Livre - Beyond trans

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 bathroom doors, why do we need to mark people and places with sex categories? Do they serve a real purpose or do these places and forms just become measures and 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 further questioning whether a category for transgender and gender-fluid people would be any different. Why not just abolish these sex markers in the first place? 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 move past these gender-identity classifications. This important book examines four areas where we need to rethink our sex-classification systems: sex-marked identity documents such as birth certificates, driver’s licenses, and passports; sex-segregated public restrooms and locker rooms; single-sex colleges; and sex-segregated sports. Speaking compellingly 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 activists and practitioners in search of pragmatic ways to make our world more inclusive of diverse intersectional sex identities, and transgender and gender-non-conforming people in particular, Davis’s recommendations provide much-needed practical solutions to help work through this complex issue. A provocative .call to action, Beyond Trans pushes us to think about how we can work to make America truly inclusive to all citizens. HEATH FOGG DAVIS is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University in Philadelphia and is an appointed member of Philadelphia’s Mayoral Commission on LGBT Affairs. He is the author of The Ethics of Transracial Adoption. “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 “Why–and when–is it important to say whether somebody is a man or a woman? Those are the provocative questions Heath Fogg Davis poses in this informative exploration of gender markers… But even more provocative are the questions of how we determine what counts as ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the first place, and why we imagine there can be only two genders. This is a great book for students and specialists alike who are interested in the profound transformation of gender we are all experiencing in the early twenty-first century.” –SUSAN STRYKER, co-editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly and author of Transgender History “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 “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 “In a lively and accessible style, Davis questions the administrative and social practices of labeling individuals’ sex or gender solely in correspondence with the binary categories of female or male. He challenges the validity of sex-identifying documents and sex-segregated facilities or institutions–even competitive sports–as solutions to privacy, safety, or equality. This is a thought-provoking and highly relevant subject, perfect for today’s political and cultural debates.” –JAMISON GREEN, author of Becoming a Visible Man