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  4. "Waking up" the sleeping metaphor of normality in connection to intersex or DSD: a scoping review of medical literature
 
review article

"Waking up" the sleeping metaphor of normality in connection to intersex or DSD: a scoping review of medical literature

De Clercq, Eva
•
Starke, Georg  
•
Rost, Michael
December 1, 2022
History And Philosophy Of The Life Sciences

The aim of the study is to encourage a critical debate on the use of normality in the medical literature on DSD or intersex. For this purpose, a scoping review was conducted to identify and map the various ways in which "normal" is used in the medical literature on DSD between 2016 and 2020. We identified 75 studies, many of which were case studies highlighting rare cases of DSD, others, mainly retrospective observational studies, focused on improving diagnosis or treatment. The most common use of the adjective normal was in association with phenotypic sex. Overall, appearance was the most commonly cited criteria to evaluate the normality of sex organs. More than 1/3 of the studies included also medical photographs of sex organs. This persistent use of normality in reference to phenotypic sex is worrisome given the long-term medicalization of intersex bodies in the name of a "normal" appearance or leading a "normal" life. Healthcare professionals should be more careful about the ethical implications of using photographs in publications given that many intersex persons describe their experience with medical photography as dehumanizing.

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Type
review article
DOI
10.1007/s40656-022-00533-8
Web of Science ID

WOS:000871957700001

Author(s)
De Clercq, Eva
•
Starke, Georg  
•
Rost, Michael
Date Issued

2022-12-01

Published in
History And Philosophy Of The Life Sciences
Volume

44

Issue

4

Start page

50

Subjects

History & Philosophy Of Science

•

History & Philosophy of Science

•

dsd

•

ethics

•

intersex

•

normality

•

phenotype

•

compound heterozygous variants

•

sex development

•

ovotesticular disorder

•

consensus statement

•

ambiguous genitalia

•

lhcgr gene

•

patient

•

gender

•

differentiation

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
CDH  
Available on Infoscience
November 21, 2022
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/192439
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