Emphasis on medicalisation of sex and gender in North America—inspired by John Money’s work with intersex and transgender patients in the 1950s—has influenced intersex medicalisation globally. Using interviews with doctors, intersex adults, and families of intersex people, I examine the medical industrial complex and how it impacts intersex medicalisation in India. Medicalisation processes in the global south are influenced, often in heightened ways, by euro-centric medical knowledges while simultaneously being ensconced by diverse challenges including lack of access to medical resources. Intersex as a medical classification is not intrinsic to the people it labels. This is true for many intersex adults who do not identify as intersex. Intersex persons’ needs are often at odds with medical imperatives. While doctors consider quick interventions crucial to attaining a stable gender, these may have little significance for intersex lives. Medical archives seldom narrate stories of people who resist medicalisation—whether because of lack of access to medical services or financial support, or because they did not feel the need for medical interventions. This paper is an effort to understand how people make meaning of medicine, their ongoing negotiation with and resistance to medicalisation, highlighting diverse ways of engaging with medicine globally.

Arpita Das is a Research Fellow on the ARISE project focusing on Experiences of Race and Culture among ANU Residential Students. She completed her PhD in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She has an MA in Social Work and an MA in Women’s and Gender Studies. She has taught extensively on gender and cultural studies. She has also worked as a practitioner on gender, sexuality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender-based violence in South and Southeast Asia. Her work focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, disability, and race.