March 12, 2025
Salon Topic:
Sex, Gender, Law, and Policy: How We Got Here
Sarah Richardson, PhD
It’s not hyperbole to say that Professor Sarah Richardson, founder and director of the GenderSciLab at Harvard University foresaw the politics of sex and gender that we’re currently living coming down the pike. An expert in the history and philosophy of the sciences of sex, gender, sexuality, and reproduction, Richardson predicted the chasm between how scientists conceptualized the constructs of “sex” and “gender,” and how legislators and other policymakers increasingly relied on biological arguments to justify discrimination against transgender and nonbinary people. Consequently, whereas many scientists were surprised by the executive orders decrying “gender ideology extremism,” Richardson wasn’t among them. In this salon, Richardson will discuss her work on sex and gender, the things that most researchers get wrong about these constructs, and why she was not surprised to see this current era of political backlash against how most scientists conceptualize sex and gender. She’ll also discuss recommendations she gave for ethical and responsible research on sex and gender in her 2022 Science article, and what that looks like now.
Professor Sarah Richardson is the founder and Director of the GenderSciLab at Harvard University, where she has taught since 2010. She is the Aramont Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, and an expert in the history and philosophy of the sciences of sex, gender, sexuality, and reproduction, she also writes and teaches about race and science, history and philosophy of biology (in particular, genomics and evolutionary biology), feminist epistemology and philosophy of science, and the social dimensions of scientific knowledge. She is the author of numerous high impact journal articles. Her most recent book, and winner of the 2021, Adele E. Clarke Book Award is The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects.
Boulicault, M., Rushovich T., Shattuck-Heidorn, H., and Richardson, S.S. (2022) Intersectionality as Live Theory and Practice in the Biomedical Sciences. In J. C. Nash & S. Pinto (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Intersectionalities, (pp. 420-434). Taylor & Francis Group. PDF: https://www.genderscilab.org/s/Boulicault-et-al-Intersectionality.pdf
DiMarco, M., Zhao, H., Boulicault, M., & Richardson S.S., (2022). Why “Sex as a Biological Variable” conflicts with precision medicine initiatives. Cell Reports Medicine, 3(4). PDF