gender

During PRIDE month Americans celebrate gender and sexuality spectrums, but many social arenas still rely on a rigid binary. Athletics is one of the spaces where gender segregation still dominates. In fact, its strict separation of sports into male and female competitions actually requires sport administrators to set and police the boundaries between the sexes and has created many controversies and conundrums in recent years. Sociological research illustrates how actors use gender verification, or sex testing, in athletics as a weapon of nationalism, sexism, and racism, thus reinforcing a medical view of the gender binary in an attempt to ensure “fair play.”

Gender verification in international athletics was part of the battlefield of the Cold War. Systematic sex testing in the Olympic Games began in 1968, largely in response to concerns about the dominant performances of the East German women and fears or rumors of men posing as women. In addition to being used as a weapon of nationalism, gender verification testing targeted athletes who did not conform to white, Western norms of femininity. Even after systematic sex testing was (briefly) eliminated by the International Olympic Committee in 2000, “suspicious” athletes such as the middle-distance runners Santhi Soundarajan and Caster Semenya were forced to undergo gender verification in 2006 and 2009.

• Stefan Wiederkehr. 2009. “‘We Shall Never Know the Exact Number of Men Who Have Competed in the Olympics Posing as Women’: Sport, Gender Verification and the Cold War.” The International Journal of the History of Sport 26(4): 556–72.
• Lindsay Parks Pieper. 2014. “Sex Testing and the Maintenance of Western Femininity in International Sport.” International Journal of the History of Sport 31(13): 1557–76.

Sport federations continue to defend gender verification of women — but not men — on the basis of “fair play,” or the idea that women competing against men face an unfair athletic disadvantage. Feminist scholars have critiqued the fair play reasoning as a smokescreen for the policing of women, especially as sex segregation and drug testing are two of the only ways that sport federations attempt to enforce a level playing field. Additionally, sex testing forces a medical definition of sex and draws sharp lines that punish individuals who are intersex, have chromosomal abnormalities, or have higher than average levels of androgens.

• Cheryl Cooky and Shari L. Dworkin. 2013. “Policing the Boundaries of Sex: A Critical Examination of Gender Verification and the Caster Semenya Controversy.” Journal of Sex Research 50(2): 103–11.
• Claire F. Sullivan. 2011. “Gender Verification and Gender Policies in Elite Sport: Eligibility and ‘Fair Play.’” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 35(4): 400-419.

How sex has been defined and verified has shifted as the medical understanding and technology available has advanced, but all gender verification methods will continue to struggle with how to fit the wide spectrum of gendered individuals into only two boxes.

From a favorite lighting trope to the album premiere of the season, bisexuality and pansexuality are having a major cultural moment. According to recent social surveys, the number of people who identify as bisexual is on the rise. Social science research studying bisexuality shows us how a more fluid look at sexual identity brings both benefits and challenges.

For many people, identification with a particular sexual orientation is not a clear and consistent process. Some bisexual people come out later in life, or choose different labels for it.  And how “out” you are can depend on the gender and number of partners you have. Today, more young people are embracing this fluidity as “something other than straight.”

• Paula C Rust. 1993. “‘Coming Out’ in the Age of Social Constructionism: Sexual Identity Formation among Lesbian and Bisexual Women.” Gender & Society 7(1): 50-77.
• Paula England, Emma Mishel, Mónica L. Caudillo. 2016. “Increases in Sex with Same-Sex Partners and Bisexual Identity Across Cohorts of Women (but Not Men).” Sociological Science 3(42): 951-970.
• Kristin S. Scherrer, Emily Kazyak, and Rachel Schmitz. 2015. “Getting ‘Bi’ in the Family: Bisexual People’s Disclosure Experiences.” Journal of Marriage and Family 77(3): 680-696.

But this fluidity can also have consequences. Bisexuals face unequal health outcomes and wage disparities, and additional social stigma in both straight identified and queer identified spaces.

• Trenton D Mize. 2016. “Sexual Orientation in the Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 81(6): 1132-1160.
• Bridget K. Gorman, Justin T. Denney, Hilary Dowdy, and Rose Anne Medeiros. 2015. “A New Piece of the Puzzle: Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Physical Health Status.” Demography. 52(4): 1357–1382.
• Lori E.Ross, Laurel O’Gorman, Melissa A.MacLeod, Greta R.Bauer, Jenna MacKay, and Margaret Robinson. 2016. “Bisexuality, Poverty, and Mental Health: A Mixed Methods Analysis.” Social Science & Medicine 156: 64-72.

But wait, there’s some good news! The way researchers study bisexual behavior — often comparing bisexual individuals with two or more partners to straight or gay individuals with only one or more partners — means that some of the differences in health may be exaggerated. Despite greater attention to bisexual individuals in popular culture, we must not forget the challenges faced by this population. In a world that likes clear labels, it is easy for people who don’t fit those categories to fall through the cracks.

• Greta R.Bauer and David J. Brennan. 2013. “The Problem with ‘Behavioral Bisexuality’: Assessing Sexual Orientation in Survey Research.” Journal of Bisexuality 13(2): 148-165.

Recently we’ve been hearing more about “incels” or involuntary celibates — people who want to have sex but can’t seem to find a partner — especially in the context of mass violence. For example, Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in 2014 as part of a self-declared “war on women,” publicly blamed women for his inability to find a willing partner. Articles in the popular press have suggested that masculinity has more to do with this group’s behavior than wanting to have sex. In fact, social science research clearly demonstrates that there are plenty of adults out there who want to be having sex — but aren’t — and do not commit horrendous acts of violence.

First, many people fit into the category of “involuntary celibate.” One researcher defined it as someone who desires to have sex but has been unable to find a willing partner for at least six months. There are many reasons people don’t have sex, from religious beliefs, to physical ability, to a partner’s preferences. Depending on one’s age and relationship status, the path to involuntary celibacy can look very different. For instance, men and women with little relationship or sexual experience reported lack of experience to be the main reason for celibacy, in addition to social skills, body image, living arrangements, work arrangements, and transportation. Further, young adults tend to report feeling “off time.” In other words, they believe their peers are already having sex, a lot of sex, and they feel like they will never catch up.

• Denise Donnelly, Elisabeth Burgess, Sally Anderson, Regina Davis, and Joy Dillard. 2001. “Involuntary Celibacy: A Life Course Analysis.” Journal of Sex Research 38(2): 159-169.
• Laura Carpenter. 2005. Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences. New York: New York University Press.

Even though having sex is a key part of masculinity for most young men, some avoid feeling “off time” by pledging abstinence until marriage. These men do not feel less masculine than their peers. Instead, they reframe the choice as one that requires self-control and therefore their masculinity is dependent on not having sex until marriage.

• Sarah Diefendorf. 2015. “After the Wedding Night: Sexual Abstinence and Masculinities over the Life Course.” Gender & Society 29(5): 647-669.

While many people in partnered relationships — married or not — have sex at the beginning of the relationship, some report their relationship becomes “sexless” later on, often due to one partner’s sexual desires (or rather, lack thereof). While most view the lack of sex in their relationship as negative, they are often reluctant to leave a stable relationship. Many decide the benefits of staying, like strong emotional connections, outweigh the costs of leaving like financial instability and loneliness.

• Denise Donnelly and Elisabeth Burgess. 2008. “The Decision to Remain in an Involuntary Celibate Relationship.” Journal of Marriage and Family 70: 519-535.

Images of smiling mothers and children flowed through our newsfeeds last week week as millions of Americans celebrated Mother’s Day. Yet, within the slew of digital odes to motherhood, many users posted messages of support for women who either voluntarily or involuntarily opted out of motherhood. Sociologists have long explored the meanings of motherhood and its social impacts on the women excluded from its definition.

Despite increasing support for gender equity, the traditional role of mother and the myth of ‘maternal instinct’ are still recognized as ‘natural’ rites of passage in a woman’s life. Women without children — particularly those who do not desire to have children — face stigma and criticism from friends, family and even coworkers that their childless status is abnormal and selfish. Even those who are involuntarily childless are portrayed as bereft and damaged. Childless women have resisted these depictions by expressing their reasons for opting out of motherhood. These include commitment to career aspirations, adverse childhood experiences, and idealistic perceptions of what good mothering looks like.

• Marian Faux. 1984. Childless by Choice: Choosing Childlessness in the Eighties. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
• JaneMaree Maher and Lise Saugeres. 2007. “To Be or Not to Be a Mother? Women Negotiating Cultural Representations of Mothering.” Journal of Sociology 43(1): 5-21.
• Gayle Letherby. 2002. “Childless and Bereft?: Stereotypes and Realities in Relation to ‘Voluntary’ and ‘Involuntary’ Childlessness and Womanhood.” Sociological Inquiry 72(1): 7-20.
• Ruth E. S. Allen and Janine L. Wiles. 2013. “How Older People Position Their Late‐Life Childlessness: A Qualitative Study.” Journal of Marriage and Family 75(1): 206-220.

In the absence of children, people find alternative ways to form familial bonds. Contrary to cultural representations of  childless women as cold and selfish, Amy Blackstone illustrates how childless couples have more time to develop closeness through intimacy and sexual activity with their partners. Furthermore, some research suggests that women in childless relationships are more likely to earn higher incomes, work outside the home, and face less pressure to complete household duties traditionally relegated to women.

• Amy Blackstone. 2014. “Doing Family Without Having Kids.” Sociology Compass 8(1): 52-62.

Women may also opt in to motherhood even after being staunchly against the idea. Some become pregnant unexpectedly, while others encounter life experiences, such as desire from one’s partner to have a child or the death of a loved one, that ultimately transform their plans from not wanting children to preparing for motherhood.

• Julia Moore. 2017. “Facets of Agency in Stories of Transforming From Childless by Choice to Mother.” Journal of Marriage and Family (79)4: 1144-1159.

This month many celebrated Easter Sunday, symbolizing the resurrection of Christianity’s most prominent figure, Jesus. In this context, we find ourselves reflecting on the rise of the U.S. evangelical movement and the individuals who constitute its membership. Most recently progressives criticized evangelicals for their support of Donald Trump, who received over 80 percent of the evangelical vote despite his lack of religious practice, and his purported incidents of sexual misconduct. Sociological research provides a complicated picture of evangelicals in the United States and their beliefs.

The evangelical movement emerged during the mid-twentieth century and quickly gained popularity among conservative Whites in the 1990s. The core belief of evangelicalism, which has its roots in fundamentalism, lies in its assertion of the Protestant Bible as God’s actual word. Evangelicals see the Bible as the ultimate authority over moral matters and believe it cannot be contested. Their mission seeks to convert non-believers to Christianity so they may see Jesus as their savior and save their souls from eternal damnation.

• Christian Smith. 1998. American Evangelicalism: Embattled and Thriving. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Hout. 2006. The Truth about Conservative Christians: What They Think and What They Believe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Evangelicals also make up an essential part of the Republican Party. Several explanations exist for the strong link between evangelicalism and right-wing politics, including religiosity, gender and family ideologies, and moral standards. For example, evangelicals support political causes that reaffirm Biblical beliefs and support ideologies that center patriarchal models of family. Further, moral traditionalists hold universal ideas about what is right and wrong and support political causes and figures that uphold moral principles they perceive to be under threat.

• Steven Brint and Seth Abrutyn. 2010. “Who’s Right About the Right? Comparing Competing Explanations of the Link Between White Evangelicals and Conservative Politics in the United States.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(2): 328-350.
• Jeff Manza and Clem Brooks. 1997. “The Religious Factor in US Presidential Elections, 1960-1992.” American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 38–81.

Yet, several scholars warn against overgeneralizing about evangelicals. For example, Andrew Greeley and Michael Hout point out that while a significant amount of African American Christians share some of these evangelical beliefs, they overwhelmingly support democratic policies. Furthermore, outside of the U.S. context, many conservative White Christians reject right-wing social politics.

• Lydia Bean. 2014. The Politics of Evangelical Identity: Local Churches and Partisan Divides in the United States and Canada. Princeton University Press.

Embracing and shaping fashion are not without issues of power and inequality. Different consumers have varying degrees of access to certain products, whether in terms of money or knowledge of what is happening in a particular arena of fashion. In most societies, clothing is a way to signal social class and occupation. While some privileged consumers assert class identities through conspicuous consumption of luxury goods, not all fashion choices are about creating or maintaining an image of wealth and power. Researchers have studied various subcultures to understand how fashion relates to identity.

• Thorstein Veblen. 1899. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dick Hebdige. 2002 [1970]. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Think of English punks or the 1970s or goth teens as examples of subcultures that use style and clothing to brand their identities rather than fit in with mainstream culture. In light of this, interpreting and predicting fashion trends remains difficult because individual and group identity expressions are in constant states of negotiation. Consumers decide if and to what extent they adopt a new trend or practice in order to fit in with a certain group or distinguish themselves from them. In other words, fashion is not just about the clothes themselves; it is a process of constant change that occurs in the contexts of existing culture and society.

• Paul Hodkinson. 2002. Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. New York: Berg Publishers.
• Fred Davis. 1992. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Fashion month has come to a close. Actors graced the Academy Awards red carpet with glamorous gowns and haute couture. Clicking through fashion websites, blogs, and Instagram or flipping through the glossy pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and other more traditional print materials has long been a pastime for consumers of fashion and clothing. While some argue that the study of clothing and couture merits little scholarly attention, others view fashion as a valuable case for understanding everyday aspects of social life like personal identity, consumption, and social distinction and exclusion.

Peers, such as friends, family, and others in similar social locations, as well as fashion designers and brands act as reference points for choosing fashion items. When consumers purchase and use a blouse, handbag, or pair of shoes, those items take on social meaning and mark social distinctions. While people make choices in their fashion consumption, these decisions occur in relation to what others think and do. One might think that the top fashion houses are the ones who create what’s “in” or “out,” but consuming fashion does not occur in such a simple top-down way.

• Patrik Aspers and Frederic Godart. 2013. “Sociology of Fashion: Order and Change.” Annual Review of Sociology 39: 171-192.
• Diana Crane. 2000. Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Yuniya Kawamura. 2005. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies. New York: Berg Publishers.

Choosing clothing is not necessarily about fitting in with what Louis Vuitton or Givenchy calls fashion, but rather a way to communicate specific meanings to the people in one’s peer groups. Particularly with the rise of the Internet as a way for consumers and producers to communicate about fashion, trends are difficult to predict. In other words, social actors — whether in haute couture houses or specific consumer subcultures — can influence fashion trends, but they cannot dictate what becomes popular.

• Yuniya Kawamura. 2006. “Japanese Teens as Producers of Street Fashion.” Current Sociology 54(5): 784-801.
• Malcolm Barnard. 1996. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge.
• Victor P. Corona and Frederic Godart 2010. “Network-Domains in Combat and Fashion Organizations.” Organizations 17(2): 283-304.

Sociology of fashion extends beyond consumers of couture to the designers of dresses and producers of posh. Creating fashion products for mass consumption typically involves constant negotiation among social actors all over the world, not just a few designers and assistants sewing beautiful one-of-a-kind garments in a studio — after all, most pieces are intended for more than one person to wear. Company CEOs and head designers make decisions about how many collections they plan to produce, the overall vibe of the products, which suppliers will provide the materials, and which factories will sew the products. The leathers, lace, fabric, and buckles may come from places as far flung from each other as Italy, India, Brazil, and Thailand. Designers constantly communicate with suppliers and manufacturers in person and via phone and email to make decisions about fabrics, buckles, heel height, and other details. Much like an essay, an “it” bag in its final form has likely undergone numerous revisions before gracing the arms of fashionable women on Instagram.

• Claudio E. Benzecry. 2015. “All Together Now: Producing Fashion at the Global Level.” Pp. 49-71 in Getting Culture. New York: W.W. Norton.
• Pietra Rivoli. 2009. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade. 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Patrik Aspers. 2010. Orderly Fashion: A Sociology of Markets. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.  

As we move through Women’s History Month, we remember the women and men around the world who have fought for gender, race, and other social equalities. Honoring the legacies of historical figures and the movements that led to their rise, however, raises larger questions about how these particular figures and movements are cemented into our memory, while others have been downplayed or altogether forgotten. Social science helps us understand these processes of collective remembering and forgetting.

Knowledge of past events is more than historical facts. Collective memory recognizes historical knowledge as a social process and acknowledges that socially-produced understandings of history also dictate how we understand the past. Groups reshape collective memory over time, with different institutions either reinforcing or reshaping knowledge. Within education, for example, textbooks can shape the way generations understand certain historical events. Legal institutions can also construct collective memory by categorizing actions as just or criminal. Additionally, commemorative events or memorials can prioritize certain understandings for those who participate or visit.

• Joachim Savelsberg and Ryan King. 2011. American Memories: Atrocities and the Law. New York: Russell Sage Foundation
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• Jeffrey Olick. 1999. “Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945 Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany.” American Sociological Review 64: 381-402.
• Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Barry Schwartz. 1991. “The Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial: Commemorating a Difficult Past.” American Journal of Sociology 97: 376-420.

Creating knowledge about historical figures and events often lies in the ability of “reputational entrepreneurs,” like journalists, politicians, museum curators, and historians to construct or maintain a positive reputation of certain individuals and events. In a contentious political climate, this task proves even more difficult as groups compete for positive reputations. Entrepreneurial groups compete by denigrating opponents, downplaying failures, and constructing images of heroism. Failure on the part of reputational entrepreneurs may lead to the characterization of certain figures as revered and others despised. As new generations emerge, however, reputations of historical figures may be refocused to emphasize concerns in the contemporary political climate.

• Gary Alan Fine. 1996. “Reputational Entrepreneurs and the Memory of Incompetence: Melting Supporters, Partisan Warriors, and Images of President Harding.” American Journal of Sociology 101(5): 1159-1193.
• Barry Schwartz and Howard Schuman. 2005. “History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001.” American Sociological Review 70(2): 183-203.
• Larry J. Griffin. 2004. “’Generations and Collective Memory’ Revisited: Race, Region, and Memory of Civil Rights.” American Sociological Review 69(4): 544-557.

Valentine’s Day is a time when our rom-com scripts are in high gear. The quintessential V-Day script assumes a man and a woman in a monogamous romantic relationship celebrate by exchanging gifts, sharing a romantic dinner, and then ending the night with a steamy bedroom scene. In reality, many people challenge this script. However, these challenges are made more difficult by gendered socialization that reinforces norms about men’s and women’s bodies, heterosexuality, and sexual pleasure.

Children learn their bodies are gendered early in life. Institutions like sports and education systems often teach and highlight differences between boys and girls. For instance, preschool teachers construct gender norms by disciplining girls and boys differently — telling girls to be quiet more frequently than boys. And since girls and women have fewer opportunities than men to demonstrate physicality, they tend to underestimate their bodily capacities.

• Karin Martin. 1998. “Becoming a Gendered Body: The Practices of Preschools.” American Sociological Review 63(4): 494-511.
• Iris Marion Young. 1980. “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality.” Human Studies 3(1): 137-156.


Children also learn to privilege heterosexual relationships in schools. Some preschool teachers encourage what they see as “romantic” affection between boys and girls in their classes, but rarely interpret affection between children of the same gender as romantic. Children reproduce these norms in their own play. For instance, when playing “house” girls rarely play the role of “dad” and boys rarely play the role of “mom.” Further, when parents talk to their children about sexuality they also reinforce gender differences. For instance, mothers talk about relationships, reproductive bodies, and what sexual behaviors are considered “wrong” more with their daughters than with their sons.

• Heidi Gansen. 2017. “Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity: Gendered Sexual Socialization in Preschool Classrooms.” Sociology of Education 90(3): 255-272.
• Karen Martin and Katherine Luke. 2010. “Gender Differences in the ABC’s of the Birds and the Bees: What Mothers Teach Young Children about Sexuality and Reproduction.” Sex Roles 62: 278-291.

These early experiences have consequences for how we view and understand our bodies. Despite the increased awareness of the benefits of developing a healthy sexuality, women tend to know less about their sexual bodies than men. For instance, women report lack of knowledge about the functions of their genitalia. They also tend to rely more on their sexual partners than men for sexual pleasure and are more likely to say they are indifferent about their sexuality.

• Eli Coleman. 2003. “Masturbation as a Means of Achieving Sexual Health.” Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality 14(2-3): 5-16.
• Debby Herbenick, Michael Reece, Vanessa Schick, Stephanie A. Sanders, Brian Dodge, and J. Dennis Fortenberry. 2010. “Sexual Behavior in the United States: Results from a National Probability Sample of Men and Women Ages 14–94.” The Journal of Sexual Medicine 7(s5): 255-265.
• Breanne Fahs and Eric Swank. 2013. “Adventures with the “Plastic Man”: Sex Toys, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and the Politics of Women’s Sexual Pleasure.” Sexuality & Culture 17(4): 666-685. 

Every year the FBI releases its Uniform Crime Report (UCR), an annual collection of crimes reported to local police agencies across the United States.  When the FBI released the 2016 report last year, it was missing many key tables, spurring a letter from criminologists asking that Jeff Sessions and the FBI director, Christopher A. Ray, release the report in its complete form (as it had been in previous years). Although the FBI claims that the trimming of the report was planned for many years, other reports suggest that this may not be the case. So what exactly is missing from the UCR and why does it matter to social science research?

The 2016 UCR is missing tables from the Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR), which include data on homicide victims’ relationships to perpetrators and other situational circumstances of homicides. Without these data, researchers — like those studying intimate partner and family violence — will be unable to track these aspects of homicides over time. In the past, researchers used the SHRs to examine how declining marriage rates, increased access to domestic violence services, and the improved economic standing of women contributed to a sizable decrease in spousal homicide from the 1970s to the 1990s. Others used the SHRs to examine the geography of interpersonal homicide, indicating that rural residents may be more susceptible to intimate partner and familial homicides than residents of metropolitan areas.

• Laura Dugan, Daniel S. Nagin, and Richard Rosenfeld. 1999. “Explaining the Decline in Intimate Partner Homicide: The Effects of Changing Domesticity, Women’s Status, and Domestic Violence Resources.” Homicide Studies 3(3): 187-214.
• Adria Gallup-Black. 2005. “Twenty Years of Rural and Urban Trends in Family and Intimate Partner Homicide: Does Place Matter?” Homicide Studies 9(2): 149-173.
• Wesley G. Jennings and Alex R. Piquero. 2008. “Trajectories of Non-Intimate Partner and Intimate Partner Homicides, 1980-1999: The Importance of Rurality.” Journal of Criminal Justice 36(5): 435-443.

Like many other national databases, the Supplemental Homicide Reports suffer from some data quality issues. One study finds that data establishing the relationship between a victim and perpetrator in the SHRs may be particularly unreliable. While this may suggest that dropping some tables from the UCR may have been a strategic move by the FBI, most studies of the SHR data quality call for more efficient and effective data collection prior to compiling an SHR, as well as better variable measurement by the SHR, rather than complete dismissal of the reports.

• Thomas D. Bazley and Thomas Mieczkowski. 2004. “Researching Workplace Homicide: An Assessment of the Limitations of the Supplementary Homicide Reports.” Journal of Criminal Justice 32(3): 243-252.
• Jesenia M. Pizarro and April M. Zeoli. 2013. “An Assessment of the Quality of Homicide Data in the Supplementary Homicide Reports: A Research Note.” Justice Quarterly 30(4): 711-731.

Beyond homicide data, which also includes gang and drug-related homicides, the 2016 Uniform Crime Report is missing many additional tables. One of these is drug arrests by specific drug types, including synthetic opioids or heroin. This is a particularly surprising omission considering the opioid epidemic is a major policy concern for the Trump administration. The recent call to action by criminologists appears to have been successful — FBI Director Wray indicated at a December House Judiciary Committee hearing (see 3:28:35 for Wray’s statement) that the FBI now plans to republish the UCR with all of the missing tables included. This is good news for social scientists, who argue that we cannot have effective policies on social issues such as crime and drug use without the data that drive these critical decisions.