Transmuting Gender Binaries: The Theoretical Challenge

This paper provides a cross-cultural account of gender diversity which exploresthe territory that is opened up when sex, gender, and sexual orientation,binaries are disrupted or displaced. Whilst many people who identify as trans orintersex see themselves as male or female, others identify in ways whichdestabilize sex/gender and sexual orientation binaries. The paper provides atypology of ways in which sex/gender diversity can be conceptualized, and drawsout the implications for theorizing gender. It discusses the contributions madeby the new wave of authors working in the field of transgender studies; authorswho draw on and inform the sociology of sex and gender, feminisms, andpoststructuralist theory. It based on empirical material from research carriedout in India and the UK.