These are real photos from a dating website. Were they born male or female?

Martha or Arthur?

Sex = body’s anatomy and physiological workingGender = social force that molds behaviour.

Boy or girl? The differences between the sexes Intersex Transgender Transexual

What defines sex?

There are 4 ways that sex can be defined in medicine, law and social interactions:

GenitalsGonads (internal sex organs)

ChromosomesA sense of being a man or woman

Chromosomes

When is a woman not a woman

• Infertile?• Doesn’t want

children?• Flat chested?• Facial hair?• Looks manly?• Has a ‘manly’

job

When is a man not a man?

• Infertile• Small penis• Wears women’s clothes?• Penis is lost in accident• Breasts

Are Gender Roles Fixed?Consider:

(a) Childbearing(b) Child rearing(c) Wearing trousers(d) Preparing meals(e) Going out to work(f) Cleaning the toilet(g) Car maintenance(h) Fighting(i) Getting drunk with

mates

Gender stereotyping

Are there brain differences in male and females?

Left

Brain

: la

nguage, math

,

reaso

ning

Right Brain: emotion, relationships, music

Mental abilities• No difference in IQ• Verbal abilities• Mathematical abilities

Male – orientated tasks Female- orientated tasks

Mental rotation Language tasks

Targeting objects Empathy

Mathematical reasoning Matching tasks

Geometry Pretend play in childhood

Personality traits• Emotional sensitivity .• Compliance and dependency• Depression• Aggression

So how many sexes?

XX girlXY boyXX boyXY girl

and more

Sadly David Reimer committed

suicide on May 4, 2004. He was 38.

The third sex• 1.7% of all births

• If an intersex baby (hermaphrodites) is born a state of medical emergency and before 24hrs a child must have a sex.

• Most of these are XX Female born with masculine genitalia .

Genetic female always raised as female to preserve reproduction.

Genetic male has gender reassignment based on size of penis.

Klinefelters syndrome. XXY males

1 in 500 births

Tall, small testes and no sperm, more female body shape.

Super males XYY males1 in 1000 males

Taller, large teeth and acne. IQ and male sexual development normal. Fertile.

Turner’s syndrome XO Female1 in 2500

Short, no ovaries and no puberty. Sterile. Impaired IQ.

Intersexuality (hermaphroditism)

60 cases in west in 100yrs.

Born with characteristics of both sexes. Ovaries and testes.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome.

XY 2 in 100000 Looks female but genetically male

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)

XX femaleAbout 1 in 5000

Enlarged clitoris, masculinisation at puberty.

Kwolu or aatmwo XY Ambiguous sex organs but raised as girls. At puberty produce testosterone and penis grows.

Triple X sundrome XXX 1 in 500 to 1250 females

Tall, impaired verbal ability. Female sexual development normal.

Famous women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. XY.

Joan of Arc - descriptions of the 'maid' are appropriate, also she was twice intimately examined to verify she was indeed a woman but apparently never menstruated.

Queen Elizabeth I - it's suggested that contemporary descriptions of the 'virgin queen's' appearance, personality, behaviour, and the physical defects which her contemporaries believed made her sterile and unwilling to marry, all strongly imply a form of AIS.

Jamie Lee Curtis is rumoured to have Testicular feminization, or more properly called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS), causes a genotypic male to 'become' a female.

Caster Semenya

Winner of the 800m at the

Athletics World Championships

in Berlin

Cultural examples of intersex or transgender people

Thialand ladyboys (katoey) India Hijra (eunuchs)Siberia in Chukchi tribe have 9 gendersNorth American Two-spiritsPolynesian Mahu, Muxe of MexicoMukhannathun IslamSworn virgin Balkans and catholicsWaria Indonesia1700 AD in England: the male sodomite

People who cross gender boundaries

• Transsexual people

• Transgender people:

Transvestite menDrag queens

Transsexual

Gender non- conformity

Transvestites or drag queens?

Kumar

Boy George

RuPaul

Eddie Izzard

Martha or Arthur summary

What is sex?How many sexes?

Is sex fixed?What is gender?Is gender fixed?