Synopses & Reviews
Goes beyond transgender to question the need for gender classification.
Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places and forms just mechanisms of exclusion? Heath Fogg Davis offers an impassioned call to rethink the usefulness of dividing the world into not just Male and Female categories but even additional categories of Transgender and gender fluid. Davis, himself a transgender man, explores the underlying gender-enforcing policies and customs in American life that have led to transgender bathroom bills, college admissions controversies, and more, arguing that it is necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters.
He examines four areas where we need to re-think our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking from his own experience and drawing upon major cases of sex discrimination in the news and in the courts, Davis presents a persuasive case for challenging how individuals are classified according to sex and offers concrete recommendations for alleviating sex identity discrimination and sex-based disadvantage.
For anyone in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive, Davis’ recommendations provide much-needed practical guidance about how to work through this complex issue. A provocative call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think how we can work to make America truly inclusive of all people.
Review
"In this important and original book, Davis argues that most bureaucracies should get out of the business of administering sex by classifying people as Female or Male. Drawing on a number of case studies, including identity documents, bathroom bills, college admissions, and sex-testing for athletes, Davis shows most policies for sex classification are not rationally related to legitimate government interests. Drawing on a range of literatures and methods, including critical race scholarship, feminist theory, auto-ethnography, and doctrinal legal analysis, Beyond Trans is applied political theory at its best." Paisley Currah, co-editor, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
Review
"Both clear-eyed and eye-opening, Beyond Trans challenges all of us — gender-nonconforming and cisgender, trans and gender-conforming, individuals and organizations — to ask ourselves why and how we are using sex classifications, what harm they might be doing, and just how they’re even defining 'sex.' A provocative and compelling book." Joshua Gamson, author of Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to Kinship
Review
"Davis challenges readers to consider why binary sex identity categories are used so pervasively in our everyday lives, and whether such routine categorization is needed... The author, a transgender man of color, approaches this topic as both an expert scholar and an individual whose own identity has been subject to hostile scrutiny." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Davis argues that current precedent that restricts discriminating against people on the basis of gender could be used to challenge laws or practices that discriminate against people perceived as falling outside the gender binary. More broadly, we can all work toward a change in perspective. Demanding that people conform to stereotypes of masculinity or femininity does everybody harm. So instead of trying to fit more people into society’s preexisting categories, we might try rethinking whether we need those categories at all." Quartz.com
Synopsis
Beyond Trans pushes the conversation on gender identity to its limits: questioning the need for gender categories in the first place. Whether on birth certificates or college admissions applications or on bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or are these places and forms just mechanisms of exclusion? Heath Fogg Davis offers an impassioned call to rethink the usefulness of dividing the world into not just Male and Female categories but even additional categories of Transgender and gender fluid. Davis, himself a transgender man, explores the underlying gender-enforcing policies and customs in American life that have led to transgender bathroom bills, college admissions controversies, and more, arguing that it is necessary for our society to take real steps to challenge the assumption that gender matters.
He examines four areas where we need to re-think our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver s licenses and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking from his own experience and drawing upon major cases of sex discrimination in the news and in the courts, Davis presents a persuasive case for challenging how individuals are classified according to sex and offers concrete recommendations for alleviating sex identity discrimination and sex-based disadvantage.
For anyone in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive, Davis recommendations provide much-needed practical guidance about how to work through this complex issue. A provocative call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think how we can work to make America truly inclusive of all people."
About the Author
Heath Fogg Davis is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University. He is the author of The Ethics of Transracial Adoption.
Heath Fogg Davis on PowellsBooks.Blog
The title of my book,
Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter?, sounds rhetorical. But it isn’t. I want readers to really ask that question. Sometimes gender is relevant, but in many cases it isn’t. Gendered signs tell us which restroom to enter, and bureaucratic forms prompt us to check male or female boxes...
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