This page provides links to some of what I’ve written and edited with regard to specific conditions and phenomena. I don’t mean to imply this is the only material on these topics worth consulting! This just provides some organization by topic to help my web visitors find material of interest. This page doesn’t link all of my work on these topics--just the ones I would recommend off the top.

Intersex and disorders of sex development (DSDs):

“Intersex” and “DSDs” are terms used to talk about when a person is born with a sex anatomy that (someone has decided) isn’t standard for males or females. Intersex involves anatomic sex anomalies, i.e., atypical sex chromosomes and/or gonads and/or sex parts. It isn’t primarily about gender identity (so it isn’t the same as transgender). Look down the page for material specifically on gender.

For what care for children with DSDs ought to look like now, see:

1. ‣the Clinical Guidelines I organized and edited
   

2. ‣the Handbook for Parents I organized and edited
   

For ethical critiques of the traditional treatment for DSDs, see:

1. ‣Alice Domurat Dreger, "Ambiguous Sex"--or Ambivalent Medicine? Ethical Problems in the Treatment of Intersexuality, in The Hastings Center Report, vol. 28, no. 3 (May/June 1998), pp. 24-35.
   

2. ‣When Medicine Goes Too Far in the Pursuit of Normality
   

3. ‣Intersex in the Age of Ethics
   

4. ‣Alice Domurat Dreger, Intersex and Human Rights: The Long View, in Ethics and Intersex, ed. by Sharon Sytsma (Springer, 2006): 73-86.
   

5. ‣Alice Dreger and Bruce Wilson, commentary on Culture Clash Involving Intersex, The Hastings Center Report, vol. 33, no. 4 (July/August 2003), pp. 12-14.
   

6. ‣Joel Frader et al., Health Care Professionals and Intersex Conditions, in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (a subsidiary journal of JAMA) v. 158, n. 5 (May 2004): 426-428.
   

7. ‣Is a Small Penis in the Hand Worth Three in the Bush?
   

On the history of intersex and of intersex activism, see:

1. ‣ Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex
   

2. ‣Intersex in the Age of Ethics
   

3. ‣My account of working in the intersex rights movement
   

4. ‣Alice D. Dreger and April Herndon, Progress and Politics in the Intersex Rights Movement: Feminist Theory in Action, in GLQ: Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, in press in a special issue edited by Iain Morland (“intersex and after”)
   

5. ‣A Brief History of Intersex, for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission
   

On terminology issues, see:

1. ‣my blog, Why “Disorders of Sex Development”? and the links at the end of that.
   

2. ‣Alice Dreger, Cheryl Chase, Aron Sousa, Joel Frader, and Philip Gruppuso, Changing the Nomenclature/Taxonomy for Intersex: A Scientific and Clinical Rationale , in Journal of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2005; 18: 729-733. [Contact me for a reprint.]
   

3. ‣Alice D. Dreger and April Herndon, Progress and Politics in the Intersex Rights Movement: Feminist Theory in Action, in GLQ: Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, in press in a special issue edited by Iain Morland (“intersex and after”)
   

Conjoined twinning:

If you’re interested in conjoined twinning, you really ought to read One of Us, and you really ought to see Face to Face: The Schappell Twins, a documentary by the brilliant filmmaker (and now, happily, my friend) Ellen Weissbrod. I’ve been told again and again that these two materials work especially well for teaching about anatomical politics and medical normalization.

I’ve written several editorials about conjoined twin separations. Of these, I would most recommend:

1. ‣When Medicine Goes Too Far in the Pursuit of Normality (New York Times)
   

2. ‣Separate Together (Wall Street Journal)
   

On exhibitions of people with uncommon body types:

On this topic, I’d recommend Lavish Dwarf Entertainment (the story of why I hired a dwarf-entertainer friend for my 40th birthday party), my butterdish-winning essay, Jarring Bodies: Thoughts on the Display of Unusual Anatomies, and the issue of Atrium dedicated to the question of what to do with fetuses and people preserved in jars. You could also look at chapter four of One of Us, and see Face to Face: The Schappell Twins, a documentary that takes seriously what it means for conjoined twins to get out of medical books and go out to dinner.

On gender:

Even though intersex is primarily about biological sex (parts) and not about gender (self and social identity), if you work on intersex and you’re a feminist (as I do and I am), you end up talking about gender. If you’d like to see what I’ve written about what sex and gender have to do with each other, check out my essay, Sex Beyond the Karyotype and my blog, The Social Construction of Sex and Me. If you’re interested in intersex-related issues of gender specifically, look towards the top of this page for resources.

For Bioethics Forum, I’ve also written a popular little piece about why routine neonatal male circumcision is silly (Proof that I LIke Penises), and a piece about why doctors ought to get out of the business of adjudicating gender identity (Really Changing Sex).

By the way, teens with DSDs or who are transgender will find comfort and understanding in Lisa Lees wonderful young-adult novels, Fool for Love and A Queer Circle of Friends. They feature main characters who are intersex and trans.