Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex

Punctuated with remarkable case studies, this book explores extraordinary encounters between hermaphrodites—people born with "ambiguous" sexual anatomy—and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them. Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles. While feminists, homosexuals, and anthropological explorers openly questioned the natures and purposes of the two sexes, anatomical her...