Before sexologists taxonomized human sexual differences, studies of non-human animals served as an important site for explorations of the meaning and manifestation of sex. But if scientists looked to the animal world for evidence that a clear distinction between male and female was the norm, they didn't find it. Exceptional specimens filled the pages of scientific journals and popular science magazines—neuter bees, ambiguously sexed hyenas, and sterile cattle, among others, formed a seemingly endless parade of nature’s departure from a coherent sexual classification scheme. Yet, even as scientists encountered sexual variations that didn't map neatly onto binary categories, they staked their claims to expertise on their ability to identify bodily truths and create coherent taxonomies out of them. The logic that undergirded the pathologization of certain forms of sex was one of expertise, not internal consistency. By focusing on ambiguity rather than crystallization, my project shifts the history of the production of sexual categories away from a hegemonic disciplining of difference and towards a contingent and contentious process of aspirational knowledge production that never quite achieved its goals.
