Bodies in Doubt

Elizabeth Reis is an associate professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Program and the History Department at the University of Oregon and author of Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionA Note about the Illustrations1. Hermaphrodites, Monstrous Births, and Same-Sex Intimacy in Early America2. From Monsters to Deceivers in the Early Nineteenth Century3. The Conflation of Hermaphrodites and Sexual Perverts at the Turn of the Century4. Cutting the Gordian Knot: Gonads, Marriage, and Surgery in the 1920s and 1930s5. Psychology, John Money, and the Gender of Rearing in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960sEpilogue: Divergence or Disorder? The Politics of Naming IntersexNotesIndex

An excellent book that treats its subject matter with care and respect, and which encourages critical thinking about the issues discussed. American Journal of Human Biology 2010 In telling her story, Reis has also provided an excellent collection of illustrations. For scholars and medical students, this pleasantly written history provides an opportunity to view examples of these unusual problems. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 2010 An excellent history of attitudes towards intersex persons from the 18th century onward. Choice 2010 Reis is an engaging writer... informative, engaging, and intersex supportive in tone. It might be most useful as a supplement in a university course on human sexuality or the psychology of gender. It is recommended to anyone interested in the sociological history of intersex, as one of the very few volumes on the subject. PsycCRITIQUES 2010 Offers much-needed voice to the much-silenced lives of intersex Americans... Reis captures their stories as told by a plethora of masculinist and authoritative treatises, including autopsies, legal records, and medical texts, and to a less extent autobiographies. Health and History 2010 Reis's study is useful precisely because of her broad brush-it promises to broaden early Americanists' conversations about sexuality and gender and could serve useful not only in courses on the history of sexuality, but in classes on medicine, gender, the history of bodies, and disability studies. Many important moments in intersex history receive more detailed attention elsewhere, but the author's goals of extending our thinking about intersex to an earlier era and linking often separate moments and issues are well realized in this engrossingly readable overview. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2010 Bodies in Doubt is a thoughtful contribution to the historical analysis of intersex in the US and provides valuable insights for contemporary debates on the ethics of modern medical management of intersex. This linkage makes it an important read for gender scholars, medical historians and health professionals alike. Medical History 2010 Bodies in Doubt is a valuable, important book. -- James H. Jones Journal of American History 2011