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Assignment 03: Intersexuality

Due Monday, February 20th, by midnight. Word count: 300 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. Absolutely no quotes should be used. If you paraphrase from the text (from Kessler’s work or anywhere else), you must be sure to include the proper citation (either MLA or APA).

In Suzanne Kessler’s essay, “The Medical Construction of Gender,” she claims that cases of intersexuality point to a lack of imagination on the part of physicians and Western society: a failure to understand how each of the “management decisions” described constitute a moment when “biological sex” is transformed into a “culturally constructed gender” (1990:26). Drawing on the examples in Kessler’s work, describe the factors that impact the way physicians, parents, and patients understand and / or manage the medical condition referred to as intersexuality.