Recent scholarship has highlighted how the history of “gender” as an analytic concept within the English-speaking academy originated in the treatment of intersex and transsexual patients in the mid-twentieth-century United States. When faced with the instability of “sex” embodied by intersex and later trans patients, “gender” was used as a means to stabilize the binary through racialized logics. In this article I trace sociology’s part in moving “gender” from the intersex clinic to feminist scholarship. I begin with a discussion of gender’s origins, focusing on the work of John Money and the Hampsons at Johns Hopkins, Robert Stoller at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and early feminist sociologists who drew upon their work. I then turn to Garfinkel’s Agnes Case Study and its application by West and Zimmerman in their “Doing Gender” paradigm to illustrate how the racialized logics of trans/intersex medicine continue to impact how we study gender within sociology today.
AbelsonMiriam. 2014. “Dangerous Privilege: Trans Men, Masculinity, and Changing Perceptions of Safety.” Sociological Forum29(3):549–70.
2.
AbelsonMiriam. 2019. Men in Place: Trans Masculinity, Race, and Sexuality in America. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
3.
AizuraAren Z.2018. Mobile Subjects: Transnational Imaginaries of Gender Reassignment. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
4.
AminKadji. 2018. “Glands, Eugenics, and Rejuvenation in Man into Woman: A Biopolitical Genealogy of Transsexuality.” Transgender Studies Quarterly5(4):589–605.
5.
AminKadji. 2020. “Trans* Plasticity and the Ontology of Race and Species.” Social Text38(2):49–71.
6.
BernardJessie. 1971. Women and the Public Interest: Policy and Protest in American Life. Chicago, IL: Adeline.
7.
BlackwoodEvelyn. 1984. “Sexuality and Gender in Certain Native American Tribes: The Case of Cross-gender Females.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society10:1027–42.
8.
BuggsShantel Gabriel. 2019. “(Dis)Owning Exotic: Navigating Race, Intimacy, and Trans Identity.” Sociological Inquiry90(2):249–70.
9.
CollinsPatricia HillMaldanadoLionel A.TakagiDana Y.ThorneBarrieWeberLynnWinantHoward. 1995. “Reviewed Work(s): Doing Difference by Candace West and Sarah Fenstermaker.” Gender & Society9(4):491–506.
10.
ConnellCatherine. 2010. “Doing, Undoing, or Redoing Gender? Learning from the Workplace Experiences of Transpeople.” Gender & Society24(1):31–55.
11.
ConnellRaewyn. 2009. “Accountable Conduct: ‘Doing Gender’ in Transsexual and Political Retrospect.” Gender & Society23(1):104–11.
12.
ConnellRaewyn. 2012. “Transsexual Women and Feminist Thought: Toward New Understanding and New Politics.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society37(4):857–81.
13.
CostelloCary Gabriel. 2016. “Intersex and Trans* Communities: Commonalities and Tensions.” Pp. 83–113 in Transgender and Intersex: Theoretical, Practical, and Artistic Perspectives, edited by HorlacherS.New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
14.
CrawleyS. L.2022. “Queering Doing Gender: The Curious Absence of Ethnomethodology in Gender Studies and in Sociology.” Sociological Theory40(4):366–92.
15.
CucchiariSalvatore. 1981. “The Gender Revolution and the Transition from Bisexual Horde to Patrilocal Band: The Origins of Gender Hierarchy.” Pp 31–79 in Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality, edited by OrtnerS. B.WhiteheadH.New York: Cambridge.
16.
DavisGeorgiann. 2015. Contesting Intersex: The Dubois Diagnosis. New York: New York University Press.
17.
DavisGeorgiannDeweyJodie M.MurphyErin L.2016. “Giving Sex: Deconstructing Intersex and Trans Medicalization Practices.” Gender & Society30(3):490–514.
18.
DozierRaine. 2005. “Beards, Breasts, and Bodies: Doing Sex in a Gendered World.” Gender & Society19(3):297–429.
19.
DregerAlice. 1998. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Intervention of Sex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
DuttaAniruddhaRoyRaina. 2014. “Decolonizing Transgender in India: Some Reflections.” Transgender Studies Quarterly1(3):320–37.
21.
EckertLena. 2017. Intersexualization: The Clinic and the Colony. New York: Routledge.
22.
EderSandra. 2022. How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
23.
EnkeAnne. 2012. “The Education of Little Cis: Cisgender and the Discipline of Opposing Bodies.” Pp. 60–77 in Transfeminist Perspectives in and Beyond Transgender and Gender Studies, edited by EnkeA.Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
24.
Fausto-SterlingAnne. 2012. Sex/gender: Biology in a Social World. New York: Routledge.
25.
FeinbloomDeborah. 1976. Transvestites and Transsexuals: Mixed Views. New York: Delta.
26.
GarfinkelHarold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
27.
GarrisonSpencer. 2018. “On the Limits of ‘Trans Enough’: Authenticating Trans Identity Narratives.” Gender & Society32(5):613–37.
28.
GermonJennifer. 2009. Gender: A Genealogy of an Idea. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
29.
Gill-PetersonJules. 2018a. Histories of the Transgender Child. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
30.
Gill-PetersonJules. 2018b. “Trans of Color Critique before Transsexuality.” Transgender Studies Quarterly5(4):606–20.
31.
GoffmanErving. 1976. Gender Advertisements. New York: Harper & Row.
32.
GonsalvesTara. 2020. “Gender Identity, the Sexed Body, and the Medical Making of Transgender.” Gender & Society34(6):1005–33.
33.
GouldMeredithKern-DanielsRochelle. 1977. “Toward a Sociological Theory of Gender and Sex.” The American Sociologist12(4):182–89.
34.
GreeneJoss T.2019. “Categorical Exclusions: How Racialized Gender Regulation Reproduces Reentry Hardship.” Social Problems66(4):548–63.
35.
GreensonRalph R.1964. “On Homosexuality and Gender Identity.” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis45:217–19.
36.
HaigDavid. 2004. “The Inexorable Rise of Gender and the Decline of Sex: Social Change in Academic Titles, 1945-2001.” Archives of Sexual Behavior33(2):97–96.
37.
HampsonJoan G.1955. “Hermaphroditic Genital Appearance, Rearing and Eroticism in Hyperadrenocorticism.” Bulletin of the John Hopkins Hospital96:265–73.
38.
HanssmannChristoph. 2023. Care without Pathology: How Trans-health Activists Are Changing Medicine. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press.
39.
HarawayDonna. 2001. “‘Gender’ for a Marxist Dictionary: The Sexual Politics of a World.” Pp. 49–75 in Women, Gender, and Religion: A Reader, edited by CastelliE. A.New York: Palgrave.
40.
HausmanBernice L.1995. Changing Sex: Transsexualism, Technology, and the Idea of Gender. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
41.
HillW. W.1935. “The Status of the Hermaphrodite and Transvestite in Navaho Culture.” American Anthropologist37:273–79.
42.
HollanderJocelyn A.2013. “I Demand More of People: Accountability, Interaction, and Gender Change.” Gender & Society27(1):5–29.
43.
Hood-WilliamsJohn. 1996. “Goodbye to Sex and Gender.” The Sociological Review44910:1–16.
44.
JohnsonAustin H.2015a. “Beyond Inclusion: Thinking Towards a Transfeminist Methodology.” Pp. 21–41 in Advances in Gender Research Vol. 20, edited by DemosV.SengalM.Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.
45.
JohnsonAustin H.2015b. “Normative Accountability: How the Medical Model Influences Transgender Identities and Experiences.” Sociology Compass9(9):803–13.
46.
JohnsonAustin H.2016. “Transnormativity: A New Concept and Its Validation through Documentary Film about Transgender Men.” Sociological Inquiry86(4):465–91.
47.
JonesAngela. 2023. “Cisgendered Workspaces: Outright and Categorical Exclusion in Cisgendered Organizations.” Social Problems72(1):294–314.
48.
JoyntChase.2022. Framing Agnes. Film, 2022Virtual Sundance Film Festival.
49.
JurikNancy C.SiemsenCynthia. 2009. “‘Doing Gender’ as Cannon or Agenda: A Symposium on West and Zimmerman.” Gender & Society23(1):72–75.
50.
KadeTristen. 2021. “‘Hey, by the Way, I’m Transgender’: Transgender Disclosure as Coming out Stories in Social Contexts among Trans Men.” Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World7:2378–31.
51.
KandoThomas. 1973. Sex Change: The Achievement of Gender Identity among Feminized Transsexuals. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.
52.
KesslerSuzanne J.McKennaWendy. 1978. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. New York: Wiley.
53.
LampeNikPfefferCarla A.2024. “‘We Grow Older. We also Have Lots of Sex. I just Want a Doctor Who Will at least Ask about It’: Transgender, Non-binary, and Intersex Older Adults in Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare.” Social Science & Medicine344:116572.
54.
LoganCheryl A.2013. Hormones, Heredity, and Race: Spectacular Failure in Interwar Vienna. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
55.
LopataHelena Z.ThorneBarrie. 1978. “On the Term ‘Sex Roles.’”Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society3(3):718–21.
56.
Lynne-JosephAlyssa. 2024. “The Reproduction of Knowledge Hierarchies in Transgender Medicine: Professional, Lay, and Global Expertise in Clinical Practice Guidelines.” Social Science & Medicine346:116712.
57.
MagubaneZine. 2014. “Spectacles and Scholarship: Caster Semenya, Intersex Studies, and the Problem of Race in Feminist Thought.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society39(3):761–85.
58.
MalatinoHil. 2019. Queer Embodiment: Monstrosity, Medical Violence, and Intersex Experience. Lincoln, NE: Nebraska University Press.
59.
MartinM. KayVoorhiesBarbara. 1975. Female of the Species. New York: Columbia University Press.
60.
MeadMargaret. 1963. Sex and Temperament. New York: Dell.
61.
MeadMargaret. 1968. Male and Female. New York: Dell.
62.
MeyerowitzJoanne. 2002. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
63.
MoneyJohn. 1955. “Hermaphroditism, Gender and Precocity in Hyperadrenocorticism: Psychologic Findings.” Bulletin of the John Hopkins Hospital96:253–64.
64.
MoneyJohn. 1968. Sex Errors of the Body. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
65.
MoneyJohn. 1974. “Prenatal Hormones and Postnatal Sexualization in Gender Identity Differentiation.” Pp. 221–95 in Nebraska Symposium on Motivation Vol. 21, edited by ColeJ. K.DienstbierR.Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
66.
MoneyJohnBrennanJohn C.1968. “Sexual Dimorphism in the Psychology of Female Transsexuals.” Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease147:487–99.
67.
MoneyJohnErhardtAnke A.1972. Man and Woman/Boy and Girl. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins.
68.
MoneyJohnHampsonJoan G.HampsonJohn L.1955. “Hermaphroditism: Recommendations Concerning Assignment of Sex, Change of Sex and Psychological Management.” Bulletin of the John Hopkins Hospital97:284–300.
69.
MoneyJohnOgunroCharles. 1974. “Behavioral Sexology: Ten Cases of Genetic Male Intersexuality and Impaired Prenatal and Pubertal Androgenization.” Archives of Sexual Behavior3:181–206.
70.
MoneyJohnTuckerPatricia. 1975. Sexual Signatures. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
71.
MonroSuryaBerryAdeline. 2024. “Toward a Sociology of Intersex.” Pp. 76–87 in Research Handbook on the Sociology of Gender, edited by KaufmanG.Stambolis-RuhstorferM.RobertsS.RalphB.Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.
72.
MorlandLain. 2014. “Cybernetic Sexology.” Pp.101–32 in Fuckology: Critical Essays on John Money’s Diagnostic Concepts, edited by DowningL.MorlandI.SullivanN.Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
73.
MoussawiGhassanVidal-OrtizSalvador. 2020. “A Queer Sociology: On Power, Race, and Decentering Whiteness.” Sociological Forum35(4):1272–89.
74.
NamasteViviane. 2000. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transgender and Transsexual People. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
75.
NordmarkenSonny. 2019. “Queering Gendering: Trans Epistemologies and the Disruption and Production of Gender Accomplishment Practices.” Feminist Studies45(1):36–66.
76.
OakleyAnn. 1972. Sex, Gender, and Society. London, UK: Maurice Temple Smith Ltd.
77.
O’BrienJodi. 2016. “Seeing Agnes: Notes on a Transgender Biocultural Ethnomethodology.” Symbolic Interaction39(2):306–29.
78.
OmiMichaelWinantHoward. 1986. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960’s to the 1980’s. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
79.
OudshoornNelly. 1994. Beyond the Natural Body: An Archeology of Sex Hormones. London, UK: Routledge.
80.
ParsonsTalcott. 1942. “Age and Sex in the Social Structure of the United States.” American Sociological Review7(5):604–16.
81.
PatilVrushali. 2022. Webbed Connectivities: The Imperial Sociology of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
82.
PersonEthel. 2008. “Harry Benjamin: Creative Maverick.” Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health12(3):259–75.
83.
PettitMichael. 2013. “Becoming Glandular: Endocrinology, Mass Culture, and Experimental Lives in the Interwar Age.” American Historical Review118(4):1052–76.
84.
PfefferCarla A.2014. “‘I Don’t Like Passing as a Straight Woman’: Queer Negotiations of Identity and Social Group Membership.” American Journal of Sociology120(1):1–44.
85.
PlemonsEric. 2017. The Look of a Woman: Facial Feminization Surgery and the Aims of Trans-medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
86.
PyleKai. 2018. “Naming and Claiming: Recovering Ojibwe and Plains Cree Two-spirit Language.” Transgender Studies Quarterly5(4):574–88.
87.
ReisElizabeth. 2009. Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press.
88.
RepoJemima. 2013. “The Biopolitical Birth of Gender: Social Control, Hermaphroditism, and the New Sexual Apparatus.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political38(3):228–44.
89.
RichardsonSarah S.2012. “Seeing the X: How the X Became the ‘Female Chromosome.’”Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society37(4):909–33.
90.
RiosNic. 2025. “Accounting for Neuronormativity in Transgender Medicine.” Social Science & Medicine367:117802.
91.
RogersMary F.1992. “They All Were Passing: Agnes, Garfinkel, and Company.” Gender & Society6(2):169–91.
92.
RubinDavid A.2012. “An Unnamed Blank that Carved a Name: A Genealogy of Intersex as Gender.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society37(4):883–908.
RubinHenry. 2003. Self-made Men: Identity and Embodiment among Transsexual Men. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
95.
SchiltKristen. 2016. “The Importance of Being Agnes.” Symbolic Interaction39(2):286–94.
96.
SchiltKristen. 2022. “Sex and the Sociological Dope: Garfinkel’s Intervention and the Emerging Disciplines of Sex/Gender.” Pp. 214–26 in The Ethnomethodological Program: Legacies and Prospects, edited by MaynardD. W.HeritageJ.New York: Oxford University Press.
97.
SchiltKristenLagosDanya. 2017. “The Development of Transgender Studies in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology43:325–42.
98.
SchullerKylaGill-PetersonJules. 2020. “Introduction: Race, the State, and the Malleable Body.” Social Text38(2):1–17.
99.
SchwabeArthur D.SolomonDavid H.StollerRobert J.BurnhamJohn P.1962. “Pubertal Feminization in a Genetic Male with Testicular Atrophy and Normal Urinary Gonadotropin.” The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism22(8):839–45.
shusterstef. 2021. Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender. New York: New York University Press.
102.
SiegalDerek P.2024. “Policing Motherhood, Controlling Families: Race, Reproductive Governance, and Trans Women’s Parenting Rights.” Gender & Society38(1):60–88.
103.
SnortonC. Riley. 2017. Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
104.
SpadeDean. 2006. “Mutilating Gender.” Pp. 315–32 in The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by StrykerS.WhittleS.New York: Routledge.
105.
StollerRobert J.1964. “A Contribution to the Study of Gender Identity.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis45:220–26.
106.
StollerRobert J.1968. Sex and Gender: On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity. New York: Science House.
107.
StollerRobert J.GarfinkelHaroldRosenAlexander. 1960. “Passing and the Maintenance of Sexual Identification in an Intersexed Patient.” Archives of General Psychiatry1(2):43–48.
108.
StoneAmy L.Gallin-ParisiAlexandra. 2024. “What Happens When Gender Accountability Is Reduced? The Experience of Nonbinary and Genderfluid People During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Gender & Society38(3):317–484.
109.
StoneAmy L.NimmonsElizabeth A.SalcidoRobertJr.SchnarrsPhillip W.2019. “Multiplicity, Race, and Resilience: Transgender and Non-binary People Building Community.” Sociological Inquiry90(2):226–48.
110.
StoneSandy. 2006. “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto.” Pp. 221–35 in The Transgender Studies Reader, edited by StrykerS.WhittleS.New York: Routledge.
111.
StrykerSusan. 2009. “We Who Are Sexy: Christine Jorgensen’s Transsexual Whiteness in the Postcolonial Philippines.” Social Semiotics19(1):79–91.
SumerauJ. E.MathersLain A. B.MoonDawne. 2019. “Foreclosing Fluidity at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Normativities.” Symbolic Interaction43(2):205–34.
114.
SwarrAmanda Lock. 2023. Envisioning African Intersex: Challenging Colonial and Racist Legacies in South African Medicine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
115.
TowleEvan B.MorganLynn M.2002. “Romancing the Transgender Native: Rethinking the Use of the ‘Third Gender’ Concept.” GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies8(4):469–97.
116.
ValentineDavid. 2007. Imagining Transgender. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
117.
ValentineDavidWilchinsRiki Anne. 1997. “One Percent on the Burn Chart: Gender, Genitals, and Hermaphrodites with Attitude.” Social Attitude 52/53:215–22.
118.
VelocciBeans. 2024. “The History of Sex Research: Is ‘Sex’ a Useful Category?” Cell187:1343–46.
119.
Vidal-OrtizSalvador. 2009. “The Figure of the Transwoman of Color through the Lens of ‘Doing Gender.’”Gender & Society23(1):99–103.
WestCandaceFenstermakerSarah. 1993. “Power Inequality and the Accomplishment of Gender: An Ethnomethodological View.” Pp 154–74 in Theory on Gender/Feminism on Theory, edited by EnglandP.Chicago, IL: Aldine and Gruyter.
WestCandaceZimmermanDon H.2009. “Accounting for Doing Gender.” Gender & Society23(1):112–22.
125.
WestbrookLaurelSchiltKristen. 2014. “Doing Gender: Determining Gender: Transgender People, Gender Maintenance of the Sex/Gender/Sexuality System.” Gender & Society28(1):32–57.
126.
WilliamsWalter. 1986. The Spirit of the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston, MA: Beacon.
127.
WolffMichelleRubinDavid A.SwarrAmanda Lock. 2022. “The Intersex Issue.” Transgender Studies Quarterly9(2):143–59.
128.
zamantakisalithia. 2023. Thinking Cis: Cisgender, Heterosexual Men, and Queer Women’s Roles in Anti-trans Violence. Lanham, MD: Roman & Litchfield Publishers.
129.
ZhouXiaogao. 2024. “Care in Transition: Global Norms, Transnational Adaptation, and Family-centered Gender-affirming Care in China.” Social Science & Medicine344:116658.
