Systems Views of Gender/Sex Require Enactivism: Connecting Fausto-Sterling's Approach to Embodied Cognition to the "Linguistic Bodies" Paradigm
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) May 28, 2026 Alex Thinius
The sex/gender distinction has been both useful and restrictive for interdisciplinary research. Alternative frameworks aim to overcome or redefine these categories, including biosocial interaction, gender/sex entanglement, and dynamic developmental systems. This paper supports modifications of dynamic systems approaches, arguing that the 'linguistic bodies' paradigm provides theoretical resources to distinguish and connect gender structuration, gender identity, and their material dimensions. The author examines Fausto-Sterling's connection of her developmental systems approach with embodied cognition theory, acknowledging its strength but showing it is limited by representationalist understanding. The author expands the view that gender requires participatory sense-making, linking personal, intersubjective, socio-structural, and material dimensions without positing representationalist agents.