This article begins with a consideration of the work of James Messerschmidt. It argues that his use of the central term `masculinities' is tautological and that the arguments linking masculinity to crime are implausible and logically flawed. Next it considers writings by Tony Jefferson that have switched the focus towards the psychic character of `masculinity'. It argues that none of the Kleinian concepts deployed by Jefferson are able to differentiate between masculinity or femininity. It then considers alternative psychoanalytic accounts that do so. Finally, it concludes by suggesting, paradoxically, that Jefferson's approach is helpful because masculinity (and femininity) are what psyches deal with. They are not what psyches are.

The sociological distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ has been paradigmatic for twenty years and is still taken for granted within the discipline. However it is a distinction that will no longer serve. Doubts about its continued usefulness surfaced as a result of a variety of influences. This paper refers specifically to the history of sex and to recent work in genetics in order to demonstrate that sex, like gender is a discursive construction. I argue that the sex/gender problematic is wrong to assume biological differences are naturally given and that sex cannot operate as a natural base in a theory of difference.

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This paper is a critical engagement with some of the writings of Judith Butler who is perhaps best known for popularising the idea of gender as performative. Here we trace the origins of the notion of performatives in the work of J.L. Austin. We outline Butler's extended definition of performative gender and comment on its relationship to earlier sociological accounts. We follow her development of the idea through the later deployment of Derrida's notion of citationality. We draw attention to potential problems of this usage and to the difficulties of linking it to a psychoanalytic account of subjectivity. We consider her extended example of drag as sharing the impersonatory character of gender and as allegorizing the melancholic character of heterosexual gender identity. We comment on her interest in a theatrical politics that may make trouble for gender. Finally we consider the theoretical burden that these ideas attempt to carry.

Sociologists, like the International Olympic Committee (IOC), have believed that the guarantor of sexual division lies in the natural differences of the human body. The key sociological problematic that has dominated discussion in this area for over 20 years turns on a distinction between “sex,” which is conceived of as natural, and “gender,” which is conceived of as constructed. But it is argued in this article that sex is no less a discursive construct than gender. Modern discussions of sex derive from a two-sex model of the body that is no more (and no less) “true” than the preceding monomorphic model. The article discusses the claims of the sex/gender problematic, presents arguments that demonstrate the existence of a one-sex model, and examines recent claims of geneticists. It is argued that such claims are tautological and that there never will be a true sign of a true sex, whatever the hopes of the IOC.