ON SEX AND GENDER

An eye-opening account of what the left and right get wrong about sex and gender - and how we can get them right for everyone.

The book focuses on three sequential and consequential questions: What is sex as opposed to gender? How does sex matter in our everyday lives? And how should it be reflected in law and policy? Doriane Coleman challenges both sides to chart a better way. In a book that is equal parts scientific explanation, historical examination, and personal reflection, she argues that denying biological sex and focusing only on gender would have profound and detrimental effects on women's equal opportunity, on men's future prospects, and on the health and welfare of society generally. Structural sexism needed to be dismantled - a true achievement of feminism and an ongoing fight - but going forward we should be sex smart, not sex blind. Coleman shows that there is a middle ground where common sense reigns and we can support transgender people without denying the facts of human biology. She livens her narrative with a sequence of portraits of exceptional human beings from legal pioneers like Myra Bradwell and Ketanji Brown Jackson to champion athletes like Caster Semenya and Cate Campbell to civil rights giants like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Pauli Murray. Above all, Coleman reminds us that sex not only exists, but is also good - and she shows how we can get both sex and gender right for society. Doriane Coleman is a professor at Duke Law School, where she specializes in interdisciplinary scholarship focused on women, sports, children, and law. Her work has been published in numerous journals, and she is regularly cited in the press. At Duke, she is a faculty fellow and member of the advisory council of the Kenan Institute for Ethics; a faculty associate of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine at the School of Medicine; a member of the Athletic Council; and codirector of the law school's Center for Sports Law and Policy.