Since the 1970s, research into Intersex has been a central fascination for feminist theorists seeking to make arguments about how men and women are created as social/gender categories. Intersexualization: The Clinic and the Colony takes the case of Olympic runner Caster Semenya as a starting point to explore the issue of determining sex, and the ways in which intersexuality is a threat to the distinction between men/women, homosexuality/heterosexuality and white/black.

By focusing on the 1950s and the 40 years after, Eckert shows how what she calls intersexualization began...