On Sex and Gender

"On Sex and Gender focuses on three sequential and consequential questions: What is sex-as opposed to gender? How does sex matter in our everyday lives? And how should it be reflected in law and policy? All three are front-and center in American politics: They are included in both of the major parties' political platforms. They are the subject of ongoing litigation in the federal courts and of highly contentious legislation on Capitol Hill. And they are a pivotal issue in the culture war between left and right playing out on battlegrounds from campuses and school boards to op-ed pages and corporate handbooks. Doriane Coleman challenges both sides to chart a new way forward. She argues that denying biological sex would have profound and detrimental effects on women's equal opportunity and on the health and welfare of society generally. Structural sexism needed to be dismantled-a true achievement of feminism and an ongoing fight-but sex blindness is not the next step forward. This book is a clear guide for reasonable Americans on the issue of gender and sex-something everyone is terrified to discuss. Coleman shows equally that the science is settled but there is a middle ground on protecting both women's rights and trans rights. She livens her narrative with a sequence of portraits of exceptional human beings who have fought to advance the cause of equality from legal pioneers like Myra Bradwell and Ketanji Brown Jackson to champion athletes like Caster Semenya and Cate Campbell to civil rights giants like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Pauli Murray. Above all, Coleman reminds us that sex-the male and the female body-is good for three reasons. Sex is good for procreation, it's good for sexual pleasure, and it's good for something in our natural lives to be beautiful"--