the Female Body GOVERNING

Beyond X-X and X-Y 275
binary sex in science, and how the current scientifi c evidence complicates
this, will both illuminate and propose a new mindset for feminist study.
To do so, this chapter follows Fausto-Sterling’s lead in recognizing
that live organisms are active processes. In her book, Sexing the Body
(2000), Fausto-Sterling remarks that organisms are moving targets, from
fertilization until death, thereby stressing the idea of an organism’s life
cycle. She (2005) strengthened this “call to arms” in a recently published
paper noting:
The sex-gender or nature-nurture accounts of difference fail to
appreciate the degree to which culture is a partner in producing body
systems commonly referred to which culture is a partner in producing
body systems commonly referred to as biology—something apart form
the social. (p. 1516)
The view of the body as an active process is widespread in the discussions
of the paradigm shift from studying single genes in genetics to studying
genetic networks in genomics (Moss, 2002). Some see the paradigm of
classical genetics, which explains a trait as the result of a single gene
as being overtaken by genomics, which places greater emphasis on the
newfound complexity at work in genetic pathways. This paradigm shift
seeks to challenge the determinism and reductionism that has plagued
genetics; however, its eventual success is, as yet, unknown. This chapter
follows Fausto-Sterling’s lead and offers a “life-course systems approach”
to the analysis of sex/gender, with particular reference to genetic sex.
The secondary aim of this chapter is to illuminate the idea of a static,
fi xed “genetic sex” is a governing technology of the state. Feminist
arguments surrounding the gender binary have infl uenced institutional
structures. For instance, in the United Kingdom, Parliament has passed
the Gender Recognition Bill, which enables a person to be issued a
completely new birth certifi cate that registers the congruent sex for
the person’s “new gender.” 3 Thus, as presented here, an exploration of
the possibility of understanding “genetic sex” as a fl uid object propose
interesting new questions and challenges for institutions based on
governing sex/gender.
Finally, the discussion of “genetic sex” will also touch on the relation
between genetic sex and gender, and thus will push further Judith Butler’s
(1990) idea of “gender performance.” Butler has noted “gender ought
not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning on a
pre-given sex (a juridical conception); gender must also designate the
very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established”
(p. 7). In Butler’s view, sex/gender should be conceptualized in