Katrina Karkazis

Katrina Karkazis is a cultural and medical anthropologist and bioethicist at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University School of Medicine. She has written widely on intersex issues, disease, treatment practices, policy and lived experiences, and the interface between medicine and society.^[1][2]

Career

Dr. Karkazis received her PhD in medical and cultural anthropology, and a Masters in Public Health in maternal and child health, from Columbia University. She has an undergraduate degree in Public Policy from Occidental College. Karkazis has since completed postdoctoral training in empirical bioethics at Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics where she holds the position of Senior Research Scholar.^[1][3]

Works

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, published by Duke University Press in 2008 presents a history of the medical treatment and lived experience of intersex people and their families. The book has been well received by both clinicians and intersex groups. Gary Berkovitz, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine states that Karkazis's analysis is fair, compelling, and eloquent^[4] Elizabeth Reis, reviewing the book in American Journal of Bioethics, states that the book "masterfully examines the concerns and fears of all those with a stake in the intersex debate: physicians, parents, intersex adults, and activists"^[5] Mijeon in American Journal of Human Genetics writes that the "conclusion is quite fitting", "the history of thinking about the body ... can be highly politicized and controversial".^[6] Kenneth Copeland MD, former president of the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society describes the book as, "Masterfully balancing all aspects of one of the most polarizing, contentious topics in medicine... the most recent authoritative treatise on intersex."^[1]

Intersex community organization Organisation Intersex International Australia regards the book as "approachable," "compelling and recommended reading".^[7] The book was subsequently referenced in Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia, a 2013 report of a committee of the Senate of Australia in 2013.^[7][8]

Peer-reviewed publications

In Out of Bounds? A Critique of the New Policies on Hyperandrogenism in Elite Female Athletes, a collaborative article with Georgiann Davis, Rebecca Jordan-Young, and Silvia Camporesi, published in 2012 in the American Journal of Bioethics, they argue that a new sex testing policy by the International Association of Athletics Federations will not protect against breaches of privacy, will require athletes to undergo unnecessary treatment in order to compete, and will intensify "gender policing". They recommend that athletes be able to compete in accordance with their legal gender.^[9][10] The analysis was described as an "influential critique" in the Los Angeles Times.^[11]

In Emotionally and cognitively informed consent for clinical care for differences of sex development, co-authored with Anne Tamar-Mattis, Arlene Baratz, and Katherine Baratz Dalke and published in 2013, the authors write that "physicians continue to recommend certain irreversible treatments for children with differences of sex development (DSD) without adequate psychosocial support".^[12]

In Ethics for the Pediatician: Disorders of Sex Development: Optimizing Care, co-authored with Wilma Rossi and published in 2010, the authors argue for patient participation in care decisions, and a focus on patient satisfaction.^[13]

In What’s in a Name? The Controversy over “Disorders of Sex Development”, co-authored with Ellen Feder and published in 2008, the authors state that "tracing "the history of the terminology applied to those with atypical sex anatomy reveals how these conditions have been narrowly cast as problems of gender to the neglect of broader health concerns and of the well-being of affected individuals."^[14] Karkazis and Feder also collaborated in Naming the problem: disorders and their meanings, published in The Lancet in 2008.^[15]

Media work

Since publication of Fixing Sex and Out of Bounds, Karkazis has widely written and been quoted as an expert on intersex issues, particularly on informed consent, and access to sport.

Media coverage of sport issues includes American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, New Scientist, New York Times and Time, often in collaboration with Rebecca Jordan-Young.^{[11][16][17][18][19][20][21]}

Karkazis has also been invited to comment on the recognition of transgender identities.^[22]

Awards and recognition

Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience was nominated for the Margaret Mead Award, 2010, and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, 2009.^[1]

References

External links

• Official website