Religion and intersex : perspectives from science, law, culture, and theology / Stephanie A. Budwey.

Introduction: "I Don't Understand How We Christians Allow This To Happen" -- 1. "The Knife of the Norm" : Intersex from Scientific Perspectives -- 2. "If You're Not Written Specifically into the Law, You Are Specifically Excluded from the Law" : Intersex from Legal Perspectives -- 3. "I Am Not Other, I am Different. But Just like You" : Intersex from Cultural Perspectives -- 4. "God Created Us, All of Us in All of Our Differences and Beautiful Uniqueness" : Intersex from Theological Perspectives -- 5. "The Liturgy Is the Expression of All the People of God, and All Those People Need to Have Their Voices Heard" : Intersex from Liturgical Perspectives.

The objective of this book is to help us understand how and why science, law, culture, and theology have worked together to uphold the paradigm of sexual dimorphism, and how this has led to the erasure of intersex people who do not 'fit' in this paradigm.

This book considers the situation of intersex people who have faced erasure in the areas of science, law, culture, and theology due to the assumption that all humans are either female' or male.' Centered in interviews conducted with German intersex Christians, this book argues that moving from a paradigm of sexual dimorphism to sexual polymorphism will help promote the full humanity and flourishing of intersex people by creating a world where intersex individuals are no longer coerced and/or forced to undergo non-consensual, medically unnecessary treatment, no longer experience human rights violations because of their lack of legal protection, no longer feel inhuman and Other due to epistemic injustice that stems from socio-cultural norms and stereotypes, are no longer told they are not made in God's image as a result of a sexually dimorphic understanding of Genesis 1:27, and no longer feel excluded and invisible in worship services that do not recognize them. This combination of the practical and the spiritual allows for a reconsideration of the medical treatment and pastoral care that should be available to intersex people. This book will be helpful to those in the disciplines of science, law, culture, and theology, particularly those in gender and theological studies and those already in and studying for lay and ordained ministry.