Defiant Bodies: Discourses on Intersex, 1573-2003

Sometimes individuals were accused of being intersex because they subverted the social or cultural norms of their assigned gender. Anne Grandjean seems to be one such example of this. Born in 1732, Grandjean was raised as a woman. After experiencing sexual desire for women, Grandjean was advised by a priest to socially transition and live as a man, which ultimately led to them to change their name to Jean-Baptiste and marry a woman. Years later, they were accused of being intersex when this came to the attention of legal authorities and tried for the crime of profaning the sacrament of marriage. The memoir of Anne Grandjean illuminates some of the intensely public ways that gender and sexuality were policed during the early modern period and accusations of intersex identity were weaponized against gender nonconforming individuals.