An eye-opening exploration of the medical origins of gender in modern US history.Today, a world without “gender” is hard to imagine. Gender is at the center of contentious political and social debates, shapes policy decisions, and informs our everyday lives. Its formulation, however, is lesser known: Gender was first used in clinical practice. This book tells the story of the invention of gender in American medicine, detailing how it was shaped by mid-twentieth-cen...

In modern pediatric practice, gender matters. From the pink-and-blue striped receiving blankets used to swaddle newborns, to the development of sex-specific nutrition plans based on societal expectations of the stature of children, a gendered culture permeates pediatrics and children’s health throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This book provides a look at how gender has served as one of the frameworks for pediatric care in the U.S. since the specialty’s inception.

An eye-opening exploration of the medical origins of gender in modern US history.Today, a world without “gender” is hard to imagine. Gender is at the center of contentious political and social debates, shapes policy decisions, and informs our everyday lives. Its formulation, however, is lesser known: Gender was first used in clinical practice. This book tells the story of the invention of gender in American medicine, detailing how it was shaped by mid-twentieth-cen...

Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at the widespread gender bias in healthcare and how sexism in medicine harms women today.In Doing Harm, Dusenbery explores the deep, systemic problems that underlie women’s experiences of feeling d...

Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Chapters introduce transgenderism and its psychological, physical, and social processes. They describe the coming out process and its effect on family and friends, the relationship between sexual orientation, and gender and the differences betw...

Now updated with groundbreaking research, this award-winning classic examines the construction of sexual identity in biology, society, and history.Why do some people prefer heterosexual love while others fancy the same sex? Is sexual identity biologically determined or a product of convention? In this brilliant and provocative book, the acclaimed author of Myths of Gender argues that even the most fundamental knowledge about sex is shaped by the culture in...

Since the invention of dextri-maltose and the subsequent rise of Similac in the early twentieth century, parents with access to clean drinking water have had a safe alternative to breast-milk. Use of formula spiked between the 1950s and 1970s, with some reports showing that nearly 75 percent of the population relied on commercial formula to at least supplement a breastfeeding routine. So how is it that most of those bottle-fed babies grew up to believe that breast, and only breast, is best...

Surgery inevitably inflicts some harm on the body. At the very least, it damages the tissue that is cut. These harms often are clearly outweighed by the overall benefits to the patient. However, where the benefits do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjo...

Societal awareness of transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals is greater now than at any point in history, owing to the education of policy makers by advocacy organizations, the education of clinicians by research and scientific organizations, and the education of the general public by movies, television, and other media. However, most professional training programs for mental health professionals provide little to no education regarding gender diversity.Transgender...

The history of contemporary genetic counseling, including its medical, personal, and ethical dimensions.Winner of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title of the Choice ACRLFor sixty years genetic counselors have served as the messengers of important information about the risks, realities, and perceptions of genetic conditions. More than 2,500 certified genetic counselors in the United States work in clinics, community and teaching hospitals, public health dep...

Society today, writes Stephen Post, is "hypercognitive": it places inordinate emphasis on people's powers of rational thinking and memory. Thus, Alzheimer disease and other dementias, which over an extended period incrementally rob patients of exactly those functions, raise many dilemmas. How are we to view—and value—persons deprived of what some consider the most important human capacities?In the second edition of The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer Disease, Post updates his...

An argument that more people should have children with Down syndrome, written from a pro-choice, disability-positive perspective.The rate at which parents choose to terminate a pregnancy when prenatal tests indicate that the fetus has Down syndrome is between 60 and 90 percent. In Choosing Down Syndrome, Chris Kaposy offers a carefully reasoned ethical argument in favor of choosing to have such a child. Arguing from a pro-choice, disability-positive perspe...