Full citation:DeVun, Leah. 2020. The Shape of Sex: Nonbinary Gender from Genesis to the Renaissance. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 978-0-2311-9551-5
The introduction opens with an anecdote about a 14th century Catalan person assigned female, but whose husband petitioned for annulment because she was anatomically incapable of having sex as a woman, due to atypical genitals, including a penis, a very small vaginal opening, and other anomalies. The account doesn’t include any follow-up or any personal testimony from the woman. The crux of the argument was that she could not be categorized as a woman because she could not perform sexually as a woman. DeVun then speculates on the social consequences of this event, including the possibility that—having been declared “predominantly male” she might have later adopted a male status.
Discourse about non-binary sex was prevalent throughout the early Christian and medieval periods, both in terms of how to categorize such persons and how their existence generated philosophical and legal debates. Within these debates, the experiences and thoughts of actual non-binary individuals are largely erased.
DeVun’s book is primarily focusing on the intellectual debates, and how thinking about sex binaries related to other social binaries, such as human/non-human, Christian/non-Christian, and in/out groups. The evidence around actual intersex people is included when available.
Non-binary sex participated in the definition of category boundaries by challenging them. An iconic symbol in the history of this process is the mythic figure of Hermaphroditus, typically portrayed as a fusion of bodies—half male, half female. The concept of hermaphroditism derived from this myth was not solely applied to bodies that appeared to partake of both female and male anatomy, but also stood for all types of category-crossing and fluidity. The idea of the hermaphrodite contradictorily undermined the rigidity of sex and gender binaries while also inspired the tightening of those boundaries and their enforcement.
DeVun works within modern academic frameworks, noting when pre-modern concepts echo modern experiences as well as those points where the pre-modern is alien. One of the points of contrast is the various meanings attached to the word “hermaphrodite,” which influence the modern rejection of the term for intersex persons. There is an extensive discussion of modern activism around intersexuality and related transgender topics. DeVun points out the overlap of these two concepts in the pre-modern category of “hermaphrodite” whereas they are considered distinct in modern definitions. For the purposes of clarity, DeVun uses the modern word “intersex” and “transgender” as analytical terms, but retains the language used in historic texts when discussing those texts. She uses “non-binary” to encompass both groups as well as a wider set of persons who diverge from normative understandings of male and female. She points out that while “hermaphrodite” is now deprecated, in the medieval period it defined a conceptual category that is not equivalent to any specific modern category, and therefore cannot be avoided in a historic discussion. Further, there is not a clear, linear, teleological development of modern ideas and categories in this field. Some older ideas bear similarity to modern ones without a traceable genealogy.
The book is structured chronologically, tracing the rise and fall and recycling of ideas about non-binary sex across the ages.
The remainder of the introduction summarizes the structure of the contents. [Note: as usual for my approach, I may skim more briefly through material that is less relevant to my central project.]
Christian theology of late antiquity promoted the idea of “primal androgyny,” that is, that human beings were created as androgynous beings (Adam before the separation of Eve) and that this non-binary state was the ideal state for humanity.
This concept fell from popularity around the 12-13th centuries, as androgyny became conflated with dual-bodied hermaphroditism and thus with monstrosity.
The chapter dives into scriptural interpretation of the two creation stories—one in which God created humans “male and female” in his own image, and the other hierarchical version in which man (Adam) was created first, with woman created from him.
One Jewish tradition viewed Adam as a fused, two-bodied creature, half male, half female (like the dual-bodied creatures in the Symposium) that was then divided into two beings.
This “primal androgyny” did not encompass gender equality. The conversion of the primal “both male and female” being into differentiated sexes produced a sexual hierarchy that would not be erased until the primal state was returned at the end of time. Then humanity would regain an angelic androgyny, neither male nor female.
These ideas were connected to the idea of sex and procreation as an unfortunate corrupted necessity after the Fall. In the mean time, androgyny could be considered an unobtainable ideal, to be approximated by celibacy.
Augustine of Hippo (4-5th c) was an early rejector of the idea of primal androgyny. He made no distinction between androgynes and hermaphrodites, associating both with ambiguous genitals due to an “excess” of sex rather than its absence. But it took much longer for Augustine’s views to take general hold. With the “12th century renaissance” in scholarly argumentation, Augustine’s views were expanded, arguing that two distinct sexes existed at the start of creation, even when Eve was still encompassed within Adam’s body.
The specter of dual-sexed hermaphrodites who could perform sex acts either as male or female became prominent in the 13th century. Such (hypothetical) beings implied sodomy. To address this, church law required intersex persons to adhere to one permanent gender role, according to how they were able to perform sexually. The concept of sodomy at this time had more to do with transgressing fixed gender roles than it had to do with specific sex acts.
In contrast to prior ideas about the general resurrection at the end times returning all to a state of angelic androgyny, now the position was that sex was an essential attribute that would be retained at resurrection, but that “defects” such as disability, racial difference, and intersexuality would be “corrected.”
This chapter connects an interest in non-binary people with a wider interest in “monstrosity,” especially as attributed to foreign (i.e., non-Christian) lands. These images depicted the “hermaphrodites” in the half-and-half version, alongside other imagined beings, such as people with their faces on their chests. By connecting these non-binary figures to other types of “monstrous races,” they were dehumanized—not a natural variation of humanity, but something else entirely.
This fascination that had begun in classical times evolved into something of a philosophical game among writers of the 12-13th centuries. In the absence of actual physical evidence for the “monstrous races” under discussion, they could be used to debate questions of the nature of humanity.
In this way, they participated in larger debates about the nature of self and other, where “other” was defined not only in terms of the physical form but of geography, with the nebulous concept of “the East” standing for the non-Christian world.
While these descriptions of “monstrous races” imagined species of beings who “bred true” as it were, there was a parallel fascination with the birth of infants with unexpected morphology to “normal” parents. While “monstrous races” represented an alien “other,” “monstrous births” were more commonly interpreted as portents or the consequences of individual parental behavior. In the 13th century and later, these two categories were clearly distinguished. “Monstrous births” could include what we would classify as birth defects, along with conjoined twins and intersex infants.
The two categories shared the function of being used to test and define the limits of humanity and various legal and religious consequences derived from that status. Following Roman law, intersex infants were classified as human, but the assignment of sex was a more difficult matter (discussed in a later chapter).
The Pliny-style half-and-half hermaphrodite was imagined to be able to switch back and forth between functioning as male and as female. This mythic figure (who continued to appear in medical art) was not ambiguous—rather it contained both sexes simultaneously.
Writings of this era conflate the concepts of sex, gender (including social gender roles), and sexuality. This conflation is relevant to historic beliefs about the interaction of gendered performance (including sexuality) and physiology.
The remainder of the chapter uses the Hereford Map and its depiction of “monstrous races” as a focus for discussing the religious debates and anxieties prevalent in Europe in the 14th century.
This chapter looks at depictions in bestiaries of supposedly non-binary animals like the hyena, and how their symbolism was used to bolster anti-Jewish sentiment in the 12th and 13th centuries. As this is tangential to the themes I’m interested in, I won’t summarize it in detail, but there is a motif of comparing men who become “womanized” to the sexually ambiguous hyena, invoking concepts of “uncleanness.”
Philosophy
When writing about actual intersex people (as opposed to mythic images) medieval authors of the 13th and 14th century ranged in tone from considering them monstrous aberrations, whose sexual activity could not be acceptable, to considering them natural variants, similar to twins and—and some opinions—no more varied from the norm (men) than women were. One key philosophical conflict was over whether someone who could not be clearly assigned to a physical sex and cultural gender could be categorized as “human.” This motivated an approach to intersexuality that it was a superficial defect, confusing the assignment of the individual’s “true” sex. There was no longer room for classifying people as a third category of “hermaphrodite” but only the need to determine the correct binary sex.
This approach drew on classical Greek and Arabic writings that were newly being disseminated. These interacted with the position of Roman and canon law regarding sex assignment. But these approaches were not consistent, beyond the recognition of only two sexes. Factors in category assignment might variously emphasize genital anatomy, sexual function, general appearance, personality, or even individual choice. In making the determination, individuals were slotted into a role that combined sexual identity, legal status, and social role.
The above summary is laid out in more detail in the following discussion, which traces the textual basis roughly chronologically.
The first set of texts to consider derived from Aristotle’s writings, especially his works on animals, which emphasized systematic and hierarchical classification. Hierarchy included the elevation of male (active, spiritual) over female (passive, “mere matter”). Female inferiority was a basic tenant and informed both his reasoning and conclusions. Females were asserted to be “deformed” males due to defects in the reproductive process, but Aristotle held that all creatures had a true underlying (binary) sex, even when they diverged from the expected form for that sex.
Another aspect of this hierarchical system was the assertion that “superior” species had differentiated sexes and produced live young, while lower organisms might be egg bearing, or lack sexual differentiation, or even reproduce asexually. Therefore humans—being the pinnacle of the natural world—must have distinct and differentiated sexes.
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) brought the most widely distributed Arabic philosophy on the topic, building on Greek writings but synthesized in different ways. This stream built on humoral theory, which held that an individual’s sexual expression resulted from their balance of qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry). Although this balance generally resulted in distinct categories of male and female (with their associated behavioral and social features), it also allowed for intermediate forms.
Without some of the peculiar fixations of Christian writers, Islamic medical and anatomical treatises described a variety of intersex conditions, as well as a recognition of feminine men and masculine women. That isn’t to say that the Islamic tradition had a consistent and unified approach, as authors drew from different sources and interpreted them in different ways. But in general, the attitude toward non-binary sexes was neutral and descriptive.
Western Europe had lost direct access to Greek texts in the earlier medieval period, having only those previously translated into Latin. Around the 11th to 12th centuries, Greek writings began to be circulated as translations of Arabic works (which had drawn directly from the Greek). This introduced more diverse ideas about gender, along with treatises of how gender was determined, which could include the production of intermediate bodies. [Note: It must be remembered that most of these theories and explanations have no correspondence with biological reality—and when they do, it is usually mere coincidence.] Explanations for non-binary bodies included humoral balance, the location in the uterus where the fetus grew, and the proportions of “male and female sperm” that contributed to conception.
As the Galenic tradition of humoral influence that had been introduced via Arabic sources was increasingly supplemented by new translations of Aristotle in the 13th century, the European consensus on intersexuality also shifted to an emphasis on the binary. Writers such as Albert the Great explored new theories of fetal development within a naturalist framework, distinguishing “monstrous births” from ideas about “monstrous races.” He also rejected myths in bestiaries about hermaphroditic animals such as hyenas and hares, not based on observation, but deriving from hierarchical principles. “Higher animals,” by his theory, could not exhibit non-binary sex, except as an individual defective birth, and therefore these bestiary stories must be rejected as impossible.
Intersex fetuses, by his theory, developed due to “excess matter” in the genital region, in the same way that excess matter could result in twins. He held that individuals who appeared to have both male and female genitals actually had only one functional organ—indicating their true sex—while the other was equivalent to a tumor. And yet he also suggested the possibility of a person having both types of functioning genitals, and having a “complexion of the heart” (personality and secondary characteristics) balanced between male and female.
If these two factors, which ordinarily would signal the person’s true sex, failed to provide a clear classification, presumably some other method must be found. Albert also hinted at the possibility of surgical “correction” in some cases, though this idea did not come to the fore until later.
Alexander of Hales approached the topic of sex difference from a more theological point of view. Why did God create two sexes when it would have been more perfect to have only one (i.e. male)? His answer was that it was more dignified to separate the active and passive elements, to avoid the “confusion” of mingling them in a single body. Further, by having two sexes in a hierarchical relationship, this provided a model for other essential hierarchies, such as Christ and the church. Under this understanding, intersex people represented the confusion of active and passive, which violated divine order.
Law
While philosophers could argue about the nature of sexual categories and their symbolic meanings, the law had more practical needs. Regardless of whether one accepted the reality of non-binary bodies, those bodies needed to be classified as either male or female under the law for the purposes of marriage, inheritance, the ability to testify in court, sex limited occupations such as the priesthood, and many other aspects. Some early Roman texts suggested that intersex infants represented such an ill omen that death was the necessary response, but in post-Republican times a more individual approach was taken, setting presidents that continued in medieval times. (Islamic and Jewish law debated the question of gendered status within systems that acknowledged non-binary categories.)
The Roman law tradition assigned legal sex on the basis of which sex predominated. This could mean either the appearance of the genitals, or how they were able to function. These treatises acknowledged “hermaphrodite” as a category separate from male and female, so the instructions had to do with the practicalities of category assimilation.
Although anatomy seems to have been the first priority, some authors instruct that social behavior—participating in gendered activities and associating with a specific gender—can be considered. The ability to grow a beard was also key. Another author says that if anatomy provided no clear guide, it was acceptable for the person to swear as to which sex they would perform, as long as there was no subsequent change. Individual legal cases can provide examples of how these factors played out in real life. There is some indication of a preference for assigning maleness in ambiguous cases, as it was the “superior” sex.
The matter of sticking to one sex, once classified, was not only a legal matter but a moral one. If a person acted sexually as a man at one time and as a woman at another time, then one of those acts was “unclean.”
[Note: This brings in several motifs relevant to lesbianism, such as the “enlarged clitoris” motif which, if used for penetration, is viewed as acting as a penis. More broadly, if attributes such as behavior, social performance, or personality can be evidence of one’s “true sex” in the presence of ambiguous anatomy, then they are also indications of gender even when there is no anatomical question. In this way, the treatment of intersex individuals helps make sense of how same-sex desire was treated as evidence of cross-gender identity.]
The legal and social imperative for clear binary sex categories led medieval surgeons (starting around the 13th through 14th century) to propose “correcting” anomalous bodies. This chapter traces several different surgical traditions, in a context where manuals of surgery were attempting to create a more professional approach to the surgical field in general.
These surgical traditions addressed several types of non-normative bodies, including “hermaphrodites,” impotent men, eunuchs, and women with what were considered enlarged genitals.
Prior to the 13th century, surgery was considered less professional than medicine, learned by apprenticeship rather than formal study. But in the 13th century some practitioners in Italy and France began to professionalize the field, including the creation of manuals of practice. Much of this chapter focuses specifically on the Parisian surgeon Lanfranc of Milan. This was part of a more general increase in professionalization and regulation of healthcare. Surgeons were struggling to establish their field as independent from physicians, as well as expanding into new fields of application, including treatments that might be classified as “cosmetic surgery.” There was also an expansion deeper into women’s medicine, including reproduction.
Within this context, surgeons claimed expertise in how to evaluate ambiguous bodies to determine not only “what sex predominated” (in appearance and function), but how to modify the body to more closely resemble the norms of the assigned sex. (Note: DeVun is probably reflecting medieval attitudes and priorities and describing this as evaluation “whether or not the patient was masculine enough to achieve male status or two feminine to qualify.”]
Arabic texts were, as usual, a major source of theories and approaches, which included the removal of body parts that didn’t fit a binary category. The situations and surgical practices to address non-binary bodies are presented in Arabic manual side-by-side with techniques for circumcision and female genital cutting (of “normal” bodies). The latter can make it difficult to draw clear lines between “correcting” intersex bodies and modifying female bodies to control women’s sexuality. These Arabic manuals were translated and disseminated in Europe in the 12th to 14th centuries.
The surgical manuals recommended various methods for determining which sex to attempt to target. A common approach was based on how and where the patient was able to urinate. For bodies assigned female, the goal was to enable penetrative intercourse (and, theoretically, conception although hormonal considerations were outside their knowledge). This also involved removing any penis-like tissue on the assumption that it would get in the way. For a male-assigned body, the goal would be to close any unwanted genital openings.
A different approach assigned sex based on the method of sexual arousal. This would allow male assignment if the patient experienced arousal via any penis-like organ of whatever size. (Note: this was before the “rediscovery” of the clitoris as the primary source of female arousal in the 16th century.) This metric shifted the dividing line for sex assignment.
The manuals offered various cautions. The patient must not be prevented from urinating. Anything evaluated as a functional penis must not be removed. [Note: I’m avoiding discussing specific surgical techniques in detail as they are not directly relevant to the Project and reading them could be unnecessarily traumatic. Read DeVun if you’re interested.]
The surgical approach operated on the theory that all bodies actually had a binary sex and it was only a matter of modifying the anatomy to match it. The metric that sex could be assigned on the basis of arousal—which seems to have been applied in the case where determining whether a penis-like organ was sufficient to prove masculinity—has a parallel in tests for male impotence. If the subject could not be aroused by a woman to the point of erection (sometimes requiring ejaculation) then they failed the test. (Sometimes prostitutes were hired to perform the test.) [Note: this once again points out the overlap of intersex and lesbian issues, as the “arousal test” assumes heterosexual desire.] There is further discussion of impotence tests. A man judged to be impotent might be forbidden to marry (or have his marriage annulled) but would not result in him losing the legal status of a man.
The chapter also discusses the categorization of eunuchs, whether created or unintentional (which could include some types of intersex). Due to the importance of procreative potential insect classification, they could not be classified as either male or female.
The female equivalent of male impotence was generally an anatomical inability to receive penetration.
Surgical manuals distinguished non-binary bodies that were preponderantly feminine but had some masculine features from female bodies whose genitals were perceived to be excessively large. Although the motif of the macro-clitoral lesbian was yet to be established, Arabic manuals and European successors considered an overly large clitoris—especially when capable of erection—to be undesirable, and recommended removal. Avicenna does record a belief that a large clitoris could cause a woman to desire sex with women. Based on the wording, the rationale appears to be that because the organ resembles a penis, the woman will naturally try to use it as one, which by logic would require a female partner. But another rationale was that a male partner would find the organ offputting. [Note: The general belief in this era was that women derived sexual pleasure from penetration, therefore removal of the clitoris was not necessarily intended to prevent sexual pleasure.]
The evaluation of ambiguous genitals was based on additional factors besides shape and size. Stereotypes about maleness (strong, hard) and femaleness (soft, week) could position someone relative to male and female prototypes. “Softness” in men was associated with sexuality and effeminacy. Luxury and vanity were considered to make men less manly and thus a danger to the integrity of the state. The evaluation of conventional attractiveness was more often applied to female-classified bodies. One reason offered for removal of a large clitoris was that it was “ugly.”
The surgical manuals (as contrasted with a few of the legal texts) make no consideration of the patient’s expressed identity or wishes, the one manual note that in the case of those who were (anatomically) capable of taking either an insertive or receptive role in sex, “one should put to them…what nature they would want” and surgically remove the other option.
It isn’t clear to what extent sex-assignment surgeries were performed in the medieval era, or to what extent they were “successful” if so. There are very rare mentions of surgery being recommended to or performed on specific named individuals (as opposed to the theoretical advice in the manuals) but surgeons do seem to have been brought in as sex-assignment consultants, went available.
The complexities of evaluating non-binary bodies as detailed in medieval texts don’t rigidly follow the “one-sex” theory as detailed by Laqueur. For example, although the one-sex theory considers the penis analogous to the uterus (one being an inversion of the other), the surgical texts clearly compare the penis and clitoris when evaluating the “preponderance of evidence.” Nor was individual identity/preference as influential in pre-modern times as has been suggested by Foucault.
The final section of the chapter compares medieval and modern approaches to non-binary bodies, and finds little substantial difference in the underlying philosophy. There is also a discussion of the usefulness of interrogating medieval understandings of non-binary people through a trans lens. Given the way in which medieval thinking conflated sex, gender, and sexuality, identifying a medieval person as “transgender” is as anachronistic as identifying them as “homosexual”—which isn’t to say that the behaviors associated with either were not present, only that there was no cultural concept that matched those modern categories. [Note: see my essay on comparing cultural categories as “translating prepositions.”]