Cutting Across: Bodily Autonomy in Comparative Perspective: Intersex Care, Gender-Affirmative Care, and Genital Surgeries

Abstract

In recent years, sex and gender minorities have become increasingly central to public, political, and academic debates. Discussions surrounding gender-affirming care, particularly the use of puberty blockers, have been marked by polarisation and moral panic in many Western contexts. Comparable attention—and controversy—has long accompanied debates on female genital cutting and male circumcision, which continue to be shaped by legacies of moral relativism, racist assumptions, religious freedom hierarchies and postcolonial power relations. In contrast, medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex children, though closely related to these issues, are often mentioned only as a side note and remain underexplored in both public and scholarly discourse. This panel proposes moving beyond siloed, issue-specific discussions by adopting a comparative, interdisciplinary approach to bodily interventions. By placing gender-affirming care for youth, intersex surgeries, female genital cutting, and male circumcision in critical dialogue, the panel aims to examine how norms of bodily integrity, consent, human rights, and gender are negotiated and contested across different socio-legal and medical contexts. This panel therefore aims to facilitate an extended conversation between panelists, discussant and audience. The proposed panel aims to: - provide a comparative framework for analysing bodily interventions across different populations and geopolitical contexts. - interrogate the legal, ethical, religious and cultural rationales underpinning medical and non-medical interventions on sexed and gendered bodies. - bridge disciplinary boundaries and foster dialogue between legal, social, and medical perspectives on bodily autonomy and consent. - contribute to evidence-based, rights-oriented policy discussions on bodily integrity, medical ethics, and human rights. - investigate the complex nature of healthcare policymaking, focusing on how policies concerning intersex care, gender-affirming care, female genital mutilation, and male circumcision shape the lives of affected communities. It will also explore how policymakers, practitioners, and community members alike make sense of and navigate these policies within diverse social and cultural contexts. Bringing together scholars from law, sociology, politics, and medical sciences, the panel seeks to examine how states, institutions, and communities frame, regulate and experience interventions on the body. The comparative scope—spanning the European Union, non-EU countries, and North America—enables a nuanced examination of how global and local discourses interact in shaping decision-making processes and policy responses to bodily diversity and modification. Through its interdisciplinary approach and the contributions of the presented papers, the panel will explore how combining policy analysis with the lived experiences and perspectives of those impacted by this regulation may guide and enhance future legislative and policy processes.

Title	Details
Deconstructing the double standards of western political discourses about genital modifications on non-consenting minors	View Paper Details
Linking intersex legal reform and debates on trans youth regarding medical decision-making capacity	View Paper Details
Constructing Trans-Related Healthcare as a Problem: Policy Agency, Ruling Emotions, and Obscure Others	View Paper Details
Medical experiences by intersex adolescents and adults: results from a biographical study	View Paper Details
Challenges in health care for intersex and transgender youth	View Paper Details