Bloom's Normal (2002) and Tarttelin's Golden Boy (2013): Teaching Gender Fluidity Written across Time and Text

Abstract

Sex. Sex. Sex. I want to repeat this word three times because the letters s, e, and x, when combined to form the word “sex,” assume magnetic properties. Textually inscribed into course titles, the word “sex” grabs student interest and lures them in droves into women and gender studies classes. I am faculty in women and gender studies (WGST) at a comprehensive public university in western New York. I am a cisidentified1 female and gender nonconforming.2 One of the courses that I regularly teach, titled Sex and Culture, takes up the question of sex and gender identities as understood across geographies of person and place. The course serves the WGST major and minor in addition to several liberal arts student learning outcomes situated under the college General Education rubric. Even though the college boasts a growing WGST major and minor, the majority of the students enroll for General Education credit and are often new to and skeptical of WGST knowledge.3 When considering text adoption for this diversely enrolled course, I tend to examine material across genres of fiction and nonfiction from the humanities and social science disciplines. Questions I repeatedly ask myself include: What writings are new, diversely authored, and progressive to knowledge growth in the WGST field? What texts will be most engaging to students both new to and familiar with WGST? And what materials might students stick with versus abandon because of elevated theoretical discourse? This last question does not suggest that I want to water down or run away from deeper theoretical content, but indicates that a narrative approach to instruction can bring students into the theoretical depth that undergirds WGST knowledge. Like the word “sex,” narrative inscriptions on identity can pull students into the fold of the many theoretical complexities inherent to studying sex and gender identity. Susan Stryker, Judith Butler, and Lauren Berlant, detailed below, write on areas of feminist thought that form the theoretical lens that I use when teaching sex and gender identity. These scholars offer complex concepts that, if reading in isolation or alongside other social science texts, can alienate learners. As a means to Bloom’s Normal (2002) and Tarttelin’s Golden Boy (2013): Teaching Gender Fluidity Written across Time and Text