Thesis

Not mine, alas. I'm still working on that.

No, this one is Are You A Boy or A Girl? Contesting the Uncontested: Intersex and Genders, a PhD thesis by Stephen Kerry held by the University of Newcastle, NSW.

One question that is perhaps most familiar in contemporary western societies is "is it a boy or a girl?" This question goes uncontested unless a child is born with ambiguous genitalia. The medical responses to these births have recently undergone considerable attention and criticism from within the medical profession, from parents, but most loudly from the individuals themselves. In contemporary discourses these individuals are referred to by and large as intersex. The burgeoning intersex movement has coalesced around a shared lived experience of trauma brought about in no small way by the invasive procedures of medical management in its attempts to diagnose, treat and cure.

These procedures leave intersex individuals with feelings of isolation and abuse and that they have been lied to and misinformed. A "culture of silence" has been created whereby not only has the incidence of intersex been vastly underestimated, but also the psychological, social and physical ramifications have been omitted from medical, patient and broader social discourses. While intersex individuals cite their own experiences as evidence of these ramifications, the medical profession has been largely unresponsive.

Aside from the demand for more information, counselling and a change in the medical management of intersex, there are broader ramifications of intersex within society, notably a conceptualisation of sex, gender and sexuality. While these aspects are secondary issues for the intersex movement its presence and its significance cannot be understated. This study takes note of the significant issues pertinent to the intersex movement and employs a comparative analysis of the lived experiences of Intersex Australians and Americans. Further, this project investigates the historical and crosscultural evidence of intersex, the way in which medical discourses dominate twentieth and twenty-first century conceptualisations and how the intersex movement itself was formed in the last decade.

I admit that when I see the words "discourses" and "conceptualisation", and especially the phrase "social discourses", I'm reminded of Alan Sokal.
However, a reading of the work indicates that such a judgement would be most premature. Which is to say, no, it's not bunkum after all. You can only measure the BS proportion in parts-per-million, in fact.

Aside from the demand for more information, counselling and a change in the medical management of intersex, there are broader ramifications of intersex within society, notably a conceptualisation of sex, gender and sexuality. While these aspects are secondary issues for the intersex movement its presence and its significance cannot be understated.

I think he means "cannot be overstated", or possibly "should not be understated", but I prefer the original. I'm not overly concerned with philosophical underpinnings, I just want babies to stop being mutilated. The basics.

One for the Reference library, anyway. Only a 1.6Mb download too...