Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity
Preface and Introduction: Full text online.
Praise and reviews
December 2023—Sex Is as Sex Does receives a very positive review in The Nation.
August 2023—Sex Is as Sex Does won the best book award from the Sexuality and Politics section of the American Political Science Association.
February 8, 2023–Sex Is as Sex Does was selected as a finalist for the Association of American Publishers’ Prose Awards in the Government and Politics category.
“[Currah's] approach leads to a set of urgent and surprising conclusions for transgender rights advocates, and indeed for anyone invested in a more just society in which states do not take an interest in our gender identities."—The New York Review of Books
"The book’s hyper-readable ― dare I say fun? ― prose artfully navigates an archive of governmentality… An essential, course-correcting contribution to the field of trans and gender studies, as well as feminist, social, and political theory"―El Friedman, TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Read the review
"This volume will change the way we think, talk about and work for (trans)gender policy and justice."—Karla Strand, Ms. Magazine
"In Sex Is as Sex Does, Paisley Currah shifts our focus from what sex is to how it is crafted by the state––and to what effect. It's arguably one of the most important trans studies books to come out in the last five years."—The New Inquiry
“Moving the focus from ‘what is the correct definition of sex’ to ‘how do the state and its subdivisions define it’ is brilliant. Instead of generalizing about “the state,” Currah’s very detailed case accounts of agencies and courts show the state is not a monolithic entity with top-down control over everything that happens. Rather than asking how can we make governments adopt the ‘correct’ definition, Currah asks, why have different entities adopted the definitions they use? A wonderful book.”—Carole Vance
"With scintillating intelligence and expertise, Paisley Currah makes the case that states' designations of 'sex' on birth certificates, drivers' licenses, Social Security cards and so on, today create and stabilize rather than simply register sex classifications― and should be gone. His book takes the reader on a heady sojourn into trans issues and political theory, always crediting feminism along the way. Sex Is as Sex Does is wonderfully valuable for novice and scholar alike to think with and learn from."—Nancy F. Cott, Jonathan Trumbull Research Professor of American History, Harvard University
"Beautifully written and argued, Sex Is as Sex Does should be read by anyone who wants to understand why narrow attempts to include marginalized groups in various rights and recognition frameworks will not generate the liberation we so badly want and need. Paisley Currah’s work is immensely sophisticated, challenging many widely held assumptions about the relationships between trans people and law, but at the same time argued with such clarity that it is a pleasure to read."—Dean Spade, author of Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During this Crisis (and the Next)
"Paisley Currah has written a clear-eyed and provocative book that places Trans Studies and histories of state power in a remarkably revealing dialogue. Sex Is as Sex Does has reshaped my understanding of governmentality, gender identity, and the complex relationship between the modern self and state institutions. It is a remarkable and unfailingly thoughtful book and a true pleasure to read."—Robert O. Self, author of All in the Family: The Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s
"Hands down, the best book on the history and function of sex classifications―and the injustices that they produce―that has ever been written."—Sonia K. Katyal, co-author of Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership
“This book is essential reading, especially in the current political moment. Paisley Currah astutely breaks down the complexity of sex and governance with immense intellectual and moral clarity. His core premise—that to understand what sex is in terms of governance one must first step back and examine, with particularity, what sex does in certain settings—is not only persuasively argued, but effectively framed as a crucial prerequisite to deep interrogation of how sex is use (and thus, in turn, what an emancipatory politics of sex really means). Profound in content, yet accessible in form, Sex Is as Sex Does is a monumental achievement, a joy to read, and an urgent political intervention. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.”—Joshua Sealy-Harrington, Assistant Professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law at Toronto Metropolitan University and Counsel at Power Law
"Paisley Currah's Sex is as Sex Does is a fascinating investigation into the work that sex classifications do in structuring politics and policy. The book brilliantly moves away from a simple identification of transphobia as a cause of discriminatory policies. Instead, Currah asks a more nuanced and ultimately more informative set of questions about what we can learn from looking at how, when, and why state institutions collaborate in or thwart sex reclassification. From his answers to these questions, we understand much more about what sex does for state projects, and ultimately why gender pluralism can help to liberate our political imaginations – and our lives."—Julie Novkov, co-author of American by Birth: Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship
"Finally, a work that up-ends current debates pinning transgender existence on competing definitions of sex and gender! Through trenchant and always engaging analysis of key policy-saturated sites such as marriage, carceral systems, and identity documents, Currah centers not what sex is but instead, what sex does for state and community interests. Zeroing in on the contradictions and inconsistencies of sex classification and reclassification policies, he illuminates sex as a powerful and mobile technology of governance, simultaneously shedding new light on contemporary investments in how transgender is understood."—Finn Enke, author of Finding the Movement: Sexuality, Contested Space, and Feminist Activism
"In this astute, powerful, and long-awaited work, Paisley Currah shows how sex-classification functions as a malleable instrument of governmentality, achieving different ends in different contexts. In doing so, he highlights the debt contemporary transgender activism owes to feminist efforts to overturn sex classification as a means to deny rights to women. This is an important book for anyone who cares about gender, justice, and social transformation."—Susan Stryker, author of Transgender History
“Currah directs us away from these messy, interdisciplinary arguments (where no one side ever persuades the other) to look at what sex does each time it appears on a document. Reading Currah feels much like having someone come up and move your binoculars ever so gently to the left so that you suddenly see both the forest and the trees. When I see the terrifying arguments used by lawmakers to pass anti-trans legislation, I am convinced that Currah—for whom gender and sex are necessary to consider and understood to be complicated—[is] among our best feminist thinkers.”—Helen Boyd, LIBER: A Feminist Review
“Paisley Currah’s Sex Is as Sex Does, which, for me, was a mind-bending trip into the legal, political and medical-industry shenanigans that have underpinned my many experiences trying to change my documentation as a trans person (or helping someone else). Sex Is as Sex Does answers basic questions (“Why does the library want to know my sex? What do they think I’m doing with my books?”) and is lively and interesting to read—so much so that a reader could almost lose sight of the complexity of the issues Currah is with. I know that not all readers of this column take the long path into nerdiness with me when I arrive with these more academic books, but Sex Is as Sex Does actually made me feel smarter.”—S. Bear Bergman, Xtra.
Chosen as one of Them’s Favorite LGBTQ+ Books of 2022:
”Paisley Currah’s short but vital analysis of the current state of trans politics starts by defining sex simply as what the government puts on your identity documents. From there, he examines and critiques court cases, policy changes, and the trans advocacy movement itself to make the case that the category of sex is used as a tool of governance and surveillance that harms all of us, not just trans people. Currah’s argument is nuanced enough to hold space for some of the larger rhetorical flaws of the trans movement while still presenting several sharp critiques, namely that a movement largely focused on achieving legal recognition is not equipped to address — or even properly analyze — some of the larger issues trans people face, like housing insecurity, lack of access to the formal economy, and incarceration.”— James Factora, Them
"Currah’s methodological and analytical approach … should be a model for scholar-activists across disciplines. Sex Is as Sex Does disentangles the contradictions of liberal transgender rights legal advocacy and reconnects trans issues to the feminist movement."—Allison Brown, Dissent Magazine
“Currah persuasively shows that the impetus behind state actors’ definitions of sex at any given juncture is not some ontological belief about what sex is but a much more pragmatic set of considerations about the specific governance projects that sex classification is being used to further in each context. This is the insight captured in the book’s title: sex is as sex does."—Lorna Bracewell, Perspectives on Politics
"Marvelously inventive." ~Jamie Lauren Keiles, The Baffler
“In the face of the present moment’s relentless culture-war legislation against transgender people, Sex Is as Sex Does is a gift to educators who want to teach transgender studies from a political science perspective. This book is accessible and clearly written in a way that makes it especially suitable for undergraduate students as well as people outside of academia who want to deepen their understanding of transgender politics. Paisley Currah’s experiences as both an advocate for transgender rights and a social theorist guide readers to look at big-picture questions about the social construction of sex in and through governance practices, without losing sight of the immediate material needs of trans people for political reforms.”—Claudia Sofía Garriga-López, WSQ: Women’s Studies Quarterly
"Currah’s discussions about identity politics are especially cogent and caring; he usefully distinguishes between strategies to ensure state recognition (e.g., of one’s identity, even within problematic systems) and state redistribution (reforming the state to ensure that everyone has the resources they need to thrive, including trans people), and their interconnected stakes."—Sari M. van Anders and L. Zachary DuBois, Psychology of Women Quarterly
“These are moving, much-needed books that weave together an astonishing breadth of literature on trans/queer theory, yes, but settler colonialism, semiotics, and more. But more important than their depth and nuance is the urgency and clarity of purpose with which they are written: while the stakes for the lives of trans/queer people have never been higher, the possibilities offered by trans/queer tendencies for decreased governance and increased community are just as capacious—and beautiful—as the possibilities they offer for gender.”—Scott Skinner-Thompson, from a joint review of Sex Is as Sex Does and Eric Stanley’s Atmospheres of Violence, Law and Political Economy Blog
“Currah’s triumph is that he brings sex and the state back in, and there are obvious benefits of this approach. Most notably, Currah’s argument to replace our understanding of sex as an identity with a critical understanding of sex as an effect of the state reaches across the imagery trans/cis divide promulgated so vehemently by trans-exclusive feminists. He accomplishes this by underscoring that all are harmed by the state’s involvement in using sex as a rubric for recognition and distribution.”—Zein Murib, Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies
“Sex Is as Sex Does is a timely contribution to political theory and gender theory alike, reminding readers that identifying and classifying sex and gender are central to political projects.”—J.A. Beicken, Choice
Published by New York University Press, 2022. You can buy a copy from my local independent bookstore, Greenlight Bookstore. The preface and introduction can be downloaded for free.
Description
Every government agency in the United States, from Homeland Security to Departments of Motor Vehicles, has the authority to make its own rules for sex classification. Many transgender people find themselves in the bizarre situation of having different sex classifications on different documents. Whether you can change your legal sex to “F” or “M” (or more recently “X”) depends on what state you live in, what jurisdiction you were born in, and what government agency you’re dealing with. In Sex Is as Sex Does, Paisley Currah explores this deeply flawed system, showing why it fails transgender and non-binary people.
Providing examples from different states, government agencies, and court cases, Currah explains how transgender people struggle to navigate this confusing and contradictory web of legal rules, definitions, and classifications. Unlike most gender scholars, who are concerned with what the concepts of sex and gender really mean, Currah is more interested in what the category of “sex” does for governments. What does “sex” do on our driver’s licenses, in how we play sports, in how we access health care, or in the bathroom we use? Why do prisons have very different rules than social service agencies? Why is there such resistance to people changing their sex designation? Or to dropping it from identity documents altogether?
Sex Is as Sex Does reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex classification policies in the United States and shows what the regulation of transgender identity can tell us about society’s approach to sex and gender writ large. Ultimately, Curah demonstrates, because the difficulties transgender people face are not just the result of transphobia but also stem from larger injustices, an identity-based transgender rights movement will not, by itself, be up to the task of resolving them.