Sorting Sexualities: Expertise and the Politics of Legal Classification

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  

About the Author :
Stefan Vogler is a research scientist with NORC at the University of Chicago and an affiliated scholar with the American Bar Foundation. His work has been published in numerous journals, including Gender & Society, Theoretical Criminology, Sociology Compass, Law & Society Review, and the Journal of Homosexuality.

Review :
"What emerges from Vogler’s detailed study of the various materials related to these two legal classification systems is an impressive constructionist story about how law and psychology, medicine, and science operate together to create, reify, and maintain systems of sexual classification. . . . This book makes important contributions to the sociology of scientific and social-scientific knowledge and the sociology of legal knowledge generally by charting the divergence of these two quite distinct legal and scientific classifications of sexuality. For this reason, among others, Sorting Sexuality deserves a very broad readership." "[A] complex, captivating exploration of sexual identity and the law. . . . This is a truly fascinating and eye-opening book, richly researched and engaging. . . . Highly recommended." "In this landmark study, Sorting Sexualities: Expertise and the Politics of Legal Classification, Stefan Vogler asks how the American state 'sees' sexuality on its subjects and how the boundaries of citizenship are predicated on intersecting schematics of sexuality and risk . . . This is an excellent and innovative book that complicates some of our commonsense ideas about sexual identity. It should be of interest to scholars working in a variety of subfields, including gender and sexuality, violence prevention, law and society, migration, and science and technology studies." “Vogler offers an instructive and nuanced analysis of the historical contingency of bureaucratic decision-making processes in US federal state agencies that rely on science for their authority. With a carefully designed comparative method and with very thorough research, the book makes an important contribution to understanding the nexus of science and the state.” "This is a study of state classification of LGBTQ people seeking asylum in the US 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. Vogler finds that different legal arenas take dramatically different approaches to classifying sexuality and use those classifications to legitimate different forms of social control. He concludes that the science of sexuality is far more central to state power than we realize." "Sorting Sexualities is a wonderful big-picture book, superbly researched and subtly theorized. It is an original and timely contribution to legal studies, social studies of science, and sexuality studies. We have many good monographs on the legal regulation of a single sexual minority at a point in time. But by comparing and contrasting what counts as legal evidence for different purposes, Vogler's ambitious study shows that both the law and the science of sexuality are highly fragmented." "This is brilliant stuff. The book is helpful in thinking through the way the state views categories, knowledge, and classificatory systems. It is satisfying in the best ways: I’ve read it twice and want to return to it—I continue to want to think about it. It is an excellent piece of scholarship that makes novel claims regarding state power, sexuality, identity, and expertise—and will push scholarship in those areas forward. Absolutely fascinating." "A fantastic achievement. Virtually unparalleled in scope, evidence, and analytic precision, Vogler has cut through the scientific and legal discourse surrounding two confounding subjects of the twenty-first century: the LGBTQ asylee and the sex offender. Unafraid to make dangerous comparisons or ask disquieting questions about the production of sexual natures, Vogler has exposed a vast network of social actors, technologies, knowledge-production practices, and subject-producing institutions that have broad implications for how sexualities are made and remade across registers of society. This book will be a classic of STS, queer, and critical legal studies."