| Is there a biological basis for this? I do not want "Gender Studies" references. I want real BIOLOGICAL, you know code mother nature put in you. Sex is basically binary in mammals (do you have the gene that triggers producing sperm versus the gene that triggers you producing eggs), the only exception being incredibly rare intersex disorders. Read more here: http://nautil.us/issue/43/heroes/why-sex-is-binary-but-gende... Based on sex, people have different traits, physical and mental. Some of these traits are close to binary between the sexes (having a uterus, etc.). Some traits are a matter of distributions (such as differences in physical strength, or willingness to take risks). Society then considers certain behaviors and traits more masculine or feminine, and creates norms and roles around these. Some of these norms and roles exist on a spectrum, some are more binary. Gender for a long time was used either as a synonym for sex, or only this case of describing language (gendered pronouns). In the mid-1900s academics in the social science used it to mean "the social norms and roles society creates based on biological sex." Then more recently some academics have re-defined gender again to mean "ones own innate conception of one's male/female identity." There isn't any scientific proof that such a thing exists or doesn't exist, nor can there be, because we don't have mind reading machines. Sexual identity has also been redefined recently. So now if you were born with the egg producing equipment, but are taking male sex hormones some people will now define you as of the male sex. Frankly, I find this redefining of words to be pretty Orwellian. |
Nope. What you are talking about is Gender Identity. There is pretty good evidence for this being real and linked to prenatal testosterone exposure at certain periods in the womb, as with traits like digit ratio. Between cases like David Reimer's (a biological boy who was raised as a girl after a surgical accident as an infant, but whose gender identity stayed true to his birth sex - with tragic consequences) and the phenomenon of Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (where genetically male XY are born with female-looking genitalia and raised as any other girl, but overwhelmingly continue to identify as women even after the condition is discovered in puberty), the existence of a gender identity that is separate from both chromosomal sex and social influence is not really in doubt.