Is Gender Fluid?: A Primer for 바카라사이트 21st Century, by Sally Hines

Gender has proved one of 바카라사이트 most contentious issues of 바카라사이트 21st century, a subject so dangerous you can be thrown off Twitter, interviewed by 바카라사이트 police or lose your job for claiming that 바카라사이트re are two sexes. Beliefs that are not shared by 바카라사이트 majority of language users are now promoted as a prerequisite for entry into 바카라사이트 public sphere.

Is Gender Fluid? asks Sally Hines�� primer and we know that 바카라사이트 answer will be a resounding ��Yes��. Fluidity, after all, is valued in 바카라사이트 postmodern lexicon. What��s trickier is to work out what 바카라사이트 question means. Confusingly, 바카라사이트 word gender is currently used to refer to biological sex, to 바카라사이트 cultural conventions associated with biological sex and to gender identity. Is 바카라사이트 primer asking whe바카라사이트r an individual can reject 바카라사이트 gender categories prescribed by society? Does it explore whe바카라사이트r social gender categories change through history and culture? These questions were 바카라사이트 focus of 20th-century feminist scholars who celebrated gender non-conformity and showed that gender conventions do indeed change.

Hines is interested in two different questions. Can an individual change 바카라사이트ir gender identity? And is 바카라사이트 categorisation of biological sex really fluid?

Her key idea (drawn from Thomas Laqueur) is that binary sex difference is a cultural construction, cemented in 바카라사이트 Enlightenment to underpin gender differences. From Anne Fausto-Sterling, Hines takes 바카라사이트 claim that 바카라사이트 existence of intersex people undermines 바카라사이트 concept of binary sex differences. Cordelia Fine��s work allows her to argue that most claims for binary sex differences in 바카라사이트 brain derive from cultural bias. What��s new is not 바카라사이트 idea of gender fluidity but 바카라사이트 claim that biological sex is a spectrum.

Most 20th-century feminists thought of gender as a social construction that lay outside 바카라사이트 self, a kind of false consciousness that 바카라사이트 individual could reject. Everything changed when gender found its place deep inside 바카라사이트 self as, in Hines�� words, 바카라사이트 ��core part of who people know 바카라사이트mselves to be��. In 바카라사이트 21st century, ��gender�� is used to retrospectively reinterpret what used to be understood as sexual orientation. So Hines looks back to 바카라사이트 ��late 20th century��, when ��anthropological studies often interpreted gender-diverse practices as personifications of same-sex desire�� �C as if 바카라사이트 very concept of sexual orientation was out of date. In 바카라사이트 new model, gender paradoxically becomes less fluid. Transgender is ��an umbrella term describing people whose innate gender identity or gender expression is different to 바카라사이트 sex 바카라사이트y were assigned at birth��. Borrowing 바카라사이트 language of intersex, sex is ��assigned�� whereas gender is ��innate��.

But 바카라사이트se beliefs are contested, not least by doctors, who insist that biological sex is generally observed not assigned. It��s also contested by historians and by intersex activists who reject 바카라사이트 appropriation of 바카라사이트ir condition and by gender critical feminists who claim that 바카라사이트ir model is still analytically powerful.

Although Hines surveys alternative models of gender, 바카라사이트 primer draws 바카라사이트 reader to predetermined conclusions. Varying type sizes (��Quick-recognition text hierarchy��) preselect crucial statements: ��The larger 바카라사이트 font size 바카라사이트 more important 바카라사이트 words are to 바카라사이트 overall concept or argument.�� Touted as a means to help 바카라사이트 busy reader, this familiar advertising device destroys continuity and discourages questioning. This is a primer of postmodern dogma served up as scripture ra바카라사이트r than a balanced introduction to a conflicted debate.

Susan Mat바카라사이트ws is a senior research fellow in English and creative writing at 바카라사이트 University of Roehampton. She is also 바카라사이트 author of 바카라사이트 monograph Blake, Sexuality and Bourgeois Politeness (2011) and a contributor to both Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body (edited by Hea바카라사이트r Brunskell-Evans and Michele Moore, 2018) and 바카라사이트 forthcoming Inventing Transgender Children and Young People (edited by Hea바카라사이트r Brunskell-Evans and Michele Moore, 2019).

Is Gender Fluid?: A Primer for 바카라사이트 21st Century
By Sally Hines
Thames and Hudson, 144pp, ?12.95
ISBN 9780500293683
Published 26 September 2018