Syd Lloyd

Julie Beaulieu

Transgender Studies

12, September 2022

Reflection on Currah’s, “If Sex Is Not a Biologic Phenomenon”

Paisley Currah, a transgender author, advocate, and professor who teaches Women &

Gender Studies at Brooklyn College, guides the reader through the inner workings of sex

reclassification while uncovering failures of the system that disproportionately affect the

transgender community. Throughout his writing, Currah breaks down the concept of sex

classification being entangled in government power, regulation, and the law. He further defines

the sex markers (M, F, and X) not as an extension of gender but rather claims that for the

purpose of this work specifically “they do not signify gender identity or the sex assigned at birth,

or the configuration of a post-transitional body. They are simply what is reordered after a

decision has been made by state bureaucracies and judges” (Currah, 32). This statement lends

itself to the notion that sex reclassification is notably a transgender issue, because every agency

in the states has its own set of rules and criteria for changing a sex marker; while one state may

change the sex category on documentation, it does not necessarily carry validity in other areas of

the country. This then invalidates the credibility of the person in question, relinquishing them of

the power to decide how they identify. Diving in further, Currah emphasizes how some of the

obstacles faced by pro-trans policies were merely byproducts of sexism – M or F was an

indication of who could get married, own land, vote, obtain bodily autonomy, etc. To tie in this

theory, he adds “while ideas about what sex is may appear to guide sex reclassification policies

and proposals for reforming them, considerations about what sex does for different governing
apparatuses have often played a far bigger role in determining the rules” (Currah, 32) which

continues to suggest that the issue is not solely a result of transphobia, but directly reinforces it.

In summary, Currah intends to not offer any solutions for sex reclassification, but to uncover

what sex does for government documentation as a whole and how this justification fails

transgender people.

To argue his main points, Currah goes through a timeline of reclassification laws and

provides specific examples from states, government agencies, court cases, etc. At one time or

another, he touches on the “no sex certificate” that came about in the 1970s. The requirements

being that “individuals would have to prove not only that their genitals have been reconstructed

(phalloplasty for men or vaginoplasty for women) but also that they had been sterilized through

surgery” (Currah, 33). Bringing these laws and government agencies into light, Currah provides

concrete evidence over a long stretch of time for how difficult it can be to gain control over your

sex classification as a trans person. He also includes brief quotes from trans people, activists, and

popular queer authors to give the reader a more personal sense of this issue. “I do not suffer from

gender dysphoria. I suffer from bureaucratic dysphoria. My ID does not match my appearance. I

worry every time I apply for a job, every time authorize a credit card check, every time I buy a

plane ticket…I have changed my name, but my gender continues to be officially and

bureaucratically M” (Currah, 52) said a trans woman in New York around 2001 to the city

legislators. To further support his main arguments, Currah ties in a chart that displays “theories

of sex and their corresponding positions on sex (re)classification” which provides ideas held by

specific political groups of people. One of the sub sections within the chart that aligns with the

group “postwar twentieth century sexology” believe that genitals are the single determinate of

sex. They believe that “a man will possess a penis, a woman a vagina… genitals are taken as the
essential sign of gender” (Currah, 43). Our author includes this to incorporate supplementary

evidence of the misconception society has regarding what sex is, and how sex is not sex at all,

but a bureaucratic form of control.

As Currah reiterates in his work, unnecessary stipulations were put in place by varying

policy makers and health boards that required surgical intervention to be eligible for a sex

change on any government documentation. Just to meet the criteria in New York around the

1970s, he adds, “an individual would need to submit a psychiatric evaluation affirming that

he or she represented a true case of transsexualism, a report of the convertive surgery that

had taken place, a post operative examination signed by the surgeon, and a court order

granting a name change” (Currah, 33). This prerequisite reinforced the misconception that

being trans is directly correlated to the genitals of your body. When making this assumption,

you isolate the trans individuals who do not want reassignment surgery, cannot afford the

medical expense, or cannot get verification by their insurance. Currah calls attention to the

individual process and subjective experience that each trans person is entitled to,

acknowledging that being transgender is not a one in all-encompassing entity. He later

comments, “gender-affirming surgery as a metric does not always reflect the preferences of

or economic constraints on trans people…many trans people did not want such surgeries, and

others could not have them because of medical conditions that make surgical intervention

risky” (Currah, 43-44). Overall, I think Currah builds on the theory that being trans is not

simply a switch from one “sex” to another or moving from point A to point B. Instead, it is

moving away from the sex assigned at birth and into another realm of possibility – an open,

free landscape where you can choose to wonder in any direction.

Sources

Currah, P. (2022, May 31). Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity. NYU Press.