About Dr. Costello

 

I am Cary Gabriel Costello (he/him or ze/zim), a sociology professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I have also served for many years as that university's Director of LGBTQ+ Studies.

Like show dogs, professors are often introduced by their pedigree--mine includes a BA in Psychology (Yale), a JD (Harvard Law School), and an MA and PhD in Sociology (U.C. Berkeley). Woof! It has always been my goal to put this education to use by sharing it as an educator, and putting it to work to serve the public in general, and marginalized communities in particular. As an intersex gender transitioner myself, I am particularly involved in advocacy for sex, gender, and sexual minoritized communities. 

Research Interests

My research centers sociology of the body and intersectional identities. I have two main lines of research. The first examines the regulation of physical sex by medical and legal institutions, focusing on the central role played by the medical profession in imposing binary sex categories onto human bodies that exist along a full spectrum of possibilities. Intersex bodies outside of the contemporary EuroAmerican context were not framed as medically "disordered," but that is the framing here and now, and I research how this impacts people's lives. Centrally, I consider why it is that the same set of medical interventions is treated as not only noncontroversial, but obligatory, when performed on intersex children's bodies, but is the focus of hundreds of state bills and laws that ban those same interventions as experimental, dangerous, and mutilating when it is endosex trans children who are imagined as the patients. (Those state bills and laws universally ban genital reconstructions that no doctor is performing on trans schoolchildren, yet carve out an exception for children born intersex, and whose genitals are routinely subjected to such reconstructions without their consent.)

In my second line of research, I look at how people use virtual bodies--avatars--to explore and express their identities. I have been conducting research on avatar use in various communities in the virtual world of Second Life for over fifteen years. These include communities of people with physical disabilities, autistic communities, trans/nonbinary/intersex/gender-nonconforming communities, furry communities, fat-positive communities, and others.

Public Sociology 

I am committed to public education and advocacy! One way I practice this is by writing medium-format posts on three blogs: the Intersex Roadshow, TransFusion, and A Sociological Eye. While only a fairly small number of people will ever read my academic publications (articles, book chapters, a book--all listed on my CV), my blog posts have received well over 2 million unique views from people all around the world. In 2019, the Intersex Roadshow was compiled and archived by the US Library of Congress as a Noted LGBTQ+ Studies Website.

I also educate by giving talks on intersex and trans issues to various audiences. Sometimes these are in academic settings, but I have provided educational talks about working with sex-variant patients to ER doctors, psychologists, nursing students, and the like. I have spoken to church groups about intersexuality and religion; I've given educational lectures to senior citizen's groups; I've done theater talkbacks after play performances; I've served as an expert "talking head" on many news stories. My aim is to reach people where they are and dispel misunderstandings! And if you are interested in having me speak to your organization, you can contact me at costello at uwm dot edu.