Freaks of Nature: 19th Century Hermaphrodites and the Medicalization of Gender Transgression

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A slideshow created to accompany a paper written about the treatment of "hermaphrodites" by the 19th Century medical and scientific communities. My argument is that gender ambiguity often turned patients into subjects, to be analyzed rather than treated.The paper will be forthcoming.

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Freaks of Nature

19th Century Hermaphrodites and the Medicalization of Gender Transgression

Mythological Origins Hermaphrodito

Hermaphrodito and Salmacis

Historiography Alice Dreger Michel Foucault

Less reliable? Herculine Barbin Professional

Periodicals British Medical

Journal, e.g.

Darwin and Gender

Sexual Selection Functionalism

Hermaphroditism Normal for

Flowers Monstrous for

humans Consanguinity

You're a Man!!! Authority Causation

clueless women Maternal trauma

“Treatment”? Surgery “because I said so”

Monstrosity

“I am sceptical as to the existence of such of such freaks of Nature in the human species.”

Dr. William Tibbles

British Medical Journal, 1888.

Clinical Privacy

Typical Photograph Face hidden Disembodied

hands... Subject to Curiosity

Modern Transgressions

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