How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea

The book explores the medical origins of gender in modern US history, tracing its evolution from a pragmatic tool for sex assignment to an essential category in clinics for transgender individuals. It reveals the messy and contested process by which gender became medicalized, enforced, and popularized, and the role of medical practice in developing a transformative idea.

Format: Hardback
Length: 328 pages
Publication date: 07 June 2022
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press

An in-depth examination of the historical roots of gender in contemporary American medicine. Gender is a hotly debated topic in politics and society, influencing policy choices and shaping our daily lives. However, the origins of gender are less well-known. This book delves into the creation of gender in American medicine, exploring how it was shaped by mid-twentieth-century American beliefs about culture, personality, and social engineering. Sandra Eder demonstrates how the concept of gender evolved from a practical tool for assigning sex to children with intersex traits in the 1950s to an essential category in clinics for transgender individuals in the 1960s. She then traces the diverse ways feminists incorporated gender into their theories and practices in the 1970s. The process of medicalizing, enforcing, and popularizing gender ideas was complex, and the path to understanding and applying gender through the treatment of intersex traits was fraught with controversy. By historicizing the emergence of the sex/gender binary, Eder uncovers the role of medical practice in shaping a transformative concept and the interconnectedness between practice and broader social norms that influence the attitudes of physicians and researchers. She reveals that gender ideas can take on a life of their own and can be used to challenge the very perceptions upon which they were built. This illuminating and meticulously researched book fills a significant gap in the history of gender and will continue to inspire ongoing discussions about the interplay between social norms and medical practice.

Weight: 644g
Dimension: 159 x 236 x 30 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780226573328