Thomas Laqueur discusses (in Making Sex) the "aesthetic of sexual (and racial) difference" is developed to establish hierarchy
"in the face of upheavals resulting from movements of revolution and liberation that are clamoring for the enlargement of the boundaries of the public spheres for women and foreigners" (Preciado's summation, 74)
"anatomical truth" is pressed into service as a "legitimization of a new political organization"