Sex, gender, and health
My work at the intersection of the social and biomedical sciences critically evaluates the influence of gender ideology and assumptions on the production of scientific knowledge, particularly as it concerns claims about sex difference and the specificity of women’s bodies. Like in my research critically analyzing knowledge claims about athletic performance in transgender athletes and athletes with intersex variations, my work here is motivated by scientific integrity, the politics and structures of knowledge production, and the intersection of science and governance, both in and beyond sport.
In addition to addressing rigor and precision in the study of sex-related variation in biomedical research writ large, my individual and collaborative work in this domain challenges the new wave of bioessentialism in research on "Female Athlete Health" by considering how health, injury, and sporting performance are shaped by gendered inequalities and other social variables.
I am a member of GenderSci Lab: an interdisciplinary lab dedicated to generating feminist concepts, methods and theories for scientific research on sex and gender.
Related publications (please contact me if you do not have access):
Pape, M. (2021). Co-production, multiplied: Enactments of sex as a biological variable in U.S. biomedicine. Social Studies of Science, 51(3), 339-363.
Pape, M. (2021). Lost in translation? Revisiting sex as a biological variable in animal research. Health Sociology Review, 30(3), 275-291.
Pape, M., Miyagi, M., Ritz, S.A., Boulicault, M., Richardson, S.S., and Maney, D.L. (2024). Sex contextualism in laboratory research: Enhancing rigor and precision in the study of sex-related variables. Cell, 187(6), 1316-1326.
Brewis, A., Currah, P., DuBois, L.Z., Greaves, L., Hoppe, K., Karkazis, K., Pape, M., Villa, P.I., and Wutich, A. (2025). Gender, sex, and their entanglement: From scientific research to policy and practice. In Sex and Gender: Transforming Scientific Practice, edited by L.Z. DuBois, A.K. Trujillo, and M.M. McCarthy. Strüngmann Forum Reports, pp. 241-265. Cham: Springer-Nature.
Pape, M. (2025). SABV research policies: From distinctions to entanglements. In Sex and Gender: Transforming Scientific Practice, edited by L.Z. DuBois, A.K. Trujillo, and M.M. McCarthy. Strüngmann Forum Reports, pp. 267–283. Cham: Springer-Nature.