Intersex and Medical Health: a Construction of a Public Health Theology Paradigm for Sexual Polymorphism in Indonesia

Abstract

This article looks at intersex from a medical health perspective, with descriptions of gender and various forms of sex ambiguity. The discussion of the history of medical care for intersex individuals, particularly the model of ‘gender parenting’ created by John Money in the 1950s based on sexual dimorphism is still the dominant paradigm today. Through the paradigm of sexual polymorphism, medical theology centred on the experience of intersex bodily ambiguity has an holistic medicinal power that embraces the physical, mental and spiritual. This article establishes the theological case for models that see humans as a continuum from the creation of ha’adam (Gen. 1:27) through to an anthropology based on an understanding of sexual polymorphism.