Beyond the Binary

How many sexes are there? What is the relationship between sex and gender? Is gender a product of nature, or nurture, or both? In Beyond the Binary, Shannon Dea addresses these questions while introducing readers to evidence and theoretical perspectives from a range of cultures and disciplines, and from sources spanning three millennia.

Dea’s central emphasis is the relationship between gender, understood as a psycho-socio-cultural category, and sex, understood as a type of physiologicalclassifi cation. One of the abiding lessons conveyed within is that questions about sex and gender are not new products of modern Western culture; they have been discussed for centuries and across many traditions by some of the greatest thinkers of history. Excerpts and examples from historical and contemporary sources are included throughout, as are a number of illustrations demonstrating varied depictions of human anatomy from different cultures and contexts. Dea’s pluralistic and historically-informed approach offers readers a timely background to current debates about sex and gender in the media, health sciences, and public policy.