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A review by bashsbooks
A Comprehensive Guide to Intersex by Jay Kyle Petersen
informative
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
I was so excited to read this book... and found myself profoundly disappointed once I cracked it open.
Petersen's best writing in A Comprehensive Guide To Intersex were his personal experiences, which give the reader a sense that he is an authority on the subject and reveal how abstract ideas of discrimination are put into play, and the aspects of the text that were purely medically informative or resource driven - like the second chapter, which details all known intersex variations.
Unfortunately, beyond these two aspects, Petersen's book is bad in a myriad of way - both objectively to the general reader and subjectively to my personal understanding of sex and gender. I'll start with the objective: this book is in DESPERATE need of an editor. I usually don't like to be nitpicky about things like punctation and grammar, but this text is so medically dense that the misapplication these two things made it difficult to read sometimes. Subjectively, Petersen seems overly committed to pre-birth causes of intersex identity, fetus and embryos, and God - I fail to see, for example, why it matters if something happens after birth to make someone physically between sexes (like an accident or contaminate or some similiar event). Also, to the commitment that intersex and transgender are always and wholly distinct - as someone who is both, I find that bizarre.
Petersen's best writing in A Comprehensive Guide To Intersex were his personal experiences, which give the reader a sense that he is an authority on the subject and reveal how abstract ideas of discrimination are put into play, and the aspects of the text that were purely medically informative or resource driven - like the second chapter, which details all known intersex variations.
Unfortunately, beyond these two aspects, Petersen's book is bad in a myriad of way - both objectively to the general reader and subjectively to my personal understanding of sex and gender. I'll start with the objective: this book is in DESPERATE need of an editor. I usually don't like to be nitpicky about things like punctation and grammar, but this text is so medically dense that the misapplication these two things made it difficult to read sometimes. Subjectively, Petersen seems overly committed to pre-birth causes of intersex identity, fetus and embryos, and God - I fail to see, for example, why it matters if something happens after birth to make someone physically between sexes (like an accident or contaminate or some similiar event). Also, to the commitment that intersex and transgender are always and wholly distinct - as someone who is both, I find that bizarre.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Sexism, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, and Child abuse
Minor: Abortion
-Intersexism