cover image Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender

Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender

Martine Aliana Rothblatt. Crown Publishers, $21 (178pp) ISBN 978-0-517-59997-6

An earnest but sometimes facile assault on the legal separation of people by gender, Rothblatt's manifesto synthesizes numerous ``trans-gender'' arguments--from biologists, social scientists and historians--that expose the limitations of a sexist ``apartheid'' of gender. For example, modern automation eases tasks once performed manually; genetic science has overturned the notion that the XY chromosome without fail distinguishes men from women; and so on. Rothblatt's slender book takes on far too many such arguments to explore any in depth; her own ideas about unisex language and even unisex restrooms seem naive. One wishes that the author--a lawyer and vice-chair of the Bio-Ethics Committee of the International Bar Association--had focused more on her own area of expertise. (Feb.)