Historical debates in Spain between Spanish doctors about sex identification are object of study by Professors Richard Cleminson, of the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and Rosa Medina Doménech, of the department of Pathological Anatomy and Science History, of the University of Granada. Both have published their work in the medical journal Dynamis under the title: “Woman or man? Hermaphroditism, medical technologies and sex identification in Spain, 1860-1925”.
The research work published by the University of Granada is a contribution to medical historiography that investigates the historical nature of the idea of sex. The researchers study in this work the keys of medical knowledge on the question of sex determination of humans focusing on the frontier land of the so-called “hermaphroditism”, making use of the medical literature published in Spain between 1860 and 1925.
According to the researchers, “the transition from the 17th to the 18th century marks the beginning of the scientific determination to reject the figure of the true hermaphrodite, a being that represented the possible coexistence of the two corporal sexes in one person and that revealed that woman or man identity was not determined by corporality.”
This rejection, both of the possibility of a third sex (or more) and of the coexistence of two sexes in one same person, meant the expansion of a hegemonic model that defended the existence of two unique and self-exclusive sexes (exclusive sexual dimorphism). According to the researchers, “the scientific settlement of sexual body dimorphism was parallel to the consolidation of divided social spheres between masculine and feminine”.
Reference
Prof Rosa María Medina Doménech. Dpt Pathological Anatomy and Science History. University of Granada. Phone numbers: 958 248 297 and 958 248 357.
E-mail: rosam@ugr.es
