This is the first book in English to analyse the medical category of 'hermaphroditism' in Spain over the period 1850-1960. It attempts to show how the relationship between the male and female body, biological 'sex', gender and sexuality constantly changed in the light of emerging medical, legal and social influences.

How did Spanish doctors conceptualize persons believed to be a mix of the male and female genders during the period of 1850-1960? Such persons disrupted gendered and sexual givens, and from a legal and medical standpoint, required examination and determination according to their true sex in order to permit marriage, inheritance, and a "normal" social life. This volume charts the changing medical discourse on the "hermaphrodite" or "intersex" persons as the interrelationship between the body, biological sex, and gender was constantly reassessed and rewritten, making this the first major study of Spanish hermaphroditism for the period and an important contribution to the growing interest in this subject worldwide.