Sexing the body Book

It's remarkable how quickly some things can become dated in eleven years (transsexuals have a website!), but the scientific history given here still holds. Fausto-Sterling gives a remarkably thorough look at how our current ideas about sex, gender, identity and orientation all came to exist. The most striking fact she illuminates is how as our ideas changed, so did the way these things presented themselves in society.

There's something comforting about biological determinism, which is why people return to it again and again. The "born this way" mentality has deep roots in the human psyche, but Fausto-Sterling (a queer woman herself) offers a more complex vision. From the cellular level to the organism, to culture, to personal relationships and to personal history, we are defined. No single sphere of influence can truly be said to control everything and no sphere can operate in a vacuum. Though she doesn't make mention of epigenetics by name, the influence of history on our gene expression should make her point clear.

This was one of the best books examining gender and science I've ever read and I tore through it quickly. If someone doesn't have at least a rough understanding of some of the science she dissects it may be dry, but I found it absolutely fascinating, particularly with the way she began each chapter with the story of a specific individual.