Georgiann Davis

Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes

In May 2011, more than a decade after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) abandoned sex testing, they devised new policies in response to the IAAFs treatment of Caster Semenya, the South African runner whose sex was challenged because of her spectacular win and powerful physique that fueled an international frenzy questioning her sex and legitimacy to compete as female. These policies claim that atypically high levels of endogenous testosterone in women (caused by various medical conditions) create an unfair advantage and must be regulated. Against the backdrop of Semenyas case and the scientific and historical complexity of “gender verification” in elite sports, we question the new policies on three grounds: (1) the underlying scientific assumptions; (2) the policymaking process; and (3) the potential to achieve fairness for female athletes. We find the policies in each of these domains significantly flawed and therefore argue they should be withdrawn.

From sex roles to gender structure

This article has two goals, an intellectual history of gender as a concept and to outline a framework for moving forward theory and research on gender conceptualized as a structure of social stratification. The authors’ first goal is to trace the conceptual development of the study of sex and gender throughout the 20th century to now. They do this from a feminist sociological standpoint, framing the question with particular concern for power and inequality. The authors use a modernist perspective, showing how theory and research built in a cumulative fashion, with empirical studies sometimes supporting and sometimes challenging current theories, often leads to new ones. The authors then offer their theoretical contribution, framing gender as a social structure as a means to integrate the wide variety of empirical research findings on causal explanations for and consequences of gender. This framework includes attention to: the differences and similarities between women and men as individuals, the stability of and changing expectations we hold for each sex during social interaction, and the mechanisms by which gender is embedded into the logic of social institutions and organizations. At each level of analysis, there is a focus on the organization of social life and the cultural logics that accompany such patterns.

Giving sex Deconstructing Intersex and Trans Medicalization Practices

Although medical providers rely on similar tools to “treat” intersex and trans individuals, their enactment of medicalization practices varies. To deconstruct these complexities, we employ a comparative analysis of providers who specialize in intersex and trans medicine. While both sets of providers tend to hold essentialist ideologies about sex, gender, and sexuality, we argue they medicalize intersex and trans embodiments in different ways. Providers for intersex people are inclined to approach intersex as an emergency that necessitates medical attention, whereas providers for trans people attempt to slow down their patients’ urgent requests for transitioning services. Building on conceptualizations of “giving gender,” we contend both sets of providers “give gender” by “giving sex.” In both cases too, providers shift their own responsibility for their medicalization practices onto others: parents in the case of intersex, or adult recipients of care in the case of trans. According to the accounts of most providers, successful medical interventions are achieved when a person adheres to heteronormative gender practices.

The power in a name: diagnostic terminology and diverse experiences

Soon after the disorders of sex development (DSD) terminology was introduced in the 2006 medical consensus statement on the management of intersex traits, intersexuality became an outdated term within medical discourse. Because of the way the DSD terminology was officially introduced by an international medical consortium, it appears individuals with intersex traits are left to engage with it. Interviews with thirty-seven research participants with intersex traits show that DSD terminology is engaged in different ways by those the terminology is meant to describe, with some arguing against it, others supporting it and a few being indifferent to it. Participants also tended to describe self-understandings that might conflict with the intersex identity that was observed in the 1990s. Patterns across participants’ preferred terminology and their relationships with family members and medical providers are also observed.

Medical and Ethical Concerns Regarding Women With Hyperandrogenism and Elite Sport

Note published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism on 01 March 2015, freely available at: https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2014-3206.

Normalizing Intersex: The Transformative Power of Stories

The voices of 13 people with intersex traits are shared in this symposium to shape dominant medical discourse about intersex bodies and experiences. Four commentaries on these narratives by experts from various disciplines are included in this issue, with each raising questions that hopefully enhance rather than regulate the voices of people with intersex traits.

White Coats, Black Specialists? Racial Divides in the Medical Profession

This study assesses whether racialized patterns of medical specialization persist among a recent cohort of U.S. medical students. Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges 2004 Graduation Questionnaire (GQ), an annual survey of all graduating U.S. medical students, are employed to explore how factors internal and external to medical education influence specialization patterns among black and white medical school graduates. The data suggest that a degree of racial division in medical specialization endures, but that division does not neatly map onto specialty prestige and is deeply gendered. Black graduates are more likely to enter high-prestige surgical residency programs than their white colleagues, but this finding holds only for male medical school graduates. That the surgery effect emerges only with the inclusion of social factors inside and outside medicine suggests these have distinct impact across race. We conclude by suggesting directions for future studies of stratification in medicine.

The Social Costs of Preempting Intersex Traits

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

Surgically Shaping Sex: A Gender Structure Analysis of the Violation of Intersex People’s Human Rights

We begin this chapter distinguishing sex from gender, while also showing that neither phenomenon is a simple two-category characteristic. We then offer a gender structure analysis (Risman in Gend Soc 18(4):429–450, 2004) of intersex in contemporary U.S. society to show how these binary ideologies about sex and gender problematically shape the lives of intersex people. At the institutional level of gender structure, we focus on how doctors routinely subject intersex people to medically unnecessary and irreversible interventions in an attempt to force them into the sex binary—a process that begins with doctors assessing the person’s gender identity, or attempting to predict it, if the diagnosis occurs at birth. At the interactional level of gender structure, we show how doctors present intersex as a medical emergency to the parents of intersex children. We explain that this style of diagnosis delivery puts parents in a panic and leads them to hastily consent to medical recommendations in order to “normalize” their child’s body so that they fit more neatly into sex and gender expectations. At the individual level of gender structure, we describe how doctors treat intersex in ways that disregards intersex people’s bodily autonomy while violating their human rights. However, as we explain in the conclusion, when intersex people age and learn the truth about how they were treated, they often fight back and crack the gender structure by joining the intersex rights movement in an attempt to challenge the institutional level of gender structure and, more specifically, how doctors harmfully approach intersex. We end with questions regarding intersex advocacy and a call for sociocultural scholars to center race in future intersex studies.