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41 Harv. Women's L.J. 1 (2018)
Revisiting the Limits of Professional Autonomy: The Intersex Rights Movement's Path to De-Medicalization

handle is hein.journals/hwlj41 and id is 7 raw text is: REVISITING THE LIMITS OF PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY: THE INTERSEX RIGHTS MOVEMENT'S PATH TO DE-MEDICALIZATION MAAYAN SUDAI* Social movements that seek to change biomedical policy face the par- ticularly challenging task of effectively contesting the scientific and norma- tive basis used to justify medical professional practices in the present. Such is the case of the intersex rights movement, which fights to change the medi- cal standard of genital-normalizing surgeries in infancy.' To change conven- tional medical policy, the movement is required not only to establish that such treatments are infringing on rights to 1bodily integrity and autonomy, but it also must invalidate the scientific ground on which the current treat- ment protocol is established. This Article analyzes and compares medical and legal activism, which are the two main approaches to achieving change in the intersex rights movement. This Article argues that medical activism leads to a substantial democratization of the policy-making process, and le- gal activism helps politicize the standard of care and stirs a public discus- sion over its legitimacy. While both medical and legal activism challenge existing medical standards, the costs of cooptation to the movement's ideol- ogy are not comparable. Activists who chose legal avenues remained loyal to their baseline agenda, whereas activists who chose to collaborate with the medical establishment made greater ideological compromises. I suggest that this is because unlike medical advocacy, legal activists make arguments based on justice and social values. Furthermore, this Article argues that the legal sphere serves a critical function to challenge professional norms be- cause it supports political change in an allegedly apolitical arena. * Maayan Sudai, S.J.D. Candidate at Harvard Law School and past Fellow at the Program for Science Technology and Society (STS) at Harvard Kennedy School. I would like to thank Professor Janet Halley, Professor I. Glenn Cohen, and Professor Duncan Kennedy from Harvard Law School. I would also like to thank Professor Sarah S. Rich- ardson, Professor Sheila Jasanoff, Dr. Sagit Mor, Lihi Yona, Oren Tamir, Reut Cohen, Fady Khury, Ido Katri, Anne Tamar-Mattis, and Yuval Moscovitz. I would like to thank the editorial board of the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender, particularly Elizabeth Fillman, Rachael Schuman, Kalana Kariyawasam, and Brianne Power, for excellent feed- back and edits. This Article was written with the support of the Petrie Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. This paper is the recipient of the 2017 Harvard Law School Irving Oberman Memorial Award for the best paper in the field of Law and Social Change. My deepest debt is to Sozan Bsol, an intersex person whose life and activism constantly challenge theory. I This Article uses, for the most part, the term intersex to indicate the condition of undetermined biological sex. However, because the nomenclature in this subject is con- tested and changing, this Article may use additional terms interchangeably according to the relevant professional and historical context, or in order to highlight controversies.

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