Gender Identity

Thousands of pages of books, millions of characters in tweets and hundreds of blogs have been devoted to explaining the distinction between sex and gender, but far from clarifying anything, bewilderment for ordinary people is only growing. The concept of gender is central to a vaguely progressive-looking set of ideas based on the maxim that people possess a so-called ¿gender identity¿. The real problem arises when this nebulous concept, bandied about with different and even incompatible meanings by different groups, is used as a prop to introduce policies that mark a huge setback for the rights of women and girls. The general public, watching the controversy from the sidelines, is confused by conflicting claims about whose rights are being infringed. In this incisive book, Laura Lecuona sets the record straight by reviewing the origin of the current uses of the key term gender and exploring the main theories of transgenderism. She discusses what lies behind the claims about pronoun usa