In recent decades, patient initiatives in Germany and worldwide have drawn public attention to drug use in relation to a person’s sex/gender. From “anti-androgens” to steroids and “female pills”, products such as dexamethasone, finasteride and Anovlar have been at the centre of controversies over non-consensual treatment practices and potential side-effects, as well as on affirming sex binarity. From a historical perspective, the patient groups that formed since the 1990s were as diverse as the indications and drug uses in earlier decades: drugs were prescribed to “counter” symptoms, such as a lack of hormonal activity in testicles in “cis” men (“hypogonadism”). The same pharmaceutical products were also used in gender affirming treatments in “intersex” or “trans” patients, or during pregnancy, to “prevent” the “feminisation” or “virilisation” of a foetus, or an assumed “homosexual orientation”. Ongoing intersectional critique of medication practices in relation to a person’s sex and gender warrants a closer examination of historical roots and development. 

This project looks at sex diversity from a medical-historical perspective. It brings into the CRC two groups of actors who are central to an understanding of knowledge, concepts and practices in connection with sex diversity, and yet have hardly been studied: manufacturers and consumers of hormonal products. The project aims to trace the history of products directly or indirectly designed or discussed in relation to a person’s sex/gender. It also takes drugs as a starting point at which producers and consumers began to experiment with new subject positions and explores how sex/gender concepts have figured in the uses of hormonal products, and related debates.