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The study examines how Israeli medical professionals address VSC in fertility and prenatal settings, contrasting growing recognition of patients’ decision-making rights with increasing genetic testing used to prevent VSC conditions. In-depth interviews with 27 biomedical professionals and data from preimplantation genetic testing cycles identify tensions and gaps across specialists and patients, framed through three themes and their physical and social outcomes.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":35,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/healthcare/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/imagining-and-preventing-the-future-existence-of-bodies-with-variations-in-sex-characteristics/407479/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/imagining-and-preventing-the-future-existence-of-bodies-with-variations-in-sex-characteristics/407479.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Connor ","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What social role does VSC diagnosis play according to the abstract?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"VSC diagnosis is described as a powerful social act that shapes social realities for patients, doctors, and families by linking biological characteristics with sociocultural norms about gender and fertility.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How do Israeli medical professionals approach VSC in fertility and prenatal contexts?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The research contrasts two trends: increased recognition of VSC individuals’ rights to make decisions about their bodies and greater reliance on genetic testing to prevent VSC conditions.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What sources of data were used to study VSC-related practices?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The study uses in-depth interviews with 27 biomedical professionals from hospitals in Israel and collects data on preimplantation genetic testing cycles at three central hospitals to identify VSC genetic conditions.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},407479,1791097667,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":34,"category_name":35,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},687207022233,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","Archives of Sexual Behavior (2025) 54:4115–4131 [https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03261-9](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-025-03261-9)  \nImagining and Preventing the Future Existence of Bodies with Variations in Sex Characteristics  \nLimorMeoded Danon1 · Tamar Paperna2 · Hagit Daum3 · Shachar Zuckerman4  \nReceived: 24 May 2024 / Revised: 29 July 2025 / Accepted: 30 July 2025 / Published online: 18 November 2025 © The Author(s) 2025  \nAbstract  \nThe diagnosis of bodies with variations in sex characteristics (VSC) is a powerful social act that affects the social realities of patients, doctors, and families. This process includes an imagined connection between various biological characteristics and sociocultural norms of gender and fertility. We studied how Israeli medical professionals approach VSC in fertility and prenatal settings. Our research considered two contrasting trends: the growing recognition of VSC individuals’ rights to make decisions about their bodies and the increasing use of genetic testing to prevent VSC conditions. We conducted in-depth interviews with 27 biomedical professionals from different hospitals in Israel and collected data on preimplantation genetic testing cycles at three central hospitals in the country to identify VSC genetic conditions. The findings show how tensionsand gaps regarding perceptions of fertility and bodies with diverse sex development exist among various specialists and their patients across different clinical interactions. We describe these gaps and their physical and social outcomes through three themes: “controlling the diagnostic emergency of VSC,” “secrets and concealment in the genetic diagnostic process,” and“imagining and preventing the existence of fertile bodies.”  \nKeywords Variations in sex characteristics · Disorders of sex development · Preimplantation genetic testing · Genetic counseling · Fertility  \nIntroduction  \nDiagnosis is a powerful social practice that authorizes biomedical professionals’ classification and categorization of symptoms and social behaviors that are considered deviant (Brown, 1990, 1995 ; Conrad & Schneider, 1992 ; Jutel, 2009) . Sociologists examine how diagnosis shapes experiences of illness and determines which voices are privileged or silenced (Jutel, 2015, p. 845) . The term “diagnostic imaginary” describes “a way of thinking which conceals the presence of the social in diagnoses, closing off critical analysis of the complex ways they are structured by history, culture, politics, and value judgments”(McGann, 2011, p. 337) . The  \n* Limor Meoded Danon [Limor.meoded-danon@biu.ac.il](Limor.meoded-danon@biu.ac.il)  \n1 The Azrieli Faculty of Medicine, Bar-Ilan University, Henrietta Szold St 8, 1311502 Safed, Israel  \n2 Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel  \n3 Center for Clinical Genetics Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel  \n4 Genetic Unit, Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel  \ndiagnostic process is a locus of sociopolitical interests where various stakeholders, including lay people, social groups, pharmaceutical corporations, patient groups, and biomedical professionals—collaborate and clash (Conrad, 2005 ; Jutel, 2014 ; Payer, 1992) .  \nStudies have shown how the diagnostic process gives biomedical professionals control over people’s bodies and experiences (Jutel & Buetow, 2007), increases the number of pharmaceutical customers (Conrad & Leiter, 2008 ; Ebeling, 2011), helps patients gain social-familial-occupational recognition and legitimation (Charmaz, 1991 ; Zavestoski et al., 2004), changes medical policies to improve treatment (Epstein, 1996; Rosenberg, 2006), and, especially relevant for LGBTQI groups, changes in diagnostic criteria (e.g., removing homosexuality from the DSM in 1973; the term“gender dysphoria” replaced the term“gender identity disorder” in the DSM-5) and medical practices (Davis, 2011 ; Eckhert, 2016) . The sociology of diagnosis rests on the assumption that what medical practitioners seek to diagnose, or what i","cbCaiv0uW7lJvdu5","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiv0uW7lJvdu5","pdf",699093,17,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction","[{\"question\":\"What social role does VSC diagnosis play according to the abstract?\",\"answer\":\"VSC diagnosis is described as a powerful social act that shapes social realities for patients, doctors, and families by linking biological characteristics with sociocultural norms about gender and fertility.\"},{\"question\":\"How do Israeli medical professionals approach VSC in fertility and prenatal contexts?\",\"answer\":\"The research contrasts two trends: increased recognition of VSC individuals’ rights to make decisions about their bodies and greater reliance on genetic testing to prevent VSC conditions.\"},{\"question\":\"What sources of data were used to study VSC-related practices?\",\"answer\":\"The study uses in-depth interviews with 27 biomedical professionals from hospitals in Israel and collects data on preimplantation genetic testing cycles at three central hospitals to identify VSC genetic conditions.\"}]","Imagining and Preventing the Future Existence of Bodies with Variations in Sex Characteristics | PDF",1790574208,43]