The invention provides anti-sulfotyrosine specific antibodies capable of detecting and isolating polypeptides that are tyrosine-sulfated. The sulfotyrosine antibodies and antibody fragments of the invention may be used to discriminate between the non-sulfated and sulfated forms of such proteins, using any number of immunological assays, such ELISAs, immunoblots, Western Blots, immunoprecipitations, and the like. Using a phage-display system, single chain antibodies (scFvs) were generated and screened against tyrosine-sulfated synthetic peptide antigens, resulting in the isolation of scFvs that specifically recognize sulfotyrosine-containing peptides and/or demonstrate sulfotyrosine-specific binding in tyrosine sulfated proteins. The VH and VL genes from one such sulfotyrosine-specific scFv were employed to generate a full length, sulfotyrosine-specific immunoglobulin.