #intersex literature #intersex fiction #queer books #queer literature #queer fiction #queer scifi

[intersexbookclub]

Reminder we're meeting *this* Friday instead of our usual practice of meeting on the last Friday of the month. Hope to see you there! :)

December pick: Across the Green Grass Fields

For December we'll be having a fun read, a YA portal fantasy with unicorns and centaurs that features a main character with AIS! The author is perisex, but the book has been well-reviewed by intersex people and had at least one intersex sensitivity reader. When we’re meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Dec 22, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

Normally we meet on the last Friday of the month but given the winter holidays in many countries & cultures we will be meeting on the penultimate Friday this month.

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. The book's chapters are grouped into Parts. Reading the first Part is plenty to have interesting things to discuss, and reading the first two will give you a good sense of the book. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, we’re reading a selection from Critical Intersex this month (November). For January we'll be reading a selection from Envisioning African Intersex.

#event reminders

[intersexbookclub]

Open chat session: Dec 8

As an experiment for the book club, we're going to have an open chat session this Friday! 🎉

Do you have thoughts about any of the books we've picked thus far, but couldn't make it to the relevant meeting? Thoughts about intersex books in general? Ideas for the book club? Just want to hang out and meet some friendly bookworms? 🤓

Join us at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

Discord link: https://discord.gg/9SHC3RGwbA

Our next book discussion will be for the YA portal fantasy Across The Green Grass Fields - we'll be meeting Friday Dec 22 at the same time of day.

#intersex book club #intersex #intersex community

[intersexbookclub]

February pick: Power To Yield and Other Stories

This February we'll be reading Power to Yield and Other Stories, the latest sci-fi & fantasy short story collection by intersex ownvoice author Bogi Takács (e/em/eir or they/them).

The book is being released on February 6, and Takács has generously provided the club with an advance reader copy! You can also support the author by pre-ordering a copy here.

Advance reader copies (ARCs) are copies of books sent to book reviewers before a book is released, to contribute publicity for the book's release. We've chosen to read the book in February so people who would prefer to acquire a non-ARC copy can join in too!

You can access the ARC through the discord; it is in epub format. Note the expectation in using an ARC is that you would participate in reviewing the book publicly (and honestly), be it through the book discussion summary we will do collectively, and/or reviewing on your own platform(s).

When we’re meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Feb 23, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. A list of content warnings is available at the *back* of the book. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, know we alternate fiction & non-fiction picks. Our current & upcoming picks are:

DECEMBER 2023: Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire (Dec 23)

JANUARY 2024: Envisioning African Intersex by Amanda L Swarr (Jan 26)

FEBRUARY 2024: Power To Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács (Feb 23)

March will a non-fiction pick, but we haven't decided yet, so let us know on Discord what you'd prefer!

For April we are thinking of reading a book by YA sci-fi/romance intersex author K Ancrum, but we haven't yet decided which. Let us know in the Discord what you'd prefer! We meet on the last Friday of every month.

#intersex book club #book picks #intersex books #intersex literature #intersex fiction #queer scifi #queer fantasy #queer fiction #new books #intersex

[intersexbookclub]

January Pick: Envisioning African Intersex

Continuing our trend of alternating between fiction and non-fiction, our pick for January is Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine, by Amanda Lock Swarr.

This is an academic text, so we won't be reading the whole thing! To make it manageable, we will be reading the first three chapters:

The Introduction: Pathologizing Gender Binaries

Chapter 1: Colonial Observations and Fallacies

Chapter 2: Intersex in Four South African Racial Groups in Durban

To ensure everybody has access to the book, a pdf copy is available through the discord.

Content notice: this book will be talking about the history of intersexism, colonialism, and racism.

When we're meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Jan 26, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct

How much of the book do you need to read? You don’t need to finish it participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. Current & future book picks If this isn’t in the cards for you, we’re reading YA portal fantasy Across the Green Grass Fields this month (December), and in February we will be reading the sci-fi short story collection Power To Yield.

We'll be reading another non-fiction selection in March, but it is not yet decided, so let us know in the Discord what would interest you!

#intersex book club #book picks #intersex books #queer theory #intersex studies #intersex #colonialism #post-colonial studies

[intersexbookclub]

Reminder - we're meeting this Friday! :)

November read: Critical Intersex

This November we'll be returning to intersex studies for book club! We'll be reading Critical Intersex, edited by Morgan Holmes.

Like last time we chose an academic book, won't read the whole thing. We'll be reading Chapters 4-7 of the book, which are the chapters in the table of contents that are clustered as "Part II: Challenges to Identity Claims".

If you do not have access to a university library, a pdf copy of the relevant chapters is available on the discord.

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct When we're meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Nov 24, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

How much of the book do you need to read? You don't need to finish all four chapters to participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. You also don't have to understand it all! The goal is for us to learn together. Formal training in queer theory is not required. Current & future book picks If Critical Intersex isn't in the cards for you, we're reading Queen by JS Fields this month (October). For December we'll be reading Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire.

#reminders

[intersexbookclub]

For anybody curious about our last dive into intersex studies, notes on the Horlacher book are now up here! :)

November read: Critical Intersex

This November we'll be returning to intersex studies for book club! We'll be reading Critical Intersex, edited by Morgan Holmes.

Like last time we chose an academic book, won't read the whole thing. We'll be reading Chapters 4-7 of the book, which are the chapters in the table of contents that are clustered as "Part II: Challenges to Identity Claims".

If you do not have access to a university library, a pdf copy of the relevant chapters is available on the discord.

To join the discord: https://discord.gg/U8ZucKwGPK Also see: our code of conduct When we're meeting We will be meeting to discuss the four chapters on Fri Nov 24, at: - 12:30-14:00 Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 15:30-17:00 Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 21:30-23:00 Central European (Berlin, Paris, etc) for more time zones see here

How much of the book do you need to read? You don't need to finish all four chapters to participate! You are welcome to skim and/or skip chapters as desired. You also don't have to understand it all! The goal is for us to learn together. Formal training in queer theory is not required. Current & future book picks If Critical Intersex isn't in the cards for you, we're reading Queen by JS Fields this month (October). For December we'll be reading Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire.

#also: bumping the book pick announcement