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“We Won't Know Who You Are”: Contesting Sex Designations in New York City Birth Certificates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Paisley Currah  and
Lisa Jean Moore
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Abstract

This article examines shifts in the legal, medical, and common-sense logics governing the designation of sex on birth certificates issued by the City of New York between 1965 and 2006. In the initial iteration, the stabilization of legal sex categories was organized around the notion of “fraud”; in the most recent iteration, “permanence” became the measure of authenticity. We frame these legal constructions of sex with theories about the “natural attitude” toward gender.

Type
Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities
Information
Hypatia , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Transgender Studies and Feminism: Theory, Politics, and Gendered Realities , Summer 2009 , pp. 113 - 135
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by Hypatia, Inc.

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