Sorting sexualities : expertise and the politics of legal classification

Author(s)

    • Vogler, Stefan

Bibliographic Information

Sorting sexualities : expertise and the politics of legal classification

Stefan Vogler

University of Chicago Press, 2021

  • : paper

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [247]-262) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In Sorting Sexualities, Stefan Vogler deftly unpacks the politics of the techno-legal classification of sexuality in the United States. His study focuses specifically on state classification practices around LGBTQ people seeking asylum in the United States and sexual offenders being evaluated for carceral placement-two situations where state actors must determine individuals' sexualities. Though these legal settings are diametrically opposed-one a punitive assessment, the other a protective one-they present the same question: how do we know someone's sexuality? In this rich ethnographic study, Vogler reveals how different legal arenas take dramatically different approaches to classifying sexuality and use those classifications to legitimate different forms of social control. By delving into the histories behind these diverging classification practices and analyzing their contemporary reverberations, Vogler shows how the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1: Kissing Cousins: Queerness, Crime, and the Politics of Knowing 2: Seeing Sexuality Like a State 3: Forensic Psychology, Complicit Expertise, and the Legitimation of Law 4: Insurgent Expertise and the Hybrid Network of LGBTQ Asylum 5: Asylum Seekers and Signs of Queerness 6: Sex Offenders and the Detection of Deviance 7: Queer Subjects and the Construction of Risky Countries 8: Sexual Predators and the Constitution of Dangerous Individuals Conclusion: Sexuality, Science, and Citizenship in the Twenty-First Century Acknowledgments Appendix 1: Static-99R Coding Form Appendix 2: Methodology Notes References Index

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