Psychosocial approaches and discursive gaps in intersex healthcare: findings from an Israeli–German action research study

Abstract

In the past several decades, conflicting discourses have coexisted in the field of intersex studies, including the pathologising discourse of the biomedical disciplines and the affirmative, subjective psychosocial discourse of people born with intersex bodies and their advocates. Intersex activists call for a positive discourse on intersex bodies and a humanistic healthcare approach that accepts and protects intersex bodily autonomy to replace continuing harmful, traumatic treatments aimed at normalising variations of sex characteristics (VSC). Our awareness of the biomedical discursive dominance prompted us to initiate Inter-Care and Awareness, an intercultural German–Israeli action research project. This paper introduces the project and explores intercultural approaches to psychosocial intersex care using an action research framework. We describe how the project’s goals, processes and outcomes created educational material on intersex which uses positive language, explores intersex in the Jewish tradition, improves the support offered to parents of intersex children, and examines cross-cultural differences that arose in the encounters between the Israeli and German participants. The analysis points to sociocultural themes that reflect intersex people’s current status in Israel and Germany. Implications regarding the implementation of similar projects in other countries are discussed.

Keywords:

• Intersex
• care
• awareness
• intercultural project
• action research

Acknowledgements

We thank participants for their ideas, openness and cooperation in improving care for intersex people and their families. We also thank the Zukunft German-Israeli Future Forum for their humanistic approach and financial support; Yigal Bruner, head of the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at The Hebrew University, for believing in and supporting our project throughout its different stages; Yael Baron and Naama Seri Levi for the time and energy they invested in the project's organisation; The Hebrew University's Research and Development Authority for establishing new rules that enabled our project to happen; and Peer Briken, the director of the Institute for Sex Research at the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, for supporting the project and providing accommodation and additional travel support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See, for example, the successful Crawfords' lawsuit against the Medical University of South Carolina, for performing a genital surgery that harmed their child's physical and emotional wellbeing. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/azeenghorayshi/intersex-surgery-lawsuit-settles

2 http://www.kinderbuch-intersexualitaet.de/e-book%20e/mobile/index.html