(Epi)genealogy of the Gendering Body

Abstract

In this text I address one of the ontological, epistemic and methodological proposals that best synthesizes the work of feminist epistemologies on how to conceptualize the notions of gender and sex and their relationship in the biological realm. I describe the scope and limitations of this proposal and show that the very notion of sex implies an androcentric bias from which it legitimizes the endogenous/exogenous dichotomy, a functional reductionism, the idea of internal coherence, and the reduction of our biological complexity to features linked to reproduction with respect to biological differences in general and, as I will address, in the biomedical field in particular when characterizing the prevalence and development of diseases. In contrast, I propose the notion of epigenealogy for a historical reconceptualization of our biological materiality capable of delving into how our plasticity through epigenetic processes dances synchronically with our social, contingent and situated experience.