Anne Fausto-Sterling Quotes

Some quotes from Anne-Fausto Sterling (2000) Sexing the Body

“The intersexual or transgender person who presents a social gender…that conflicts with h/her physical genitals often risks h/her life” (p. 110)

“Euro-American ways of understanding how the world works depend heavily on the use of dualisms – pairs of opposing concepts, objects, or belief systems” (p. 21).

“In European and American culture we understand transsexuals to be individuals who have been born with ‘good’ male or ‘good’ female bodies.  Psychologically, however, they envision themselves as members of the opposite sex.  A transsexual’s drive to have his/her body conform with his/her psyche is so strong that many seek medical aid to transform thei bodies hormonally and ultimately surgically….Some transsexual organizations have begun to support the concept of transgenderism, which constitutes a more radical re-visioning of sex and gender” (p. 107).

“The transgender theorist Martine Rothblatt proposes a chromatic system of gender that would differentiate among hundreds of different personality types. T he permutations of her suggested seven levels each of aggression, nurturance, and eroticism could lead to 343 (7x7x7) shades of gender” (p. 108).

"Several Native American cultures, for example, define a third gender, which may include people whom we would label as homosexual, transsexual, or intersexual but also people we would label as male or female.  Anthropologists have described other groups, such as the Hijras of India, that contain individuals whom we in the West would label intersexes, transsexuals, effeminate men, and eunuchs.  As with the varied Native American categories, the Hijras vary in their origins and gender characteristics.  Anthropologists debate about how to interpret Native American gender systems.  What is important, however, is that the existence of other systems suggests that our is not inevitable." (p. 108-109)

“Melissa Scott wrote a novel entitled Shadow Man, which includes nine types of sexual preference and several genders, including fems (people with testes, XY chromosomes, and some aspects of female genitalia), herms (people with ovaries and testes), and mems (people with XX chromosomes and some aspects of male genitalia)” (p. 78-79).

Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.