Books like Evolution's Rainbow by Joan Roughgarden

A collection of true stories from six teens, each sharing their personal journeys and challenges as members of the transgender community.

"Is it a boy or a girl? Our automatic first question about a new baby reveals how profoundly we believe that sex difference is natural and inborn, and how fundamental sex is to our conception of human identity. But, in fact, biologist and cultural critic Anne Fausto-Sterling shows in her new book that the answer to this seemingly basic question is more complex than we realize. In her probing critique of scientific, medical and popular understanding of sex, Fausto-Sterling uses an examination of research, medical practice and astonishing real-life cases to shake the very foundations of our ideas about sexual difference.". "Taking her cue from the burgeoning intersexual movement, Fausto-Sterling argues for an end to authoritarian medical interventions in intersex cases. Ultimately, Fausto-Sterling urges us to re-imagine more than just our labels for the parts and processes of the human body."--BOOK JACKET.

Tracing the arc of transsexuality in America, Joanne J. Meyerowitz chronicles individual stories, medical breakthroughs, and cultural shifts that redefined sex, gender, and rights throughout the twentieth century.

An analysis of gender relations during late colonial Mexico (c. 1760‑1821) that links power, politics, and everyday conflicts among peasants, Indians, and other marginalized groups.

A pioneering study of 19th‑century American gender relations, examining male attitudes toward masculinity, women's roles and sexuality, and the social context that shaped sexual customs in the United States.

"In describing and explaining the sexes, medicine and science participated in the delineation of what was "feminine" and what was "masculine" in the Middle Ages. Hildegard of Bingen and Albertus Magnus, among others, writing about gynecology, the human constitution, fetal development, or the naturalistic dimensions of divine Creation, became increasingly interested in issues surrounding reproduction and sexuality. Did women as well as men produce procreative seed? How did the physiology of the sexes influence their healthy states and their susceptibility to disease? Who derived more pleasure from sexual intercourse, men or women?" "The answers to such questions created a network of flexible concepts which did not endorse a single model of male-female relations, but did affect views on the health consequences of sexual abstinence for women and men and on the allocation of responsibility for infertility - problems with much social and religious significance in the Middle Ages. Sometimes at odds with, and sometimes in accord with other forces in medieval society, medicine and natural philosophy helped to construct a set of notions that divided significant portions of the world - from the behavior of animals to the operations of astrological signs - into "masculine" and "feminine." Even cases that seemed to exist outside the definitions of this duality, for example, hermaphrodite features or homosexual behavior, were brought under control by the application of gendered labels, such as "masculine women.""--Jacket.

Gender, Sex and the Shaping of Modern Europe explores how evolving gender roles influenced the political, economic, and social transformations of Europe from the late 18th century onward, blending history, sociology, and sexuality studies.

A biography of We'wha, a Zuni man who lived as a woman for 47 years and influenced history as a berdache.