POTW: Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling

Person of the Week for the week of 6/26

Every Wednesday, I will post a short description of a Person of the Week - one who has significantly influenced the progress of the creation and/or dissemination of knowledge pertaining to sex and/or gender. This description will include a brief summary of the POTW’s qualifications and greatest contributions, as well as a few notes from myself.

(This one’s a little late since it’s the first one I’m doing - you can expect all others on Wednesdays coming forward!)

If you would like to submit a future POTW, you may do so here. Please note that for security purposes, you must be signed into a Google account to complete the form.

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This week’s Person of the Week is Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling.

Overview

Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling (she/her) is a sexologist and the Nancy Duke Lewis Professor Emerita of Biology and Gender Studies in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University.

Her work focuses on applying dynamic systems theory (that organismal behaviors can be attributed to constantly changing, self-organizing interactions between the organism and its environment) to the differentiation of one’s gender in early childhood. In essence, she asserts that one’s gender is a byproduct of both “nature” and “nurture”, and gender itself is not as linear and “blue and pink” as was believed to be.

Overall, she states that the concept of biological sex is not a given - rather, it is a natural phenomenon that humans felt the need to define and categorize for simplicity’s sake and our benefit. As a result of the enforcement of the gender binary, we also created the sex binary, ignoring the spectrum of intermediary traits between the “male” and “female” nodes (that we know today as “intersex”). The concept of biological sex is, in conclusion, just as much of a social construct as gender is.

She is well-versed on many other topics, but these were the ones I felt were most pertinent and easiest to digest. You can learn more about Dr. Fausto-Sterling and her work at her personal website.

Notes from Kvon

I first heard of Dr. Fausto-Sterling’s work in a women’s, gender, and queer studies class I was taking for my minor, and reading her work critically changed my own trajectory as a scientist. Through reading her work and deeply resonating with it on a personal level, it became my aim to educate others about the diversity in sex and gender through both biological and sociopolitical lenses.

I recently started looking at her work again and have just realized how much of an inspiration it has been for my own mission as a scientist. You do not understand how surprised I was to see that she started her research career with Drosophila - that’s also my model organism! A super common model organism at that. She’s also researched using planaria, another common model organism and one that I also find super fascinating. If anyone asks me for examples of the kind of academic I’d want to become, Dr. Fausto-Sterling would be at the top of my list.

You’ll probably see me reference her work a lot in my posts, and I’m excited to be able to critically examine and discuss it with y’all!

References

APA Dictionary of Psychology. (n.d.). Retrieved June 26, 2024, from https://dictionary.apa.org/

Biography. (n.d.). Dr. Anne Fausto-Sterling. Retrieved June 26, 2024, from https://www.annefaustosterling.com/biography/

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