Changing the nomenclature/taxonomy for intersex: a scientific and clinical rationale.

We explain here why the standard division of many intersex types into true hermaphroditism, male pseudohermaphroditism, and female pseudohermaphroditism is scientifically specious and clinically problematic. First we provide the history of this tripartite taxonomy and note how the taxonomy predates and largely ignores the modern sciences of genetics and endocrinology. We then note the numerous ways that the existing taxonomy confuses and sometimes harms clinicians, researchers, patients, and parents. Finally, we make six specific suggestions regarding what a replacement taxonomy and nomenclature for intersex should do and not do, and we call for the abandonment of all terms based on the root "hermaphrodite".

Prenatal Dexamethasone for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: An Ethics Canary in the Modern Medical Mine.

Following extensive examination of published and unpublished materials, we provide a history of the use of dexamethasone in pregnant women at risk of carrying a female fetus affected by congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). This intervention has been aimed at preventing development of ambiguous genitalia, the urogenital sinus, tomboyism, and lesbianism. We map out ethical problems in this history, including: misleading promotion to physicians and CAH-affected families; de facto experimentation without the necessary protections of approved research; troubling parallels to the history of prenatal use of diethylstilbestrol (DES); and the use of medicine and public monies to attempt prevention of benign behavioral sex variations. Critical attention is directed at recent investigations by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP); we argue that the weak and unsupported conclusions of these investigations indicate major gaps in the systems meant to protect subjects of high-risk medical research.

Darkness's descent on the American Anthropological Association. A cautionary tale.

In September 2000, the self-styled "anthropological journalist" Patrick Tierney began to make public his work claiming that the Yanomamö people of South America had been actively­indeed brutally­harmed by the sociobiological anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon and the geneticist-physician James Neel. Following a florid summary of Tierney's claims by the anthropologists Terence Turner and Leslie Sponsel, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) saw fit to take Tierney's claims seriously by conducting a major investigation into the matter. This paper focuses on the AAA's problematic actions in this case but also provides previously unpublished information on Tierney's falsehoods. The work presented is based on a year of research by a historian of medicine and science. The author intends the work to function as a cautionary tale to scholarly associations, which have the challenging duty of protecting scholarship and scholars from baseless and sensationalistic charges in the era of the Internet and twenty-four-hour news cycles.

The controversy surrounding "The man who would be queen": a case history of the politics of science, identity, and sex in the Internet age.

In 2003, psychology professor and sex researcher J. Michael Bailey published a book entitled The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. The book's portrayal of male-to-female (MTF) transsexualism, based on a theory developed by sexologist Ray Blanchard, outraged some transgender activists. They believed the book to be typical of much of the biomedical literature on transsexuality-oppressive in both tone and claims, insulting to their senses of self, and damaging to their public identities. Some saw the book as especially dangerous because it claimed to be based on rigorous science, was published by an imprint of the National Academy of Sciences, and argued that MTF sex changes are motivated primarily by erotic interests and not by the problem of having the gender identity common to one sex in the body of the other. Dissatisfied with the option of merely criticizing the book, a small number of transwomen (particularly Lynn Conway, Andrea James, and Deirdre McCloskey) worked to try to ruin Bailey. Using published and unpublished sources as well as original interviews, this essay traces the history of the backlash against Bailey and his book. It also provides a thorough exegesis of the book's treatment of transsexuality and includes a comprehensive investigation of the merit of the charges made against Bailey that he had behaved unethically, immorally, and illegally in the production of his book. The essay closes with an epilogue that explores what has happened since 2003 to the central ideas and major players in the controversy.

"The visible skeleton series": the art of Laura Ferguson.

Laura Ferguson's The Visible Skeleton Series constitutes an artistic self-representation of scoliosis. Ferguson employs high-tech medical imaging and innovative graphical techniques to suggest a novel view of her skeletal "deformity." This section presents introductions to the series by a historian of medicine and by the artist herself, and offers personal and professional reflections on the work from an orthopedic surgeon, a social worker with lived experience of cleft lip, and a retired pediatric forensic pathologist.