Intersex Bodies in Sexuality Education: On the Edge of Cultural Difference

Brömdal, Annette; Rasmussen, Mary Lou; Sanjakdar, Fida; Allen, Louisa; Quinlivan, Kathleen

doi:10.1057/978-1-137-40033-8_18

Cited by 29 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Male and female are two figurations, or 'simply two arrangements of an array of characteristics' (Pasley 2020). In this study we view sameness, since 'as human beings, we are more alike than different' (Myerson et al 2007, 99), together with intersex, as keys to challenge dominant cultural views concerning binary gender, body and norms (Brömdal et al 2017), and as tools to open up for diversity in SRE.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Quotations regarding bodies that contained binary assumptions of gender, whereby female and male were viewed as dichotomies, were selected and coded as binary gender (Pasley 2020). We selected quotes in which sameness (Brömdal et al 2017) was implicated, holding the potential to deconstruct binary gender. These were coded as 'possibilities for change', since they have the potential to open up discussion of bodily variation in general, and intersex in particular.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, sex in biological terms comprises multiple variations of external genitalia, internal gonads, hormones and chromosomes. According to Brömdal et al (2017), more than 40 variations are subsumed the umbrella term intersex. Male and female are two figurations, or 'simply two arrangements of an array of characteristics' (Pasley 2020).…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diversity in sex and relationship education – limitations and possibilities in Swedish biology textbooks

2021

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Shortcomings in sex and relationship education (SRE) related to norms and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexuality (LGBTQIA) perspectives have been reported internationally and in Sweden. This paper reports on findings from a critical study of SRE content in Swedish biology textbooks for 13-to 16year-old pupils, with the aim of revealing which sexual orientations and bodies are made visible or invisible in the texts. About 200 quotations were selected and analysed, quantitatively and qualitatively, with a focus on limitations and possibilities. The results show that LGBT content is visible in all SRE chapters. However, sexual orientation is often constructed as fixed. Furthermore, stereotypical gender binaries are reinforced via heteronormative assumptions regarding hormones, genitals and reproduction, focusing on differences instead of similarities, and thus limiting the potential to widen non-binary perceptions of bodies and sexualities. Our quantitative analyses reveal that there are few, if any, queer, intersex, asexual or crip/disability representations. If gaps in young people's knowledge regarding norms, intersex, asexuality, queer and crip sexualities are to be filled in order to promote equality and diversity, it is important to rethink the SRE content of Swedish biology textbooks.

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Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 88%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Diversity in sex and relationship education – limitations and possibilities in Swedish biology textbooks

2021

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“…Addressing implications for practice, it must be acknowledged that relatively speaking, activists such as Mani Mitchell are in scarce supply in most parts of the world, and there are realistic limits on their own time and energy to be visiting classrooms. However, their life stories are available in documentaries, and teachers wishing to address biocitizenship with respect to intersex bodies can develop lessons around these stories, using them as teaching resources, and acting as allies (Brömdal et al 2016). Schools, by engaging students as ally citizens, can begin the task of preparing communities to support intersexbodied people and their families in hospitals, schools, neighbourhoods, and their homes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the current sex education curriculum guidelines of Aotearoa/New Zealand, LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer) perspectives are explicitly included. Furthermore, unlike in most jurisdictions an affirmative and rights-based approach is advocated for, although critics point out that delivery of that curriculum generally fails to live up to all of the guidelines (Brömdal et al 2016;Fitzpatrick 2018;Ellis and Bentham 2020). Although Aotearoa/New Zealand is one specific context, because secular biomedical institutions are the dominant setting for parental decision-making about infant genital surgery worldwide, preparing citizens to be autonomous biopolitical subjects within secular liberalism is a prudent goal internationally.…”

Section: Aotearoa/new Zealand -Education and Intersexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Engaging peers and future parents, creating future turbulence: activist biocitizenship practices and intersex transgression in the classroom

King

2021

Sex Education

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This study aims to develop a more fully theorised concept of biocitizenship as part of the teaching of intersex in critical approaches to sex education. It advances a perspective in which the options of students, as future parents and as biocitizens, are not limited to compliance to biomedicine, but one in which formal education experiences might prepare them to be neighbours and parents who, as allies of intersex family/community members, can engage in political activism to effect change where deemed necessary. Data take the form of classroom talk drawn from a study based in an Aotearoa/New Zealand secondary school, focusing on transgressive acts of citizenship by an intersex activist visiting the sex education classroom and assisting students with social justice projects. Transcripts of audio-recorded classroom interactions are analysed using a version of critical discourse analysis that directs attention to semiotic modes such as visual cues of bodies as well as affect. Findings reveal that biocitizenship can also include those who accept intersex bodies, altering established practices to accommodate those bodies and the people who live them.

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‘Acceptance of diversity’…but not too much? (Restricted) pathways towards transgender and intersex inclusivity in sex education curriculum guidelines

Fedorchenko

2024

The Curriculum Journal

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Positive representation of LGBTQIA+ perspectives in curriculum can help improve well‐being of transgender and intersex students. However, research on sex education curriculum indicates that the experiences of intersex and transgender students are largely absent in the respective curriculum or constructed as other, pathologized or stigmatized. These discourses of silence and stigmatization negatively affect transgender and intersex students and prevent all students from getting informed and affirmative sex education on gender and body diversity. This study explores how curriculum documents for sex education in Europe and Germany may be facilitating or limiting the (de‐hierarchized) inclusion of diversity regarding gender and sex/body characteristics. The study employs a structuring qualitative content analysis. Thematic summaries and analysis through the lens of heteronormativity are used to examine how diverse subjectivities are made (in)visible, normalized or othered through the lexical choices and the general framing of the curriculum documents, as well as how binary categorizations are deconstructed and power relations subverted. Key findings indicate that some curricula, while strongly promoting diversity or explicitly including intersex and transgender as topics, are worded in ways that contribute to the normalization of cisgender and endosex experiences, while transgender or intersex perspectives are either fully silenced or othered. The data also reveal power‐critical approaches, in which transgender and intersex are affirmatively included, cis‐ and endonormativity is disrupted and which encourage a critical engagement with societal power relations.

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Intersex Bodies in Sexuality Education: On the Edge of Cultural Difference

Cited by 29 publications

References 16 publications

Diversity in sex and relationship education – limitations and possibilities in Swedish biology textbooks

Diversity in sex and relationship education – limitations and possibilities in Swedish biology textbooks

Engaging peers and future parents, creating future turbulence: activist biocitizenship practices and intersex transgression in the classroom

‘Acceptance of diversity’…but not too much? (Restricted) pathways towards transgender and intersex inclusivity in sex education curriculum guidelines

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