This renowned history of intersex in America has been comprehensively updated to reflect recent shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices. In Bodies in Doubt, Elizabeth Reis traces the changing definitions, perceptions, and medical management of intersex (atypical sex development) in America from the colonial period to the present. Arguing that medical practice must be understood within its broader cultural context, Reis demonstrates how deeply physicians have been influenced by social anxieties about marriage, heterosexuality, and same-sex desire throughout American history In this second edition, Reis adds two new chapters, a new preface, and a revised introduction to assess recent dramatic shifts in attitudes, bioethics, and medical and legal practices. Human rights organizations have declared early genital surgeries a form of torture and abuse, but doctors continue to offer surgical "repair," and parents continue to seek it for their children. While many are hearing the human rights call, controversies persist, and Reis explains why best practices in this field remain fiercely contested.

Bodies in Doubt breaks new ground in examining the historical roots of modern attitudes about intersex in the United States and will interest scholars and researchers in disability studies, social history, gender studies, and the history of medicine.--Alice D. Dreger, Northwestern University "GLQ: Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies"

The Bodies That Remain is a collection of bodies and absences. Through biography, experimental essay and interview, fictional manifestation, and poetic extraction, The Bodies That Remain is a collection of texts and images on the bodies of artists and writers who battled with the frustration of their own physicality and whose work reckoned with these limitations and continued beyond them. The Bodies That Remain looks back at how the identity of these bodies was shaped by the spaces around them, through the retelling of memory, through stories told by others; of how their work, processed by their body, made it possible for others to experience sensations - mourning, desire, or a nostalgia that could not belong to another, to another's body and in capturing this ability, their work confirms the body's urgency. Amongst others, The Bodies That Remain tells the story of Emily Dickinson's decay, the missing grave of Valeska Gert, the voice and sound of the body of Judee Sill, and the derailed body and its work of Jane Bowles. It questions the absent body but broken organs of JT Leroy as they find themselves scattered across texts, and also interrogates the loss of distinction of illness for Jules de Goncourt as syphilis riddled his nervous system. It retrieves the illusory body of Kathy Acker through dream and through horror, sees the morphing body of Michael Jackson in becoming all of the bodies he was asked to be, and looks toward Sylvia Plath and the language of her own body. Contributions include texts and images by: Lynne Tillman (on Jane Bowles), David Rule (on Michael Jackson), Mairead Case (on Judee Sill), Claire Potter (on the Lads of Aran), Jeremy Millar (on Emily Dickinson), Chloé Griffin (on Valeska Gert), Phoebe Blatton (on Brigid Brophy), Susanna Davies-Crook (on Sarah Kane), Travis Jeppensen (on Gary Sullivan), Karen Di Franco (on Mary Butts), Tai Shani (on Mnemesoid), Philip Hoare (on Denton Welch), Heather Phillipson (on a dead dog), Uma Breakdown (on Guage Fanfic), Linda Stuppart (on Kathy Acker), Sharon Kivland (on Jacques Lacan), Harman Bains (on Wilhelm Reich), Pil & Galia Kollectiv (JT Leroy), Kevin Breathnach (on Jules de Goncourt), and Emily LaBarge (on Sylvia Plath).

"When sociologist Georgiann Davis was a teenager, her doctors discovered that she possessed XY chromosomes, marking her as intersex. Rather than share this information with her, they withheld the diagnosis in order to "protect" the development of her gender identity; it was years before Davis would see her own medical records as an adult and learn the truth. Davis' experience is not unusual. Many intersex people feel isolated from one another and violated by medical practices that support conventional notions of the male/female sex binary which have historically led to secrecy and shame about being intersex. Yet, the rise of intersex activism and visibility in the US has called into question the practice of classifying intersex as an abnormality, rather than as a mere biological variation. This shift in thinking has the potential to transform entrenched intersex medical treatment. In Contesting Intersex, Davis draws on interviews with intersex people, their parents, and medical experts to explore the oft-questioned views on intersex in medical and activist communities, as well as the evolution of thought in regards to intersex visibility and transparency. She finds that framing intersex as an abnormality is harmful and can alter the course of one's life. In fact, controversy over this framing continues, as intersex has been renamed a 'disorder of sex development' throughout medicine. This happened, she suggests, as a means for doctors to reassert their authority over the intersex body in the face of increasing intersex activism in the 1990s and feminist critiques of intersex medical treatment. Davis argues the renaming of 'intersex' as a 'disorder of sex development' is strong evidence that the intersex diagnosis is dubious. Within the intersex community, though, disorder of sex development terminology is hotly disputed; some prefer not to use a term which pathologizes their bodies, while others prefer to think of intersex in scientific terms. Although terminology is currently a source of tension within the movement, Davis hopes intersex activists and their allies can come together to improve the lives of intersex people, their families, and future generations. However, for this to happen, the intersex diagnosis, as well as sex, gender, and sexuality, needs to be understood as socially constructed phenomena." -- Publisher's description

In My Body Is a Book of Rules, Elissa Washuta corrals the synaptic gymnastics of her teeming bipolar brain, interweaving pop culture with neurobiology and memories of sexual trauma to tell the story of her fight to calm her aching mind and slip beyond the tormenting cycles of memory.

*** NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE YEAR *** A 52 year-old photographer and a 41 year-old anatomy professor are jurors sequestered during a sensational three-week trial: a toddler murdered by one of his twin sisters. At the court appointed cut-rate motel off the interstate, they fall into an intense, furtive affair, but it is only during deliberations that the lovers learn they are on opposing sides of the case. Suddenly they look at one another through an altogether different lens. After the trial, the photographer returns to her much older husband amidst an ongoing media frenzy over the case. But the judge has received an anonymous letter about the affair, and she is preparing to release the jurors names. From that point on, the photographer’s “one last dalliance before she is too old” takes on profoundly personal and moral consequences, as The Body in Question moves to its affecting, powerful, and surprising conclusion.

Performance and identity in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Arican-American creative work.

Winner of the 2012 Man Booker Prize Winner of the 2012 Costa Book of the Year Award The sequel to Hilary Mantel's 2009 Man Booker Prize winner and New York Times bestseller, Wolf Hall delves into the heart of Tudor history with the downfall of Anne Boleyn Though he battled for seven years to marry her, Henry is disenchanted with Anne Boleyn. She has failed to give him a son and her sharp intelligence and audacious will alienate his old friends and the noble families of England. When the discarded Katherine dies in exile from the court, Anne stands starkly exposed, the focus of gossip and malice. At a word from Henry, Thomas Cromwell is ready to bring her down. Over three terrifying weeks, Anne is ensnared in a web of conspiracy, while the demure Jane Seymour stands waiting her turn for the poisoned wedding ring. But Anne and her powerful family will not yield without a ferocious struggle. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies follows the dramatic trial of the queen and her suitors for adultery and treason. To defeat the Boleyns, Cromwell must ally with his natural enemies, the papist aristocracy. What price will he pay for Anne's head? Bring Up the Bodies is one of The New York Times' 10 Best Books of 2012, one of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Best Books of 2012 and one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2012

The ultimate guide to building confidence in your body, beauty, clothes and life in an era of toxic social media-driven beauty standards. “A self-confidence bible that every woman should read.”—Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet Empowering, insightful, and psychology-driven, Beyond Beautiful is filled with proven, no-BS strategies for proactive self-care. This stylish and practical handbook takes a deep-dive into all of the factors that make it hard to feel good about yourself, and offers sage answers to tricky questions, like: • Why do I hate the way I look in pictures? • How can I stop feeling like a total slob compared to everyone on social media? • How exactly does this "self-love" thing work? • How do I find the confidence to use less make up, stop shaving, or wear what I want? • Is body positivity really the answer? Illustrated with full-color art, Beyond Beautiful is a much-needed breath of fresh air that will help you live your best life, know your worth, and stop wasting any more precious energy and mental space worrying about the way you look. Praise for Beyond Beautiful “This compact book delves into every aspect of the body-image problem and sets forth feasible ideas for accepting one’s physical appearance to enhance confidence and joy.”—Library Journal (starred review) “Rees’s emboldening message will surely help any reader struggling with self-confidence.”—Publishers Weekly

This chilling psychological suspense novel—think Strangers on a Train for the modern age—explores the dark side of love and the unbreakable ties that bind two sisters together. Felix and Tilda seem like the perfect couple: young and in love, a financier and a beautiful up-and-coming starlet. But behind their flawless façade, not everything is as it seems. Callie, Tilda’s unassuming twin, has watched her sister visibly shrink under Felix’s domineering love. She has looked on silently as Tilda stopped working, nearly stopped eating, and turned into a neat freak, with mugs wrapped in Saran Wrap and suspicious syringes hidden in the bathroom trash. She knows about Felix’s uncontrollable rages, and has seen the bruises on the white skin of her sister’s arms. Worried about the psychological hold that Felix seems to have over Tilda, Callie joins an Internet support group for victims of abuse and their friends. However, things spiral out of control and she starts to doubt her own judgment when one of her new acquaintances is killed by an abusive man. And then suddenly Felix dies—or was he murdered? A page-turning work of suspense that announces a stunning new voice in fiction, White Bodies will change the way you think about obsession, love, and the violence we inflict on one another—and ourselves.