Heinz-Jürgen Voß
Konstituierung von "Geschlecht" in westlichen modernen biologisch-medizinischen Wissenschaften – Ausgangspunkt Hermaphroditismus
The Constitution of "sex" in Modern Western Bio-Medical Sciences – Starting Point: hermaphroditism
English abstract
In the 17th century numerous characteristics like body structure, clothing and behaviour used to indicate the "true" biological and medical sex of a person – male or female. In the 19th century, gonads and from the beginning of the 20th century gonads and chromosomes have been considered as the only indications of a person’s "true sex". Biological and medical sciences supply the basic and so-called "natural" theories for constructing the only two sexes of western societies. One of the most prominent starting points of those theories about sex was hermaphroditism. Hermaphrodites were first seen as rare, fascinating and threatening, later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, as an aberrance of the two-sexes-model. This article uses discussion of hermaphroditism to analyze the fascinating, threatening biological and medical theories of sex. Hence, it illustrates how the biological and medical sciences are integrated in the construction of the two sexes of modern western societies. The article offers alternative approaches and emphasizes, that biological and medical theories about sex are embedded in society and changeable as well.