Queering the Moment of Hypospadias “Repair”

Abstract

AbstractHeteronormativity structures biomedical justifications for continuing surgical interventions on infants’ genitals that are cosmetic and medically unnecessary. It would seem, then, that queer theory is uniquely suited to challenge this continuing practice. This article takes up the question of what queer theory can do for intersex, with particular focus on queer temporality. I consider the example of “hypospadias repair,” a surgical intervention justified by invoking restrictive norms of what the penis should look like and be able to do at some point in the future. In contrast, intersex activists invoke post-medical futures, structured by norms of consent and bodily integrity. While queer approaches to temporality might challenge the notion of intervening surgically on an infant for the sake of the future adult the child will become, might this queer critique also disrupt the ability of activist individuals and organizations to invoke other narratives of the future, including ones where adults have not had irreversible surgeries as infants? I will ask whether queer theories of temporality and futurity can challenge medical practices that compromise consent and bodily integrity. Can queer theory question surgery as a queer moment and help us to conceptualize all bodily differences within a more expansive frame, without reinstating heteronormative narratives of futurity?