Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader

Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader is a much-needed exploration of the relationship between sex, gender and gender identity. Its multidisciplinary approach provides fascinating perspectives from the sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as biology, neuroscience, medicine, law, sociology and English literature. The 15 chapters are original contributions, authored by scholars who are leaders in their respective fields.

This thought-provoking collection offers significant methodological, theoretical and empirical insights into one of the most fraught debates in contemporary politics and academia. It provides a broad-ranging introduction to the issues central to questions about how and why sex matters from a range of disciplinary perspectives, drawing out the social, political and legal implications.

Questions addressed include:

• Is sex binary?
• What is a woman?
• Why do we need data on sex?

Also discussed are topics widely debated today such as sports, feminism, sex and inequality, sex-based rights, puberty suppression, criminal justice and gender dysphoria.

Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader is a timely introduction to contemporary debates on sex and gender. It is an accessible text for both general readers and for students of gender issues across a wide range of disciplines including sociology, education, history, philosophy and gender studies.

Alice Sullivan is Professor of Sociology at University College London, UK. She was director of the 1970 British Cohort Study (BSC70) for ten years from 2010 to 2020. She has published extensively on social, educational and health inequalities using longitudinal data analysis.

Selina Todd is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University and a Fellow of St Hilda’s College, Oxford, UK. Her books include The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910–2010 (2014) and Tastes of Honey: The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution (2019).