Sex: Simplified

Most of you probably grew up in a family where sex is a very simple thing to understand. Males are males, and females are whatever males hate on. Things sound quite simple. But in reality, these issues are not as simple as they seem at first glance. This whole issue of defining what sex ,or rather gender, is , is one of the most complicated subjects known to medicine both ethically and scientifically speaking. I will attempt here to explain these issues in general non-medical terms, or rather in English to the best of my limited knowledge. This whole idea is an expansion to a comment I made earlier on Steelydan’s editorial.

“Sir, your wife had a beautiful baby”

“Thank you! Is it a Girl? I always wanted a girl…”

“Er, at the moment, we can’t tell… give us a few hours though, we might”

“What? You mean I can't call her Jane yet?”

I am sure most of you never saw this conversation before in a Hollywood movie. But it is indeed a nightmare to the parents. In addition, this conversation is quite more common than you are inclined to believe. So the issue comes down to, what exactly was wrong with the Baby? Sometimes this question is asked years after the birth of a child, and sometimes this question would never be asked until a person finds that s/he is infertile. The question maybe answered only hours after the delivery of the baby, and it may not be answered except months after.

So let’s move on, what exactly is Gender? There are many definitions to Gender:

Chromosomal Gender:

The DNA, the essential data that defines a human being, is packed into very well compressed zip files known as chromosomes, which are basically the coiling of the strands of DNA. Now you all heard of the XX, XY, gender cut line, where XX is a female designation and XY is the male designation. But is it so simple? Well it isn’t. There are people that have XXX, XXY, and single X. What makes matters even worse is the fact that on some occasions, genes on the Y chromosome can cross to the X chromosome, making the Y chromosome lacking the male attributes, and having an XY female.



The XY females look completely like females, are psychologicaly developed as females, and they posses the exact female genitalia. In fact many go undiagnosed till they notice they don't get periods or that they are infertile.

Physiologic Gender:

Sometimes, despite the correct XX or XY chromosome, a fetus gets exposed to high levels of a certain hormone during pregnancy, like for example a female getting exposed to high levels of androgens (to put simply the male hormones). So basically what happens if a female gets exposed to male hormones during pregnancy? The genitals stop looking like they should, and you get an oversized clitoris that looks close to a penis but not close enough. Basically it gets the medical staff saying “What the fuck do we tell the parents now?”.

There are many causes to this problem. Some of which are related to the genetic lack of enzymes responsible for proper conversion of hormones in the adrenals. Other causes include the the mother taking steroids or androgens during pregnancy. The situation can be relatively corrected with proper hormonal therapy of the child if the condition is diagnosed early on.

Physical Gender:

It is simply gender that is designated by the appearance of the genitalia. If a baby has a dick and balls, we call a male, and if it has a vaginal orifice, it’s called a female. That sounds simple. But in reality it could be very confusing. What if the scrotum was split and the penis was small, what if the labia were fused and the clitoris was oversized? The few hours after birth are some of the tougher hours parents must face.

How are these issues resolved? This is mostly done by looking at the reproductive functions of the baby, whether it possesses a reproductive system that would serve as a female or as a male. Sometimes things are even tougher, and the Doctor just has to make the call, and eventually further surgeries to make the gender closer to what is designated by the medical staff and agreed upon by the parents.

Psychological Gender:

This is a subject that was largely a mystery until recently. Hormonal exposure during pregnancy not only affects the development of the physical features of a Human being, or their reproductive organs, but also the development of the Brain functions that provide specificity to a women or a man. It decides to which gender a Human is attracted to naturally, Maternal extinct, the kind of orgasm a person would be able to reach etc. So a human could look completely male in everyway, but essentially act like a female, which is generally called “gay”. Obviously there is no possible way to resolve this, mainly because we barely have any understanding of the condition.

Finally, what makes these issues more complex than they already are is the fact that sexual ambiguity may not manifest until much later in life, when until then, a person could have been treated his / her whole life to the opposite of their real gender, causing permanent life devastation.



P.S. If you like to understand this even further, google “Ambiguous Genitalia”. I will try to answer any questions in the comments section.