Epistemic Contrast in Medical and Legal Gender Classifications and their Influences on the Dewey Decimal Classification

Abstract

Hjørland (2010) writes, “The relative strengths and weaknesses of different [epistemic] approaches are an important research question for the field of KO” (p. 40). Determining who has the authority to speak, along with examining the decisions those authorities make, can reveal the epistemological perspective or perspectives at play. Interrogating the epistemic stance underlying a classification can help understand ontological decision-making process of the institution that claims the classification. In classifying groups of people, formal gender classifications can marginalize people who do not identify with traditional understandings of sex and gender. Sex, or biological characteristics, and gender, the social aspects associated with a particular sex, intertwine, and their characteristics can be conflated. Though in practice both gender and sex possess a great deal of variation and fluidity, most of the world considers them binary or some version of trinary, particularly in formal institutions. Western classification reinforces this rigidity with its principles of mutual exclusivity and hierarchical force. A formal sex or gender classification represents the sanctioned outlook of a particular institution, which then can affect people’s lived experience.