Mark Bratton reviews On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach by Doriane Lambelet Coleman
Doriane Lambelet Coleman is an American law professor of Swiss extraction and a former international middle-distance runner. Although she never topped a global podium, she had the distinction in 1983 of competing in the race that saw Czechoslovakian athlete Jarmila Kratochilova destroy the 800-metre world record in a time that has yet to be surpassed. Although there has never been evidence proving otherwise, Kratochilova’s exceedingly masculine physique and suspicions of systemic drug-taking in then-communist Eastern Europe have cast a pall over her historic athletic achievements. Although Lambelet Coleman does not specifically adduce Kratochilova in support of her fluent analysis of the enduring importance of sex in life, law and public policy, Kratochilova nevertheless symbolises the ambiguities of sex and pharmacological transformation that characterise current ideologically-driven debates over sex and gender.
Common sense is “the thing or things that will work for real people in their actual lives”
Among the burgeoning bibliography on sex and gender, Lambelet Coleman’s book is distinguished by its ‘commonsense approach’ – the subtitle of the book and the title of the final chapter (Chapter 9). This commonsense approach isn’t a boast masquerading as a method. Instead, it expresses her self-avowed pragmatic mindset shaped by her grounding in the common law tradition and intellectual sensitivity to the limits of ‘theory’, whose tenets she argues are often refuted by its real-world consequences. Common sense is “the thing or things that will work for real people in their actual lives” (p 235). The book demonstrates an impressive grasp of biology, law, history, art and politics to uphold the enduring importance of sex in human affairs. It points out the harmful consequences for individuals and society when genderist thinking skews this essential perceptual category.
Sex is good as a perceptual category because it helps us to negotiate a complex social world: “… the words male and female …communicate important concepts effectively and efficiently”(p 14).
Lambelet Coleman divides her book into three parts: Part I: What is Sex (Chapters 1-3); Part II: Sex Matters (Chapters 4-6); and Part III: On Sex and Gender ((Chapters 7-9). A consistent theme throughout is that sex is good for us and for society, not simply as a pleasurable anatomical transaction or mode of propagating the species, but as a form of beauty and a source of cultural enrichment (see especially Chapter 4 (‘Sex is Good’)). Sex is good as a perceptual category because it helps us to negotiate a complex social world: “… the words male and female …communicate important concepts effectively and efficiently”(p 14). The gender-theoretic denial of the sex binary and labelling of those who uphold it as ‘transphobic’ represents a form of sexual coercion or even a form of sexual violence: “It’s hard to be kind, though, because the stance [the claim that sexual orientation is transphobic] is deeply coercive of the last thing that should be coerced: sexual relations” (p 102). The gender progressivist branding of idealised beauty as ‘transphobic’ (e.g. Michaelangelo’s David or the Venus de Milo) serves “to steal beauty and subtract value from the world” (p 112).
To assert that gender varies independently of sex obscures the material and social disadvantages women have suffered through history
As one would expect from a distinguished academic lawyer, this powerful and original ethical analysis matches her command of American jurisprudence on sex and gender. Despite recent ideological attempts to detach womanhood from female physical nature in favour of gender identity, American law has consistently upheld the plain, ordinary meaning of sex as grounded in human nature and natural characteristics. Indeed, it is precisely on the female nature that, in the late nineteenth century, the legal community constructed their notions of femininity to deny the brilliant Myra Bradwell her licence to practice at the American Bar (see Chapter 2). To assert that gender varies independently of sex obscures the material and social disadvantages women have suffered through history because of their sex and the gender ideals constructed upon it. Even in the context of the revolution in sex discrimination law in the late 20th century, the Supreme Court (which included female Justices Sandra Day Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg) distinguished sex from race in upholding the legal relevance of physical differences between men and women in appropriate circumstances (see Chapter 7). Lambelet Coleman avers: “It’s important for our health, our safety, and our welfare – and yes, also for our equality and our liberty – that the door that Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor and their colleagues on the Court left ajar for sex-smart lawmaking remains open” (p 200).
Supporters of LGB Christians will not find any of Lambelet Coleman’s policy positions surprising: sex is binary, sex is different from gender, there is a need for sex separation in public places, compassionate, evidence-based medical treatment, sex classification in sports, and so on. In places, she perhaps concedes too much to gender ideologues for my taste, e.g. her notion of gender-affirming treatment, the possibility that gender may matter in school sports, and her sensitivity to the cognitive dissonance trans people might feel if the ‘wrong’ pronouns are used. Nevertheless, this readable book persuasively upholds the enduring importance of sex for society and its social, legal and political implications.
On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach by Doriane Lambelet Coleman (Simon & Schuster, 2024) ISBN 978-1668023105
Read Mark Bratton’s biography (scroll to the end), other articles on this website and his analysis of the April 2025 Supreme Court ruling.