To understand masculine and feminine social and political history in the second half of the 20th century, one must first understand the lexical history of the term gender, which did not become an attribute of human beings until 1955 when John Money introduced the concept of gender role to refer to the masculine or feminine presentation of individuals whose genital organs, by reason of birth defect, were anatomically neither completely male or completely female, but hermaphroditic. In this book, Money explores the history of gender differentiation and its impact on contemporary, postmodern social constructionist explanations of male and female. He argues that the nature vs nurture dichotomy should be abandoned in favour of a paradigm of nature/critical period/nurture. The book further discusses how some gender differences are phylogenetically shared by all people and others are ontologically unique to an individual.

This book offers a rigorous analysis of the contemporary ideologies of gender and places the work of controversial sexologist John Money at the center of its analysis, demonstrating the influence of his ideas of what it means to be a sexed subject.

The Transgender Studies Reader Remix assembles 50 previously published articles to orient students and scholars alike to current directions in the fast-evolving interdisciplinary field of transgender studies. The volume is organized into ten thematic sections on trans studies’ engagements with feminist theory, queer theory, Black studies, science studies, Indigeneity and coloniality, history, biopolitics, cultural production, the posthumanities, and intersectional approaches to embodied difference. It includes a selection of highly cited works from the two-volume The Transgender Studies Reader, more recently published essays, and some older articles in intersecting fields that are in conversation with where transgender studies is today. Editors Susan Stryker and Dylan McCarthy Blackston provide a foreword, an introduction, and a short abstract of each article that, taken together, document key texts and interdisciplinary connections foundational to the evolution of transgender studies over the past 30 years. A handy overview for scholars, activists, and all those new to the field, this volume is also ideally suited for use as a textbook in undergraduate or graduate courses in gender studies.

When Deborah Rudacille learned that a close friend had decided to transition from female to male, she felt compelled to understand why. Coming at the controversial subject of transsexualism from several angles–historical, sociological, psychological, medical–Rudacille discovered that gender variance is anything but new, that changing one’s gender has been met with both acceptance and hostility through the years, and that gender identity, like sexual orientation, appears to be inborn, not learned, though in some people the sex of the body does not match the sex of the brain. Informed not only by meticulous research, but also by the author’s interviews with prominent members of the transgender community, The Riddle of Gender is a sympathetic and wise look at a sexual revolution that calls into question many of our most deeply held assumptions about what it means to be a man, a woman, and a human being.

This book explores the contexts for gender identity development in early childhood education, examining how early childhood educators’ views on children’s gender identity influence their practice in Australia. The author utilizes feminist post-structuralism, queer theory and performativity as theoretical approaches, and feminist post-structuralist discourse and thematic analyses. The book captures the voices of educators and developers of curriculum documents to explore how gender expansive environments can be created when such environments are socially and politically contentious. It then identifies discourses that enable and constrain the building of pro-diversity spaces and contexts in early childhood education, while considering how to disrupt normative notions of gender and promote the deployment of discursive agency.

This book challenges law’s reliance on neurology’s brain-sex binary. The brain has become the latest candidate in a historical search for a reliable and fixed biological marker of ‘true sex’ that has permeated every aspect of Western culture, including law. As definitions of the sexed and gendered body have become ever more contentious, the development and dissemination of brain-sex theories have come to dominate popular understanding of LGBTI+ identities. But, this book argues, the brain is no more helpful than earlier biological measures in ensuring just outcomes. Examining how law determines and differentiates ‘male’ and ‘female’ in two contested areas of sexed identity –through a discussion of Australian cases authorising medical interventions to alter the embodied sex characteristics of transgender minors and intersex minors –the book demonstrates an incoherence in the legal understanding of gender identity development. As the brain too fails as a convincing biological anchor for the binary sex categories of male and female, law must, it is argued, retreat from its aspiration to create, define, and regulate artificially bounded sex categories of male and female. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students in a range of disciplines who are working at the intersection of law, gender, and sexuality.

In 1955, the controversial and innovative sexologist John Money first used the term “gender” in a way that we all now take for granted: to describe a human characteristic. Money’s work broke new ground and gave currency to medical ideas about human sexuality. As an ardent advocate for sexual liberation, he became something of a fixture in the popular imagination. This book cuts through Money’s talent for polemic and self-promotion by digging into the substance of Money’s theories and achievements. It offers, for the first time, a balanced and probing textual analysis of this pioneering scholar’s writing to assess Money’s profound impact on the debates and research on sexuality and gender that dominated the last half of the twentieth century. Through his analysis, Goldie recovers Money’s brilliance and insight from simplistic dismissals of his work due to his involvement in the tragic David Reimer case, while never losing sight of his flaws.