Questions on Gender

Day Fourteen:

Tonight I racked my brains for a long time about to what to write about in my tired state of mind and decided, whilst musing to muse that I would write about Gender, now I've done some reading but as always opinion will be a rampant element of my writing so correct me if my facts are at all askew. 

Lets start with the authoritative definition of the good ol' oxford dictionary, its a starting point at least... 

"the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones) "

I like that... its better than expected (though far from ideal), I like that it has been considered that not only are some biological factors changeable (i.e genitalia) but that gender in it self is a societal or cultural construct.

It will always be argued that chromosomes are the be all and the end all when it comes to gender. There's only two combinations right?

xx and you're female, xy and you're male.

Well lets stop right there. Because there's a few exceptions to the rule we should discuss. 

It is actually possible to be "male" in the sense that male genitalia are present (phenotype) along with the distinct lack of a womb and still have two x chromosomes (thanks to a sex determining region usually present on the Y chromosome but some times found on the x chromosome).  It is also possible to be female despite having XY chromosomes. 

There are also cases in which individuals are born with XXY or XXXY or even XXXXY, however in most cases they will be "male" in the sense of phenotypes. 

It is also possible to have only a single X chromosome, which is the most common cause of Turners syndrome (wikipedia is your friend, to lazy to link). 

Look the point I'm trying to get across here is that even gender defined on the basis of chromosomes is subjective and relative.

Another circumstance which merits consideration is the possibility of inter-sexed individuals. 

Around one in 2000 babies in the western world will features stereotypical of both male and female phenotypes (generally as the result of chromosomal abnormalities, lets not get into that). It is medical convention, that in the case of such children the doctors in collaboration with the family involved will "assign" a gender to the individual, this may involve genital "corrective" surgery, this is rarely medically necessary, but rather for aesthetics. 

What I suppose frustrates me the most about this type of surgery, is not the fact it is conforming to the societal convention of two static genders, but rather that the infant has no ability to agree or disagree. In a society that claims to promote human rights and choice, here we are again, taking away the rights of a legitimate proportion of our population. 

This blog is getting rather long, so I'll leave you with the biology for now and we can discuss the psychology tomorrow. 

Till then, think about how gender affects you, look deep and seek out the oppressive stereotypes imposed on you, and refuse to be pigeon-holed, because you're more than your gender, and you know it.

Signing out,

-Z