Sex and gender 1: Intro

Question 1

What is sex?

Answer 1

Biological category, based on a combination of biological traits including chromosomes, hormonal profile, gamete size, genitalia etc.
i.e. male or female
- Not dichotomous

Question 2

What is gender?

Answer 2

Socially constructed, factors related to individual’s sex (or personal identification with own gender)
i.e. masculine or feminine, gender roles

Question 3

What does cisgender vs transgender mean?

Answer 3

Cisgender = someone with a gender identity that matches their sex/gender assigned at birth (i.e., someone who is not transgender)
Transgender = someone with a gender identity the does not match their sex/gender assigned at birth (i.e., someone who was assigned male at birth, but has a female gender identity)

Question 4

What does non-binary mean?

Answer 4

An umbrella term used to describe all gender identities that do not fit the male/female binary (e.g., bigender, demigender, agender, genderfluid)
Some non-binary people also identify as transgender

Question 5

What does intersex mean?

Answer 5

An umbrella term used to describe a range of ambiguous/non-binary presentations of biological sex. This is separate from (but, in some cases related to) gender identity (i.e., not all intersex people are non-binary)
E.g., someone who has both male and female reproductive organs/sex chromosomes/hormonal profiles may be classed as intersex

Question 6

Is biological sex ‘real’ or ‘true’?

Answer 6

Not necessarily - our understanding of sex as a multidimensional biological thing is a social construct
Biological things are still defined by culture and current epistemology

Question 7

Are chromosomal, hormonal and reproductive differences exclusively between men and women?

Answer 7

No - can be between men and other men, or women and other women

Question 8

What were Ancient Greek ‘single sex’ models of biology?

Answer 8

Female bodies a result of ‘weak sperm’ (Hippocrates), or a ‘mutilated kind of male nature’ (Aristotle)
Seen as ‘incomplete’ versions of male bodies by Galen

Question 9

Writers during the Enlightenment were likely the first to adopt ‘two-sex’ models - what is this?

Answer 9

Seeing women as distinct from men, rather than as a subcategory or version of.
Primarily supported by differences in genital appearance
- These were seen as the biological/scientific models at the time (i.e., what anti-trans would refer to as “real” or “true” today)

Question 10

What methods are used to define sex?

Answer 10

Genital appearance at birth - AMAB or AFAB
Sex chromosomes (XX = female, or XY = male)
Hormone profiles (lower T = female, higher T = male)
Gamete production (large gamete = female, small gamete = male)

• Therefore, biological sex is best conceptualised as a combination of biological traits
  And these biological traits are not always binary/dichotomous (e.g., XXY, XO, XXX, no gamete production, hyperandrogenism)

Question 11

What percentage of births are intersex babies?

Answer 11

Between 0.018% and 1.7% (varies depending on the definition of intersex)

Question 12

What is an intersex identity?

Answer 12

Generally refers to individuals who are born with any of the several sex-related characteristics (e.g., chromosome patterns, genitals, gonads etc) that do not fit the ‘typical binary notions of male or female bodies’.
- Not all intersex presentations can be identified at birth, may become apparent during puberty or early adulthood, while others may never have any external presentation
i.e., it is possible to be intersex and not know!
- Being intersex can present in a multitude of ways

Question 13

When was the concept of gender truly formalised?

Answer 13

20th century

Question 14

Is there a biological component to gender?

Answer 14

Yes, in the same way that there is a social component to sex

Question 15

What is the notion of being vs doing gender? (Butler)

Answer 15

• Early psychologists conceptualised gender as a state of being e.g., “I am a man”, “I am a woman”, but contributions from philosophy and sociology (especially Butler, 1990, 1993) introduced the notion of doing gender
  
  • Sometimes referred to as gender performativity
  • Butler questions the idea that gendered behaviours are natural, and instead argues that gender is something we learn ‘as a performance’, that is imposed upon us by pervasive heteronormativity.
  • As such, gender is not tied to any kind of ‘biological reality’ (e.g., bodies, materialism), but it solely constructed, and therefore, open to change
  • Butler goes so far as to argue that gender, as an objective natural thing, does not exist – “it is real only to the extent that it is performed”
  • Doing gender is much more closely linked to the notion of gender as a social construct, resulting from many different sociocultural influences (e.g., cultural norms/messages, interpersonal interactions, expectations)
  • However, the lived experiences of trans and non-binary individuals tell us that ‘being’ gender has a place in the conceptualisation of gender as a whole

Question 16

How is being gender a prerequisite for doing gender?

Answer 16

Trans people often refer to a specific point in their life where they realised that they were/were not a particular gender – and once this realisation occurred, they began paying attention to the social factors relevant to their self-identified gender - started doing gender

Question 17

Can one’s self-assigned gender identity can focus a person’s attention on how gender is expected to be done within that category?

Answer 17

Yes - trans people often report that as their sense of self (being gender) develops, they find the gender roles/stereotypes of that category affect them more strongly (doing gender) – regardless of whether they agreed with them or not

Question 18

Is the idea of more than 2 genders a new one?

Answer 18

No:

Many indigenous nations of America have more than 2 gender categories, many alternate gender expressions, Western colonisation pathologized and/or criminalised this (Tompkins, 2015).
- Multiple modern cultures have stable, non-binary gender systems E.g., Hijra communities in South Asia, two-spirit people in Native American cultures, waria in Southeast Asia, Fa’afafine in Pacific Islander communities to name just a few…

Question 19

What did Cahill (2014) show was an issue with not doing sex/gender based research?

Answer 19

Sleep drug was only tested on men, millions of women had been overdosing on it for 20 years
Sex differences are important to consider when testing drugs

Question 20

Why has most research studied males exclusively?

Answer 20

Because studying males meant you were, by proxy, studying females (without the ‘complicating effects’ of sex hormones)

Question 21

What are political motivations to ignore sex/gender in research?

Answer 21

Neurosexism
A belief in a ‘brain sex’ or ‘gendered brain’, a ‘male’ or ‘female’ brain, that dictates and underpins engagement in stereotypically masculine behaviour
Note here that sex and gender are being conflated
Views such differences as hardwired
Often found in public discourse and media - research can be used to justify sexism

Question 22

How was research about gender differences in boy’s and girl’s brains misinterpreted in America?

Answer 22

In 2011 it was estimated that ~500 US schools administered single-sex classrooms.
- This was largely underpinned by “scientific claims” that boys and girls brains are different

Question 23

In terms of geometry and poetry, how do girl’s and boy’s brains differ?

Answer 23

When it comes to learning geometry, the brain of the average 12-year-old girl resembles the brain of the average 8-year- old boy. When it comes to writing poetry, the brain of the average

However, another study did find a sex/gender difference – different patterns of cortical maturation in both sexes, not a years long developmental delay
Variation within groups as well
Can’t link differences to behaviour as they were matched for things like reading ability
Essentially, the same brain areas showed recurring developmental spurts of maturation and pruning, in both sexes

Question 24

Why is it important to continue the study of sex/gender influences?

Answer 24

The influence of sex and gender can be seen at multiple levels of analysis

Sex/gender differences and influences have implications for many things:
E.g., biological risk of developing certain conditions, brain ageing, medication dosages/clinical procedures…
If we ignore sex/gender differences, there could be negative consequences
E.g. Women overdosing on sleep-aid medication 
Applies to sex/gender relevant, non-biological factors too
E.g., studying sex/gender differences in cognition has shed light on the effect of gender stereotypes

Question 25

Is the brain sexually dimporphic?

Answer 25

No Most people agree that while the brain is not sexually dimorphic (i.e., there is no such thing as a ‘male brain’ or a ‘female brain’), there are small differences between men and women on average - Some argue that these differences are trivial (e.g., Eliot et al., 2021 state that sex/gender differences in the brain are “unlikely to be meaningful”) - Others argue that even small differences can have meaningful behavioural consequences (e.g., Hirnstein & Hausmann, 2021)

Question 26

What are the four main points to consider in sex/gender research?

Answer 26

1) The importance of balanced phrasing: small but reliable sex/gender differences at population level presented as ‘not supportive’ of sex/gender differences 2) The importance of small effect sizes and meta-analyses: small effect sizes may have little meaning for a single event/individual etc, but repeated or at population level may result noticeable effect. Met-analyses also lacking. 3) Brain-behaviour relationship is unclear: a small sex/gender difference in the brain might have meaningful behavioural consequences, but the relationship between the brain and behaviour is not clear cut. 4) Clinical disorders and the biopsychosocial approach: sex/gender-related factors are well-known to play important roles as risk factors in the aetiology of many mental and neurodevelopmental disorders, both biological and psychosocial factors