Sex/Gender: A Feminist Paradox

This pair of 4-5 page essays seeks to rethink sex/gender distinction in light of the material turn. They argue that both sex/gender engage in ongoing imbrication of biological and cultural processes over time and that the... [ view full abstract ]

This pair of 4-5 page essays seeks to rethink sex/gender distinction in light of the material turn. They argue that both sex/gender engage in ongoing imbrication of biological and cultural processes over time and that the useful conceptual distinction between them is at the level of scale, rather than material difference. I theorize sex as transpiring at the individuating level of singular embodiment and subject formation, and gender as a racialized and collective process of identification and subjectivity. I thus argue—in two different modes and tones—that we reframe both sex/gender as processes of ongoing interaction between bodies and environments, rather than as a distinction between a physiological state (however influenced by culture we may understand that to be) and a social identification. The stakes of the public piece involve de-particularizing the trans* body, suggesting that gender is a medical, physiological, social, and affective phenomenon for all bodies.