« A fairly typical boy », « a fairly typical girl »

les stades de Tanner, une cristallisation photographique de la binarité du sexe biologique

Abstract

The Tanner stages consist of a series of photographs making possible the evaluation of pubertal development in both girls and boys. These stages are still used in clinical practice and in medical research, but have their origins in the 1950s. This article proposes to revisit the context in which this specific artefact was produced, and to examine the manner in which it is involved in the sociohistorical construction of a binary vision of the so-called biological sex. As a medical and scientific object, puberty is indeed a critical site of gender production, reproduction and reconfiguration.