Hamline University Sociology Professor Sharon Preves lectured on her book Intersex and Identity on Nov. 6 in the John B. Davis Lecture Hall.

Intersex, the condition in which a child is born with ambiguous genitalia, occurs once in every 2000 births–the same frequency as cystic fibrosis and Down’s syndrome.

“Because there are so many kinds of intersex and so many causes, a frequency definition is really hard,” Preves said. “One in 2000 is a conservative estimate. The frequency could be as high as four percent.”

Preves spoke first about the anatomy of an intersex child, how ambiguous genitalia develop and the process by which doctors assign the child a sex.

“In my Women’s Health and Reproduction class, we’re learning about how bodies develop,” Lindsay Weinberg ’04 said. I knew how similar males and females were as fetuses, but I didn’t realize the similarity was something that continued so much.”

Preves then spoke about the medical paradigm, established in the 1950s, which advocated assigning children who were sexually ambiguous a gender in order to avoid the social stigma associated with intersex.

Preves said that she believes intersex is a social problem rather than a medical one. “People are generally not in any physiological danger,” she said. “The problem lies in how a sexually ambiguous child will fit into a binary society.”

When a child is identified as intersex, medical professionals encourage immediate surgical intervention.

Parents are often given little information and children who undergo surgery will not find out that they are in fact intersex until puberty or even later in life, according to Preves. Over 90 percent of those born intersex are assigned female, regardless of chromosomes.

“I was surprised by the deception of parents of intersex children by the medical establishment,” Carly Martin ’07 said. “Doctors lead parents to believe they are alone in their experience, fostering a mentality of isolation and secrecy on the issue of intersex.”

Preves said that she became interested in intersex issues when she read an article on the condition and wanted to find out family and adult perspectives, but very little research on the topic existed. “The less I found, the more I thought needed to be researched,” she said.

Preves conducted what she called in-depth life interviews of 37 intersex individuals in the United States and Canada. The interviewees were between the ages of 20 and 65, with a mean age of 40. “The experience was phenomenal for me,” she said. “ I came home with 2,100 single spaced pages of notes.”

Preves said she was surprised by people’s willingness to respond. “What started as snowball sampling turned into avalanche sampling. People were calling me to interview them,” she said. “I’m still getting calls.”

The interviews Preves conducted focused on the life experiences of intersex individuals as well as the stigma they felt as a result of having undergone surgery. She found that 51 percent of the 37 people interviewed were born with ambiguous genitalia and 49 percent did not know they were intersex until puberty. Ninety-five percent of the interviewees had undergone surgery.

Preves said that the reaction she received from the intersex community has has been positive. “I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. I’ve heard from a lot of support groups…and I’ve been asked to speak at conferences. I’m surprised I haven’t heard more. What I’m interpreting from that is that maybe the book is too painful to read for some.”

Students who attended the lecture said that it was informative. “I didn’t know anything about intersex issues before the lecture,” Meara Borgen ’04 said. “I came because I’m doing a project on gender identity for my psychology class. This was a related issue and I wanted to come and learn about it.”

The Sociology and Women’s and Gender Studies Departments sponsored the lecture. “Lots of students are interested in gender and sex ambiguity issues,” Sociology Professor Nancy Fischer said. “So are lots of faculty members. It made sense to have this lecture.”