The Phall-O-meter is a satirical measure that critiques medical standards for normal male and female phalluses.[1][2][3] The tool was developed by Kiira Triea (Denise Tree) based on a concept by Suzanne Kessler and is used to demonstrate concerns with the medical treatment of intersex bodies.
The Phall-O-meter was developed by Kiira Triea[4][5] based on a concept by professor of psychology Suzanne Kessler. Kessler summarized the range of medically acceptable infant penis and clitoris sizes in the book Lessons from the Intersexed.[6] Kessler states that normative tables for clitoral length appeared in the late 1980s, while normative tables for penis length appeared more than forty years before that. She combined those standard tables to demonstrate an "intermediate area of phallic length that neither females nor males are permitted to have", that is, a clitoris larger than 9mm or a penis shorter than 25mm.[6]
In her 2000 book Sexing the Body, Anne Fausto-Sterling describes how members of the intersex rights movement had developed a "phall-o-meter".[10] Fausto-Sterling notes that, despite the existence of normative tables, clinicians' practices are more subjective: "doctors may use only their personal impressions to decide" on an appropriate clitoris size.[11] Similarly, in a paper presented to the American Sociological Association in 2003, Sharon Preves cites Melissa Hendricks, writing in the Johns Hopkins Magazine, November 1993 on subjective clinical norms and their relationship to surgical management:[12]
In truth, the choice of gender still often comes down to what the external genitals look like. Doctors who work with children with ambiguous genitalia sometimes put it this way, "You can make a hole [vagina] but you can't build a pole [penis]." Surgeons can decrease the size of a phallus and create a vagina, but constructing a penis that will grow as the child grows is another matter [...]
While the scale as used by the Intersex Society of North America was a satirical tool for activism, numerous clinical scales and measurement systems exist to define genitals as normal male or female, or "abnormal", including the orchidometer,[15]Prader scale[16] and Quigley scale.[17]
^Feder, Ellen K. (April 2009). "Imperatives of Normality: From 'Intersex' to 'Disorders of Sex Development'". GLQ. 15 (2): 225–247. doi:10.1215/10642684-2008-135. S2CID145807168.
^Preves, Sharon (August 16, 2003). "Hermaphrodites With Attitude: The Intersex Patients' Rights Movement and Clinical Reform". annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
^Dreger, Alice D. (2006). "Intersex and Human Rights: The Long View". Ethics and Intersex. International Library of Ethics, Law and the New Medicine. Vol. 29. pp. 73–86. doi:10.1007/1-4220-4314-7_4. ISBN1-4020-4313-9.
^Australia (2013). Involuntary or coerced sterilisation of intersex people in Australia. Canberra: Community Affairs References Committee. ISBN978-1-74229-917-4
^Quigley, Charmian A.; Bellis, Alessandra De; Marschke, Keith B.; El-Awady, Mostafa K.; Wilson, Elizabeth M.; French, Frank S. (June 1995). "Androgen Receptor Defects: Historical, Clinical, and Molecular Perspectives*". Endocrine Reviews. 16 (3): 271–321. doi:10.1210/edrv-16-3-271. PMID7671849.
