Body Problems: What Intersex Priest Sally Gross Teaches Us About Embodiment, Justice, and Belonging

by M. Wolff

Overview

In Body Problems, M. Wolff offers groundbreaking insight into Sally Gross, a South African intersex priest and activist whose body was continuously policed and politicized. Gross’s role in founding Intersex South Africa and her involvement with the African National Congress are celebrated in the Apartheid Museum, but the complex dimensions of her life—from her Jewish heritage to her Christian priesthood and Buddhist practices—remain largely unexplored. Wolff illuminates these lesser-known aspects of Gross’s spirituality and theorizes her resistance to the regulation of intersexuality. The book urges readers to rethink bodies and belonging, particularly as they relate to formations of gender and religion. Wolff presents Gross’s life as a guide for discerning our commitments to social justice and responsible relations. Body Problems is a timely and expansive contribution to ongoing discourses on the medical, religious, and political construction of bodies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478060987
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	07/11/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

M. Wolff is Associate Professor of Religion at Augustana College.

Table of Contents

Introduction  1
I. Body Problems  1
1. Context  15
2. Adulthood  29
II. Problem Bodies  47
3. Religious Bodies  51
4. Medical Bodies  65
5. Bodies of Paperwork  87
6. Bodies of Land  99
III. Agitating Bodies  115
7. Transnational Activism  119
8. Community Building in South Africa  137
9. Costs of Activism  149
IV. Bodiliness  165
10. Clearings  169
11. Breaks  173
12. Sutures  191
13. Resonance  213
Postscript  233
Acknowledgments  245
Notes  247
Bibliography  299
Index  309