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Standardizing Sex
A History of Trans Medicine
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Ketil Slagstad
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2025
About this book
A history of trans medicine that uses Scandinavian sources to tell a global story.
Standardizing Sex traces the emergence of trans medicine in Scandinavia in the twentieth century, exploring the construction and negotiation of medical expertise among medical professionals, patients, and activists in the media and government bureaucracy. The book combines the author’s analysis of medical records and other archival sources with oral history interviews with former patients, activists, doctors, psychologists, and civil servants. Physician-historian Ketil Slagstad uses the Scandinavian story of sex reassignment to anchor not only the role of the state but also bureaucracy and social rights. Scandinavian countries, he shows, played a foundational role in the emergence of trans medicine internationally. As a result, Standardizing Sex tells a transnational history of medicine that sheds light on a set of relations and problems that continue to impact discussions of trans medicine and trans rights around the world.
Slagstad’s sources offer a rare opportunity to explore the emergence of trans medicine in action in the clinic, laboratory, waiting room, and operating room, as well as in the bureaucrat’s office, on the psychologist’s couch, and in the publications and meetings of activist groups. Together, these sources allow for the analysis of the increasingly complex negotiations of nosological criteria, medical knowledge, and medical practices in a formative period for transgender medicine. More generally, the book offers a story about the reshaping of the normal and the pathological in modern societies.
Standardizing Sex traces the emergence of trans medicine in Scandinavia in the twentieth century, exploring the construction and negotiation of medical expertise among medical professionals, patients, and activists in the media and government bureaucracy. The book combines the author’s analysis of medical records and other archival sources with oral history interviews with former patients, activists, doctors, psychologists, and civil servants. Physician-historian Ketil Slagstad uses the Scandinavian story of sex reassignment to anchor not only the role of the state but also bureaucracy and social rights. Scandinavian countries, he shows, played a foundational role in the emergence of trans medicine internationally. As a result, Standardizing Sex tells a transnational history of medicine that sheds light on a set of relations and problems that continue to impact discussions of trans medicine and trans rights around the world.
Slagstad’s sources offer a rare opportunity to explore the emergence of trans medicine in action in the clinic, laboratory, waiting room, and operating room, as well as in the bureaucrat’s office, on the psychologist’s couch, and in the publications and meetings of activist groups. Together, these sources allow for the analysis of the increasingly complex negotiations of nosological criteria, medical knowledge, and medical practices in a formative period for transgender medicine. More generally, the book offers a story about the reshaping of the normal and the pathological in modern societies.
Reviews
“This important book richly historicizes medical engagement with transgender individuals and the emergence of particular forms of practices and institutions in trans medicine. Slagstad decenters the history of the emergence of transgender medicine, redirecting our attention from North American gender identity clinics to the crucial role Scandinavian countries played in the development and establishment of transgender medical practices from the early twentieth century onwards. As he shifts from the local to the national to the regional to the global, he reveals a world in which seemingly universal tools and technologies are shaped by local traditions and acquire different meanings.”
— Sandra Eder, author of “How the Clinic Made Gender”“A landmark work showcasing the value of comprehensive research, Slagstad has powerfully revised our understanding of transgender medicine’s history through the lens of Nordic welfare states. Standardizing Sex teaches us why medical transition is subject to such baroque and exceptional restriction: its fictitious value to society has overridden its life-giving significance to people who transition. This book is essential reading for everyone seeking to understand the politicization and practice of medical transition.”
— Jules Gill-Peterson, author of “A Short History of Trans Misogyny”Topics
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
September 11, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9780226843230
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780226843230
Keywords for this book
transgender history; trans medicine; sex reassignment; social medicine; state medical regulation; health activism; biomedicalization; sex change; sex and gender; sex beyond the binary
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
