Hair, Hormones & Ghosts: How Race is Submerged in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

• In Event: Racialised Bodies and Knowledges

Abstract

Contemporary public health initiatives have prioritized research that addresses both health disparities and post-genomic innovation. Race is often medicalized as an independent risk factor for disease outcomes, and it is typically included in studies without theoretical justification, consistent criteria or even clear definitions. In polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), racial and gendered assumptions about testosterone and women’s hairiness are part of the diagnosis itself. While gendered preoccupations about hormones are well established in STS, both testosterone and hair also have long histories of misuse as markers of racial difference. Drawing from Star’s seminal concept, we trace how researchers triangulate measures of circulating androgens and body hair to define PCOS. Starting with the gold-standards of evidence-based medicine, we evaluate the claims and evidentiary practices that link women’s perceived hairiness (hirsutism) to both racial difference and testosterone levels. Researchers rarely make the direct link between testosterone and race explicit. However, despite ambiguities and inconsistencies in the evidence linking testosterone levels to hirsutism and hirsutism to race, the assumed racial character of testosterone forms the “ghostly linkage” that animates and bolsters these claims. While not enacted as a diagnostic criterion, metabolic risk has become an organizing principle for PCOS. Through its link to hirsutism, race becomes a risk factor for PCOS, which is glossed in turn as a risk factor for metabolic disease. By constructing an attenuated causal chain from race to disease, the literature recirculates but submerges racial claims, rendering them implicit but actionable.

Authors

• Elizabeth Carlin, CUNY Graduate Center

• Brandon Kramer