Sexing the Body - Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality

Anne Fausto-Sterling
Basic Books, New York, 2000
ISBN 0-465-07713-7

It is a boy or a girl? Our automatic first question about a new baby reveals how profoundly we believe that sex difference is natural and inborn, and how fundamental sex is to our conception of human identity. But, in fact, biologist and cultural critic Anne Fausto-Sterling shows in her brilliant and provocative new book that the answer to this seemingly basic question is more complex than we realize. In her probing critique of scientific, medical and popular understanding of sex, Fausto-Sterling uses an examination of research, medical practice and astonishing real-life cases to shake the very foundations of our ideas about sexual difference.

In lively an impassioned prose, Fauto-Sterling jumps head-on into highly charged debates about the meaning of masculinity and femininity, heterosexuality and homosexuality. What are the connections between bodily sex and gendered behavior? Is sexual identity biologically determined or the product of social convention? These debates are complicated by the fact that bodies do not fall neatly into the categories of male and female. What sex is a baby with genitals that seem to be both "male" and "female"? Is a woman with "masculine" chromosomes really a man? Delving into controversial cases - from the Italian soldier who shocked his regiment in 1601 by giving birth to a baby girl to the Spanish track star who was excluded form the 1988 Olympics because tests revealed that her cells sported a Y chromosome - Fausto-Sterling shows just how elusive hard and fast distinctions between the sexes really are.

We often think of science as beyond the reach of social and political debates, but in fact it is precisely such debates that have dictated the course of scientific research, from the very questions scientists pose to the experimental methods they employ. And modern surgical and chemical technologies - infant genital surgery, hormone treatments - let us re-fashion bodies according to our ideas of what they should be "naturally". Taking her cue from the burgeoning intersexual movement, Fausto-Sterling argues for an end to authoritarian medical intervention in intersex cases. Ultimately, Fausto-Sterling urges us to re-imagine more than just our labels for the parts and processes of the human body. Science and medical practice that move beyond dualistic assumptions about sex differences hold the promise of giving us a wonderfully rich picture of human complexity and diversity. In short, Sexing the Body calls for nothing less than a revolution in how we understand and structure human experience.