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Policy debates have focused on who can participate in or access single-sex activities or services. This article describes how science of the biology of sex is relevant to three major policy areas: parenting (including leaves), sports, and public spaces. We focus on what scientists know about sex and gender (and gender/sex, where gender and sex are intertwined), and the role of various biological factors, including hormones such as testosterone and estradiol as well as genetics, gonads, genitals, and more. The policies under debate often use “biological sex,” but this fails to account for scientific understandings of sex and gender, misrepresents sex as single-faceted and binary, and overlooks scientific consensus about the importance of gender and identity.

Recent research on gender and sexual majority individuals suggests that their attractions, identities, and experiences may not be as homogenous or easily generalizable as is often assumed. Sexual configurations theory (SCT; van Anders, 2015) is a framework for conceptualizing individuals' partnered sexualities and gender/sexes with a focus on gender/sex and sexual diversity. SCT has been successfully used in recent empirical work with gender and sexual minority individuals (Schudson, Manley, Diamond, & van Anders, 2018), but it has not yet been tested with heterosexual, cisgender individuals. In the present study, we tested the use of SCT in qualitative interviews with 26 gender and sexual majority participants to address the following research questions: What are the strengths and weaknesses of SCT for representing heterosexual, cisgender individuals' gender/sexes and partnered sexualities? How do gender and sexual majority individuals use SCT to express their gender/sexes and partnered sexualities? And, what insights about sexual and gender diversity can be gained from using SCT with a gender and sexual majority sample? Using thematic analysis, we evaluated how participants interacted with SCT and the SCT diagrams. Results showed that our participants used components of SCT to convey comprehensive and nuanced interests, which included gender/sex and sexual diversity outside of what is typically expected in research on heterosexual, cisgender individuals. We discuss findings and challenges specific to working with majority participants and offer implications for future work on gender/sex and sexual majorities and on gender/sex and sexual diversity in general.

International audience; Several aromatic dicyanate monomers have been synthesized bearing para-linked strong electron withdrawing groups, such as phenylphosphine oxide, sulfone, and carbonyl. These groups increased the reactivity of the cyanate functional groups and eliminated the need for curing catalysts. However, an undesirable decrease in the processing window between the monomer melting point and the onset of cure was also generally observed. An arylene ether phenyl phosphine oxide system was designed that displayed several attractive characteristics such as a low softening point, a wide processing window, cure with no catalyst, high Tg and high char yield in air, suggesting that these new thermosets might show good fire resistance. The dicyanate ester monomers were synthesized in high yield by reacting various bisphenols with cyanogen bromide in the presence of triethylamine. The high reactivity of the cyanate functional groups required that the cyanation reaction be conducted at temperature below 0°C in order to prevent imidocarbonate side reactions. Proton NMR and FT-IR were used to characterize these monomers. The cyclotrimerization curing process was monitored by the disappearance of the carbon-nitrogen triple bond stretch (2270 cm−1). An optimal cure schedule was determined and the cured polycyanurate networks were characterized by DSC, DMTA, and TGA. Tg values were typically > 250°C and 5% weight loss values were observed by TGA in air above 400°C. Several of the dicyanate monomers with sufficiently large processing windows were cured into single lap shear adhesive bonds onto titanium 6/4 and the measurements are reported herein

International audience; High molecular weight film-forming flexible fluorinated poly(arylene ether benzoxazole)s, which are suitable as gas separation membranes, adhesives and matrix resins, were synthesized in aprotic dipolar solvents such as N-methyl pyrrolidinone via an intermediate poly(hydroxy amide). The cyclodehydration was subsequently achieved at moderate temperatures (e.g. 150–195°C) in solution via an acid-catalysed (p-toluene sulfonic acid or pyridine hydrochloride) process. The water of dehydration could be azeotropically removed in an analogous manner to the well known synthesis of polyimides via intermediate poly(amide acid)s. The fluorinated monomers were bis(arylamino phenol)s based upon either the 6F or a novel 3F connecting link. Oxybis(benzoylchloride) appears to be a particularly attractive comonomer which allows the synthesis of soluble high molecular weight products. The amorphous macromolecules produced highly transparent ductile cast films with glass transition temperature values of about 300°C or higher. Semicrystalline morphologies could also be produced by incorporating more rigid comonomers. The synthetic procedures described herein are considered to be attractive relative to several alternative methods described in the literature for the synthesis of amorphous polybenzoxazoles