She has written two books intended for the general audience. The second edition of the first of those books, Myths of Gender, was published in 1992. [1]
Her second book for the general public is Sexing the Body, published in 2000.[2] She stated that in it she sets out to "convince readers of the need for theories that allow for a good deal of human variation and that integrate the analytical powers of the biological and the social into the systematic analysis of human development."
In a paper entitled "The Five Sexes"[3], in which, according to her, "I had intended to be provocative, but I had also written with tongue firmly in cheek,"[4], Fausto-Sterling laid out a thought experiment considering an alternative model of gender containing five sexes: male, female, merm, ferm, and herm. This thought experiment was interpreted by some as a serious proposal or even a theory; advocates for intersexual people stated that this theory was wrong, confusing and unhelpful to the interests of intersexual people. In a later paper ("The Five Sexes, Revisited"[4]) she has acknowledged these objections.
Fausto-Sterling also takes an interest in how flatworms (more precisely planaria) manage to reproduce themselves asexually.
