Against Sex and Gender Dualism in Gender-Specific Medicine

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to criticise the dualistic approach of gender-specific medicine with regard to sex and gender. Firstly, we analyse the definition of intersexuality and reject the idea that it is a disease unto itself. Medicine classifies cases of intersexuality as disorders of sex development, because they do not conform to the dualist scheme that defines an individual’s sex as “either male or female”. However, we argue that there is no compelling reason to label intersexuality as a disease unto itself. In order to support this claim, we then consider some relevant naturalistic conceptions of health and disease. Secondly, we show that gender-specific medicine, and medicine in general, could be improved by abandoning rigid dualism concerning sex and gender. Taking sex and gender pluralism seriously would potentiate us to recognise that intersexual, transsexual, and transgender people have their own specific physiology, pathophysiology, and health concerns, which up to now have been mostly overlooked and unaddressed by gender-specific medicine. It would also encourage us to consider intersexual, transsexual, and transgender people, and to include them in clinical trials, medical research, and treatment. All this would be an ethical, epistemological, and medical improvement.