For state actors, sex definition used to be adjudicated quietly through administrative “housekeeping” processes that did not attract the scrutiny of legislators. In the last two years, the passage of state laws that mandate a uniform definition of sex has upended policies that had manipulated its definition to further particular state projects. Through a focused examination of one state, Montana, Currah illuminates the complex interplay between sex classification and broader gender histories.

Speaker

Paisley Currah teaches political science and women’s and gender studies at the City University of New York. In 2024-25, he is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, where is working on his current book project, Legislating Gender. He is the author of Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity. His writing has appeared in The Boston Review, The New York Review of Books, Nature, and The Yale Review.

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