For individuals, gender is often an essential aspect of personhood and personal experience. But gender is also a cultural and structural system that differentiates members of society. At both the individual and institutional levels, gender intersects with race, class, and sexuality to structure identities, rights, privileges, and opportunities. Organized around investigation of the socially produced North American binary gender order, this course is an introduction to the sociological study of gender that focuses on gender as embedded in social life. Specific topics of study include gender identity, how children and adults "become" gendered and "do" their gender(s), gender as a symbolic system, gender and sport, desire and gender, trans, and intersex.