Since the 1600s, travelers, scientists, and doctors have claimed that “hermaphroditism” and intersex are disproportionately common among black South Africans. In Envisioning African Intersex Amanda Lock Swarr debunks this claim by interrogating contemporary intersex medicine and demonstrating its indivisibility from colonial ideologies and scientific racism. Tracing the history of racialized research that underpins medical and scientific premises of gendered bodies, Swarr analyzes...

Argues that South Africa's apartheid system of racial segregation relied on an unexamined but interrelated system of sexed oppression that was at once both rigid and flexible.Honorable Mention, 2013 Ruth Benedict Book Prize presented by the Association for Queer AnthropologyHonorable Mention, 2014 Distinguished Book Award presented by the Section on Sexualities of the American Sociological AssociationWinner of...

Investigates the theory and practice of transnational feminist approaches to scholarship and activism.Provocative, timely, and global, this volume offers a critical and grounded engagement with transnational feminism through the lens of praxis-the juncture of theory and practice. In so doing, it grapples with questions of power and representation while remaining deeply committed to radical critiques and agendas of transnational and postcolonial feminisms. Long-time...

No rest ye frightened gentlemenFull of horror and dismay…When the St. Wenceslas Episcopal Church choir bus gets trapped in a snowdrift on the way to a Christmas Eve competition, the eleven members find their way to an inn run by the mysterious Innkeeper. Though disappointed that they won't get to the competition, they decide to make the best of it by opening their Secret Santa gifts.But the gifts they open are not the original presents they bought for each other. Ev...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER and a Times, Spectator and Observer Book of the Year 2021‘In the first decade of this century, it was unthinkable that a gender-critical book could even be published by a prominent publishing house, let alone become a bestseller.’ Louise Perry, New Statesman‘Thank goodness for Helen Joyce.’ Christina Patterson, Sunday Times‘Rea...

This “insightful and instructive primer” debunks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender issues—“buy this book and share it with [your] whole family” (Bust)From Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to Thomas Beatie (“the pregnant man”) and transgender youth, coverage of trans lives has been exploding—yet so much misinformation persists. Bringing together the medical, social, psychological, and political aspects of being trans in the...

Rethinking Who We Are takes a non-conventional approach to understanding human difference in Canada. Contributors to this volume critically re-examine Canadian identity by rethinking who we are and what we are becoming by scrutinizing the “totality” of difference. Included are analyses on the macro differences among Canadians, such as the disparities produced from unequal treatment under Canadian law, human rights legislation and health care. Contributors also explore the diversit...

A physician-anthropologist explores how public health practices--from epidemiological modeling to outbreak containment--help perpetuate global inequities.In Epidemic Illusions, Eugene Richardson, a physician and an anthropologist, contends that public health practices--from epidemiological modeling and outbreak containment to Big Data and causal inference--play an essential role in perpetuating a range of global inequities. Drawing on postcolonial theory, medical a...

An incisive case for trans justice from a powerful new voiceIn this brilliant introduction to trans politics, journalist Shon Faye gives an incisive overview of systemic transphobia and argues that the struggle for trans rights is necessary to any struggle for social justice.So often, Faye argues, trans people are understood as a “side issue,” the subjects of a toxic and increasingly polarized debate which generates reliable controversy for newspapers and t...

Winner, 2022 PSA Women's Caucus Prize in Feminist Philosophy of Science AwardThe public has voiced concern over the adverse effects of vaccines from the moment Dr. Edward Jenner introduced the first smallpox vaccine in 1796. The controversy over childhood immunization intensified in 1998, when Dr. Andrew Wakefield linked the MMR vaccine to autism. Although Wakefield’s findings were later discredited and retracted, and medical and scientific evidence suggests routine immunizations h...

The term "gender" was first distinguished from "sex" in the 1950s when psychologists began to discuss the idea of "gender roles," behaviors and responsibilities given to people by a society rather than flowing from their biology. Since then, leaders across disciplines have sought to better understand the roles of biology, psychology, and culture on gender. New language has emerged alongside rich scientific inquiry and research. Increased visibility of transgender and nonbinary communities ...

It is only recently that transgenderism has been accepted as a disorder for which treatment is available. In the 1990s, a political movement of transgender activism coalesced to campaign for transgender rights. Considerable social, political and legal changes are occurring in response and there is increasing acceptance by governments and many other organisations and actors of the legitimacy of these rights.This provocative and controversial book explores the consequences of these c...