Inventing Transgender Children and Young People by Michele Moore

From Anne Fausto-Sterling, Hines takes the claim that the existence of intersex people undermines the concept of binary sex differences.

Her key idea (drawn from Thomas Laqueur) is that binary sex difference is a cultural construction, cemented in the Enlightenment to underpin gender differences. Can an individual change their gender identity? And is the categorisation of biological sex really fluid? Hines is interested in two different questions.

Is the primer asking whether an individual can reject the gender categories prescribed by society? Does it explore whether social gender categories change through history and culture? These questions were the focus of 20th-century feminist scholars who celebrated gender non-conformity and showed that gender conventions do indeed change. Confusingly, the word gender is currently used to refer to biological sex, to the cultural conventions associated with biological sex and to gender identity. What’s trickier is to work out what the question means. Fluidity, after all, is valued in the postmodern lexicon. Is Gender Fluid? asks Sally Hines’ primer and we know that the answer will be a resounding “Yes”. Beliefs that are not shared by the majority of language users are now promoted as a prerequisite for entry into the public sphere. She is co-founder of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign (Her most recent publication is “The Medico-Legal ‘Making’ of ‘The Transgender Child’” in the Medical Law Review.Gender has proved one of the most contentious issues of the 21st century, a subject so dangerous you can be thrown off Twitter, interviewed by the police or lose your job for claiming that there are two sexes. Her current research analyses the relationship between surrogacy, pornography, prostitution and transgenderism. She is currently leading UN projects to advance the global agenda for inclusion.ĭr Heather Brunskell-Evans is a philosopher and social theorist, with particular expertise in the politics of medicine, the sexed body, and gender.

Her widely published work is focused on consultative participatory and human rights projects across the world to support children and families. She has worked internationally for more than 30 years, building research-led expertise to support inclusive education and communities. Michele Moore is Professor and Head of Centre for Social Justice and Global Responsibility at London South Bank University, Honorary Professor in the School of Health and Social Care at the University of Essex, UK, and Editor of the world-leading journal Disability and Society.

Inventing Transgender Children and Young People by Michele Moore