{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Gender","slug":"new-books-in-gender-612984","podcast_index_feed_id":612984,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT3077747900","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/f01fabce-f1a3-11e8-8461-f77ace4487d2/image/e2241d70e6072e60f482d28cf495fbab.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":1000,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies","last_synced_at":"2026-07-13T16:22:32.043062+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-gender-612984"},"episode":{"title":"Beans Velocci, \"Sex Isn't Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary\" (Duke UP, 2026)","slug":"beans-velocci-sex-isn-t-real-the-invention-of-an-incoherent-binary-duke-up-2026","published_at":"2026-04-11T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-gender-612984/beans-velocci-sex-isn-t-real-the-invention-of-an-incoherent-binary-duke-up-2026","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-gender-612984","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2686727015.mp3?updated=1777409805","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK2686727015.mp3?updated=1777409805","summary":"In Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary (Duke UP, 2026), Beans Velocci traces the history of current high stakes attempts to define sex and to create a world devoid of trans life. Drawing on lab notes, family genealogies, medical case studies, and more, Velocci follows scientists and clinicians from the mid-nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century and across five disciplines—zoology, eugenics, gynecology, statistical sexology, and transsexual medicine—as their ideas and practices created a definitional tangle. They demonstrate how the sorting of bodies into male and female persists not despite but because of sex’s incoherence: the defining features of these categories shift to contain various understandings of anatomy and physiology, theories of race, developments in research and medical methodologies, and bodies that cannot be accounted for in a binary framework. Exposing the endless work required to produce a world in which most people have a binary gender identity that neatly fits their binarily sexed body, Velocci demonstrates that it is not cis people who fit the categories; it’s the categories that flex to make them fit. Beans Velocci is Assistant Professor of History and Sociology of Science and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies","meta_description":"In Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary (Duke UP, 2026), Beans Velocci traces the history of current high stakes attempts to define sex…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4910,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-gender-612984/episodes/beans-velocci-sex-isn-t-real-the-invention-of-an-incoherent-binary-duke-up-2026/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-gender-612984/beans-velocci-sex-isn-t-real-the-invention-of-an-incoherent-binary-duke-up-2026.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}