Anne Fausto-Sterling

Anne Fausto-Sterling, Ph. D., (born 1944) is Professor of Biology and Gender Studies at Brown University. She participates actively in the field of sexology and has written extensively on the fields of biology of gender, sexual identity, gender identity, and gender roles.

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She has written two books intended for the general audience. The second edition of the first of those books, Myths of Gender, was published in 1992. ^[1]

Her second book for the general public is Sexing the Body, published in 2000.^[2] She stated that in it she sets out to "convince readers of the need for theories that allow for a good deal of human variation and that integrate the analytical powers of the biological and the social into the systematic analysis of human development."

She once claimed, in a tongue-in-cheek paper entitled "The Five Sexes," that there were five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm.^[3] Advocates for intersexual people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to the interests of intersexual people. In response she has since stated that she no longer advocates the use of these terms.^[4]

Fausto-Sterling also takes an interest in how flatworms (more precisely planaria) manage to reproduce themselves asexually.

Fausto-Sterling is married to Paula Vogel, a Brown professor and Pulitzer-winning playwright.^[5]

References