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From: HUXTABLE@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Kathryn Huxtable)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: gender/sex
Message-ID: <54003@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Date: 6 Jul 89 01:48:33 GMT
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In article <6752@sdcsvax.UCSD.Edu>, bloch%mandrill@ucsd.EDU (Steve Bloch) writes:
> rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes:
>>[in response to my comment]
>>Here you're confusing "sex" and "gender". The physiological differences
>>[stuff deleted for brevity --- KAH]
> 
> Just to make sure I've got this... at first glance, this looks as
> though you're DEFINING "gender" to be whatever isn't natural and
> eternal, and then making a big deal about the fact that gender isn't
> natural and eternal.  A second look says you're defining "gender" to
> be whatever isn't physiological, which isn't quite so circular, but it
> brings in the centuries-old problem of to what extent human behaviour
> is determined by physiological factors.  (See Gould's _The Mismeasure
> of Man_ and somebody's _The Tangled Wing_ for two views.) Can you give
> me a clearer picture of where this sex/gender distinction lies?

As long as we're dragging in authorities, I thought I'd throw in some
references.  These are from The University of Kansas' online catalog
system.  Our library seems to have not entered most of the relevant
books by John Money, (I know they're on the shelves) so I can't get
his titles from my desk.  Another researcher in this subject (one I
like rather less) is Robert J.  Stoller.  I found three relevant
titles:

    Presentations of Gender, New Haven/Yale University Press, 1985
        RC 560 .G45 S76

    Sex and Gender, New York/Science House, 1968
        RC 557 .S77

    Sex and Gender, v. 2, The Transsexual Experiment,
        New York/J. Aronson, 1975
        RC 557 .S772 vol. 2

The main thing I don't like about Stoller is his treatment of
transsexuallism.  His criteria for deciding whether someone should
have sexual reassignment surgery would have excluded a friend of mine
who was not particularly functional before and is a much happier, more
fulfilled person now.  Other than that, he's fine.  John Money is more
compassionate, though.

Just trying to add more gasoline to the fire....

-- 
Kathryn Huxtable
huxtable@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu