Intersex and Identity: The Contested Self (Rutgers University Press, 2003), by Sharon Preeves, is a groundbreaking text about intersex people, our identities and medical treatment. Professor Preeves is a professor and chair of the Sociology Department and director of the Public Health Sciences Program at Hamline University who recently served as a faculty research collaborator at the Mayo Clinic, and a recent chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of the Body and Embodiment.

Intersex and Identity features extensive interviews with intersex community members, including E.D.Hida Viloria, under the pseudonym “Drew.” We highly recommended it for those wishing to understand intersex identity and how it was historically influenced by medicalization and the practice of nonconsensual medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex infants and minors, a.k.a. Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM),and thank Professor Preeves for her pioneering work!