Anne Fausto-Sterling

Anne Fausto-Sterling is the daughter of the writer and historian Dorothy Sterling. She studied zoology at the University of Wisconsin and earned her doctorate in developmental genetics at Brown University in 1970. She then taught at Brown for 44 years, latterly as Nancy Duke Lewis Professor of Biology and Gender Studies.

In her book “Myths of Gender” (1985) she examined biological theories about differences between women and men and showed how often they rested on weak evidence and on prejudice. In 1993 she published the essay “The Five Sexes”, a deliberately provocative thought experiment proposing that, given the variety of intersex bodies, one could speak of five sexes rather than two. She later said she had written it “with tongue firmly in cheek”, and in “The Five Sexes, Revisited” she revised her model, accepting criticism that it focused too much on genitals.

Her book “Sexing the Body” (2000) argued that biology and culture shape each other and that the categories of sex and gender are partly made by society. Her estimate that up to 1.7 per cent of people are born with intersex variations is widely cited and also disputed. Her work influenced intersex activism; the founding of the Intersex Society of North America was announced in response to her essay. The historian of science Evelynn Hammonds called her one of the most influential feminist scientists of her generation.

Fausto-Sterling is married to the playwright Paula Vogel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize.