Anne Fausto-Sterling, a scholar of human difference and a friend to intersex communities of the time, published Sexing the Body in 2000. The book introduced ideas that helped the intersex movement communicate with scholars and scientists, pushing for an acceptance of "sex" as a socially constructed and diverse terrain.

The statistic that 1.7% of people are intersex comes from Fausto-Sterling's work aggregating incidences by different medical diagnosis terms. Her concepts in an earlier article, "The Five Sexes," challenged most societies' two sex system as socially constructed. 

Dr. Fausto-Sterling's works remain popular staples for feminism and gender studies classes. Intersex activist Emi Koyama expanded on this in her 2001 project with the Intersex Society of North America, "Teaching Intersex Issues."

Sexing the Body released a new edition in 2020.