Winner, Sexuality and Politics Book Award - American Political Science Association
Finalist, PROSE Award - Government and Politics
What the evolving fight for transgender rights reveals about government power, regulations, and the law
Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to “F” or “M” (or more recently “X”) depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you’re dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, noted transgender advocate and scholar Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people.
Providing examples from different states, government agencies, and court cases, Currah explains how transgender people struggle to navigate this confusing and contradictory web of legal rules, definitions, and classifications. Unlike most gender scholars, who are concerned with what the concepts of sex and gender really mean, Currah is more interested in what the category of “sex” does for governments. What does “sex” do on our driver’s licenses, in how we play sports, in how we access health care, or in the bathroom we use? Why do prisons have very different rules than social service agencies? Why is there such resistance to people changing their sex designation? Or to dropping it from identity documents altogether?
In this thought-provoking and original volume, Sex Is as Sex Does reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex classification policies in the United States and shows what the regulation of transgender identity can tell us about society’s approach to sex and gender writ large.Ultimately, Currah demonstrates that, because the difficulties transgender people face are not just the result of transphobia but also stem from larger injustices, an identity-based transgender rights movement will not, by itself, be up to the task of resolving them.
"[Currah's] approach leads to a set of urgent and surprising conclusions for transgender rights advocates, and indeed for anyone invested in a more just society in which states do not take an interest in our gender identities." - The New York Review of Books
"Marvelously inventive." - The Baffler
"This volume will change the way we think, talk about and work for (trans)gender policy and justice." - Ms. Magazine
"A model for scholar-activists across disciplines. Sex Is as Sex Does disentangles the contradictions of liberal transgender rights legal advocacy and reconnects trans issues to the feminist movement." - Dissent Magazine
"Vital analysis of the current state of trans politics." - them.
"In Sex is as Sex Does, Paisley Currah shifts our focus from what sex is to how it is crafted by the state - and to what effect. It's arguably one of the most important trans studies books to come out in the last five years." - The New Inquiry
"Currah directs us away from these messy, interdisciplinary arguments (where no one side ever persuades the other) to look at what sex does each time it appears on a document. Reading Currah feels much like having someone come up and move your binoculars ever so gently to the left so that you suddenly see both the forest and the trees. When I see the terrifying arguments used by lawmakers to pass anti-trans legislation, I am convinced that Currah—for whom gender and sex are necessary to consider and understood to be complicated—[is] among our best feminist thinkers." - LIBER: A Feminist Review
"Currah’s discussions about identity politics are especially cogent and caring; he usefully distinguishes between strategies to ensure state recognition (e.g., of one’s identity, even within problematic systems) and state redistribution (reforming the state to ensure that everyone has the resources they need to thrive, including trans people), and their interconnected stakes." - Psychology of Women Quarterly
"Currah persuasively shows that the impetus behind state actors’ definitions of sex at any given juncture is not some ontological belief about what sex is but a much more pragmatic set of considerations about the specific governance projects that sex classification is being used to further in each context. This is the insight captured in the book’s title: sex is as sex does." - Perspectives on Politics
"In the face of the present moment’s relentless culture-war legislation against transgender people, Sex Is as Sex Does is a gift to educators who want to teach transgender studies from a political science perspective. This book is accessible and clearly written in a way that makes it especially suitable for undergraduate students as well as people outside of academia who want to deepen their understanding of transgender politics." - WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly
"Sex classification shapes everyone’s access to a host of resources and institutions, including travel documents, welfare programs, drug treatment centers, homeless shelters, and, yes, bathrooms. It also influences one’s fate in the more explicitly punitive corners of the state—at immigration facilities and in prisons... As right-wing politicians and their shock troops attempt to redefine sex in increasingly coordinated, narrow, and punitive ways, we must keep saying for ourselves who and what we are." - The Nation
"Moving forward, gender galaxies may be the next theoretical framework to help us think about the meaning, performing, and future of sex/gender. At least, this is what Currah encourages us to do upon completion of this thought-provoking, rich text. While asking readers to open their imaginative boundaries surrounding the concept of sex/gender, Currah does not discount the lived utility of these bounded gender identity forms that construct new citizen-subjects." - Politics & Gender
"As anti-transgender legislation is on the rise, this book offers a rich, robust way to understand the complex relationship between governmentality, sexuality, and freedom. Considering that a greater percentage of my students are now identifying as gender nonbinary and queer, I found this book incredibly helpful for teaching students the history of how and where the critiques of the heteropatriarchal sex/gender system were codified and resisted." - Politics & Gender
"The book’s hyper-readable — dare I say fun? — prose artfully navigates an archive of governmentally… An essential, course-correcting contribution to the field of trans and gender studies, as well as feminist, social, and political theory, Currah’s book serves as an extra point for those not particularly versed in these interdisciplines." - TSQ, Transgender Studies Quarterly
"Moving the focus from 'what is the correct definition of sex' to 'how do the state and its subdivisions define it' is brilliant. Instead of asking how we can make governments adopt the 'correct' definition, Currah asks, why have different entities adopted the definitions they use? A wonderful book." - Carole S. Vance
"Currah’s triumph is that he brings sex and the state back in, and there are obvious benefits of this approach. Most notably, Currah’s argument to replace our understanding of sex as an identity with a critical understanding of sex as an effect of the state reaches across the imagery trans/cis divide promulgated so vehemently by trans-exclusive feminists. He accomplishes this by underscoring that all are harmed by the state’s involvement in using sex as a rubric for recognition and distribution." - Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies
Формат: Скан PDf
Finalist, PROSE Award - Government and Politics
What the evolving fight for transgender rights reveals about government power, regulations, and the law
Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to “F” or “M” (or more recently “X”) depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you’re dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, noted transgender advocate and scholar Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people.
Providing examples from different states, government agencies, and court cases, Currah explains how transgender people struggle to navigate this confusing and contradictory web of legal rules, definitions, and classifications. Unlike most gender scholars, who are concerned with what the concepts of sex and gender really mean, Currah is more interested in what the category of “sex” does for governments. What does “sex” do on our driver’s licenses, in how we play sports, in how we access health care, or in the bathroom we use? Why do prisons have very different rules than social service agencies? Why is there such resistance to people changing their sex designation? Or to dropping it from identity documents altogether?
In this thought-provoking and original volume, Sex Is as Sex Does reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex classification policies in the United States and shows what the regulation of transgender identity can tell us about society’s approach to sex and gender writ large.Ultimately, Currah demonstrates that, because the difficulties transgender people face are not just the result of transphobia but also stem from larger injustices, an identity-based transgender rights movement will not, by itself, be up to the task of resolving them.
"[Currah's] approach leads to a set of urgent and surprising conclusions for transgender rights advocates, and indeed for anyone invested in a more just society in which states do not take an interest in our gender identities." - The New York Review of Books
"Marvelously inventive." - The Baffler
"This volume will change the way we think, talk about and work for (trans)gender policy and justice." - Ms. Magazine
"A model for scholar-activists across disciplines. Sex Is as Sex Does disentangles the contradictions of liberal transgender rights legal advocacy and reconnects trans issues to the feminist movement." - Dissent Magazine
"Vital analysis of the current state of trans politics." - them.
"In Sex is as Sex Does, Paisley Currah shifts our focus from what sex is to how it is crafted by the state - and to what effect. It's arguably one of the most important trans studies books to come out in the last five years." - The New Inquiry
"Currah directs us away from these messy, interdisciplinary arguments (where no one side ever persuades the other) to look at what sex does each time it appears on a document. Reading Currah feels much like having someone come up and move your binoculars ever so gently to the left so that you suddenly see both the forest and the trees. When I see the terrifying arguments used by lawmakers to pass anti-trans legislation, I am convinced that Currah—for whom gender and sex are necessary to consider and understood to be complicated—[is] among our best feminist thinkers." - LIBER: A Feminist Review
"Currah’s discussions about identity politics are especially cogent and caring; he usefully distinguishes between strategies to ensure state recognition (e.g., of one’s identity, even within problematic systems) and state redistribution (reforming the state to ensure that everyone has the resources they need to thrive, including trans people), and their interconnected stakes." - Psychology of Women Quarterly
"Currah persuasively shows that the impetus behind state actors’ definitions of sex at any given juncture is not some ontological belief about what sex is but a much more pragmatic set of considerations about the specific governance projects that sex classification is being used to further in each context. This is the insight captured in the book’s title: sex is as sex does." - Perspectives on Politics
"In the face of the present moment’s relentless culture-war legislation against transgender people, Sex Is as Sex Does is a gift to educators who want to teach transgender studies from a political science perspective. This book is accessible and clearly written in a way that makes it especially suitable for undergraduate students as well as people outside of academia who want to deepen their understanding of transgender politics." - WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly
"Sex classification shapes everyone’s access to a host of resources and institutions, including travel documents, welfare programs, drug treatment centers, homeless shelters, and, yes, bathrooms. It also influences one’s fate in the more explicitly punitive corners of the state—at immigration facilities and in prisons... As right-wing politicians and their shock troops attempt to redefine sex in increasingly coordinated, narrow, and punitive ways, we must keep saying for ourselves who and what we are." - The Nation
"Moving forward, gender galaxies may be the next theoretical framework to help us think about the meaning, performing, and future of sex/gender. At least, this is what Currah encourages us to do upon completion of this thought-provoking, rich text. While asking readers to open their imaginative boundaries surrounding the concept of sex/gender, Currah does not discount the lived utility of these bounded gender identity forms that construct new citizen-subjects." - Politics & Gender
"As anti-transgender legislation is on the rise, this book offers a rich, robust way to understand the complex relationship between governmentality, sexuality, and freedom. Considering that a greater percentage of my students are now identifying as gender nonbinary and queer, I found this book incredibly helpful for teaching students the history of how and where the critiques of the heteropatriarchal sex/gender system were codified and resisted." - Politics & Gender
"The book’s hyper-readable — dare I say fun? — prose artfully navigates an archive of governmentally… An essential, course-correcting contribution to the field of trans and gender studies, as well as feminist, social, and political theory, Currah’s book serves as an extra point for those not particularly versed in these interdisciplines." - TSQ, Transgender Studies Quarterly
"Moving the focus from 'what is the correct definition of sex' to 'how do the state and its subdivisions define it' is brilliant. Instead of asking how we can make governments adopt the 'correct' definition, Currah asks, why have different entities adopted the definitions they use? A wonderful book." - Carole S. Vance
"Currah’s triumph is that he brings sex and the state back in, and there are obvious benefits of this approach. Most notably, Currah’s argument to replace our understanding of sex as an identity with a critical understanding of sex as an effect of the state reaches across the imagery trans/cis divide promulgated so vehemently by trans-exclusive feminists. He accomplishes this by underscoring that all are harmed by the state’s involvement in using sex as a rubric for recognition and distribution." - Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies
Формат: Скан PDf
https://www.yakaboo.ua/ua/sex-is-as-sex-does-governing-transgender-identity-3293385.html