Why Am I Blogging a Book About Intersexuality?

The introduction opens with an anecdote about a 14th century Catalan person assigned female, but whose husband petitioned for annulment because she was anatomically incapable of having sex as a woman, due to atypical genitals, including a penis, a very small vaginal opening, and other anomalies. The account doesn’t include any follow-up or any personal testimony from the woman. The crux of the argument was that she could not be categorized as a woman because she could not perform sexually as a woman. DeVun then speculates on the social consequences of this event, including the possibility that—having been declared “predominantly male” she might have later adopted a male status.

Discourse about non-binary sex was prevalent throughout the early Christian and medieval periods, both in terms of how to categorize such persons and how their existence generated philosophical and legal debates. Within these debates, the experiences and thoughts of actual non-binary individuals are largely erased.

DeVun’s book is primarily focusing on the intellectual debates, and how thinking about sex binaries related to other social binaries, such as human/non-human, Christian/non-Christian, and in/out groups. The evidence around actual intersex people is included when available.

Non-binary sex participated in the definition of category boundaries by challenging them. An iconic symbol in the history of this process is the mythic figure of Hermaphroditus, typically portrayed as a fusion of bodies—half male, half female. The concept of hermaphroditism derived from this myth was not solely applied to bodies that appeared to partake of both female and male anatomy, but also stood for all types of category-crossing and fluidity. The idea of the hermaphrodite contradictorily undermined the rigidity of sex and gender binaries while also inspired the tightening of those boundaries and their enforcement.

DeVun works within modern academic frameworks, noting when pre-modern concepts echo modern experiences as well as those points where the pre-modern is alien. One of the points of contrast is the various meanings attached to the word “hermaphrodite,” which influence the modern rejection of the term for intersex persons. There is an extensive discussion of modern activism around intersexuality and related transgender topics. DeVun points out the overlap of these two concepts in the pre-modern category of “hermaphrodite” whereas they are considered distinct in modern definitions. For the purposes of clarity, DeVun uses the modern word “intersex” and “transgender” as analytical terms, but retains the language used in historic texts when discussing those texts. She uses “non-binary” to encompass both groups as well as a wider set of persons who diverge from normative understandings of male and female. She points out that while “hermaphrodite” is now deprecated, in the medieval period it defined a conceptual category that is not equivalent to any specific modern category, and therefore cannot be avoided in a historic discussion. Further, there is not a clear, linear, teleological development of modern ideas and categories in this field. Some older ideas bear similarity to modern ones without a traceable genealogy.

The book is structured chronologically, tracing the rise and fall and recycling of ideas about non-binary sex across the ages.

The remainder of the introduction summarizes the structure of the contents. [Note: as usual for my approach, I may skim more briefly through material that is less relevant to my central project.]