{"title":"Intersex in the USA’s Best-Selling Undergraduate Psychology Textbooks: Uneven Critique in an Ongoing Scientific and Ethical Crisis","authors":"","doi":"10.1007/s11199-024-01456-3","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<h3>Abstract</h3> <p>The field of intersex studies is advancing and requires scholars to update their knowledge and representation of people with intersex variations. To examine how psychology students are taught about people with intersex variations, we reviewed best-selling USA psychology textbooks in introductory psychology (<em>n</em> = 8), psychology of women and gender (<em>n</em> = 5), human sexuality (<em>n</em> = 4), and biological psychology (<em>n</em> = 3). All textbooks indexed <em>intersex</em> or cognate terms, with alternative terms (e.g., disorders of sex development) indexed less frequently. Intersex variations were described as emerging during the stages of sex development, and as challenging binary categories for sex. Several specific variations were commonly described as syndromes with little reference to psychological research or lived experiences. Women and girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) were most clearly framed as “natural experiments” about how nature and nurture intersect. Diverse sex development involving 46 XY genotypes tended to be described as <em>difference</em> from norms for male endosex development. However, two textbooks included lengthy narratives of people’s lived experiences as intersex, and photographs of intersex-identified individuals were common. Photo images of the South African athlete Caster Semenya depicted more of her body than did the photo images of other intersex-identified individuals. The textbooks generally included critical reflection on the assumptions of a gender binary, and on the attribution of <em>ambiguity</em> to others’ bodies, genetic determinism, the medical gaze, and the sex testing of athletes. We consider how information in these textbooks can shape the representation of intersex among psychology students, and how it may be used to develop more humanizing representations of intersex across all psychology textbooks.</p>","PeriodicalId":48425,"journal":{"name":"Sex Roles","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sex Roles","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-024-01456-3","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
The field of intersex studies is advancing and requires scholars to update their knowledge and representation of people with intersex variations. To examine how psychology students are taught about people with intersex variations, we reviewed best-selling USA psychology textbooks in introductory psychology (n = 8), psychology of women and gender (n = 5), human sexuality (n = 4), and biological psychology (n = 3). All textbooks indexed intersex or cognate terms, with alternative terms (e.g., disorders of sex development) indexed less frequently. Intersex variations were described as emerging during the stages of sex development, and as challenging binary categories for sex. Several specific variations were commonly described as syndromes with little reference to psychological research or lived experiences. Women and girls with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) were most clearly framed as “natural experiments” about how nature and nurture intersect. Diverse sex development involving 46 XY genotypes tended to be described as difference from norms for male endosex development. However, two textbooks included lengthy narratives of people’s lived experiences as intersex, and photographs of intersex-identified individuals were common. Photo images of the South African athlete Caster Semenya depicted more of her body than did the photo images of other intersex-identified individuals. The textbooks generally included critical reflection on the assumptions of a gender binary, and on the attribution of ambiguity to others’ bodies, genetic determinism, the medical gaze, and the sex testing of athletes. We consider how information in these textbooks can shape the representation of intersex among psychology students, and how it may be used to develop more humanizing representations of intersex across all psychology textbooks.
期刊介绍：
Sex Roles: A Journal of Research is a global, multidisciplinary, scholarly, social and behavioral science journal with a feminist perspective. It publishes original research reports as well as original theoretical papers and conceptual review articles that explore how gender organizes people’s lives and their surrounding worlds, including gender identities, belief systems, representations, interactions, relations, organizations, institutions, and statuses. The range of topics covered is broad and dynamic, including but not limited to the study of gendered attitudes, stereotyping, and sexism; gendered contexts, culture, and power; the intersections of gender with race, class, sexual orientation, age, and other statuses and identities; body image; violence; gender (including masculinities) and feminist identities; human sexuality; communication studies; work and organizations; gendered development across the life span or life course; mental, physical, and reproductive health and health care; sports; interpersonal relationships and attraction; activism and social change; economic, political, and legal inequities; and methodological challenges and innovations in doing gender research.
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