Sex and Gender

By Dana Bevan, Ph.D.

Gender should not be used as a polite word for sex. Transgendered people should insist on it, scientists should insist on it and feminists, even those who trash transgendered people, already insist on it. To use gender as a polite word for sex helps perpetuates stereotyping and denies transgender science.

The word “gender” was borrowed by Dr. John Money at Johns Hopkins University from foreign language grammars in which each noun is either masculine, feminine or neuter. John Money had a controversial career that inadvertently established that gender predisposition is real but also showed that child rearing cannot make you transgendered.

Money’s idea was to differentiate between sex at birth and gender behavior because he was involved in assigning gender to those with ambiguous sex genitalia through surgery. Such folks are today self-described alternatively as “intersex” or having “differences in sexual development.” Since the sex of such people was ambiguous, Money needed another term for their assignment to behavior categories and “gender” was chosen. (Rather than leaving it to the whim of doctors at birth we now customarily wait until people with differences in sexual development are older and can select their own sex and gender).

Money believed that babies could be successfully assigned to either gender if their genitalia was appropriately surgically altered early in life and the parents raised them to obey the gender behavior rules of that gender. In other words, he believed that there was no innate gender predisposition.

As a renown expert on DSD, Money was given a case which provided a perfect “natural experiment” of his theory. In this case, an unfortunate male baby had his genitalia mutilated during circumcision and Money decided that his genitalia be shaped through surgery to resemble female genitalia and instructed the parents to raise him as a girl. Money reported that this male child was well adjusted as a girl and woman, based on regular clinical interviews. But Money was covering up the real story. The results were not good for this male baby. The boy rejected things associated with feminine gender and showed normal boyhood aggression. He was depressed and in his mid-twenties switched genders. Things went from bad to worse and he committed suicide in his mid-thirties.

The hero in this story is Dr. Milton Diamond, now at the University of Hawaii who heard stories about this male child and proceeded to investigate. He is sometimes described as similar in persistence to Inspector Javert in Les Miserables to search of the truth. Eventually, Diamond tracked down the family and obtained Money’s clinical interview notes indicating that this child and other assigned children had not really adjusted well to their assigned gender. Gender predisposition existed after all.

Your parents cannot make you transgendered by child rearing. The demonstration of a gender predisposition was supported by the Money-Diamond case but there are two other similar cases. The demonstration of gender predisposition before age 2 increases the evidence reinforces the scientific evidence that genetic and epigenetic factors are responsible for transgenderism, discussed in my last post.

The Money-Diamond case had immediate negative impact at Johns Hopkins.

Intellectual leadership at John Hopkins dealing with such issues fell to Dr. Paul McHugh who stopped all genital plastic surgery involving gender, including surgeries for transsexuals. Dr. McHugh still rejects transgenderism not on scientific grounds but on religion and psychodynamics. He believes that it is a lifestyle choice and remains a vocal critic. (I will refute lifestyle choice in an upcoming post.) He provides supporting quotes to hate-mongers and frequently provides legal testimony opposing equal rights for GLBT. I once went to a McHugh-trained psychiatrist and it was not a good experience; it almost destroyed my marriage.

The boy’s story was told in the New York Times Bestseller book As Nature Made Him by John Colapinto. This is an instance that proves that science books and writing, if well crafted, can be of intense interest to the public.

Feminists adopted the word “gender” because it fit with their cultural revolution against gender behavior norms for females. They are right in concluding that gender behavior norms and categories are culturally constructed and arbitrary. That is clear from studying historical and contemporary diverse cultures. However, feminists reject the idea of gender predisposition, believing like John Money that gender is totally learned. For them, the existence of transgendered people supports oppressive male cultures by validating gender behavior categories.

In spite of inappropriate current usage in the media, transgendered people should insist that the terms “sex” and “gender” not be used interchangeably. Most English-speaking cultures insist that a person has to follow its gender category rules that are assigned at birth, according to a culturally assigned birth sex. This insistence is a form of stereotyping. There are lots of people who do not adhere to gender behavior rules. Aside from transgendered people, there are effeminate males and masculine females across a wide spectrum.

Transgendered folks have a biological gender predisposition based on their DNA and their epigenetic prenatal experiences that is not in alignment with their culturally assigned gender behavior category. Sex should refer to organs, including genitalia, involved in reproduction. Gender should refer to behavior including observable behavior and declarations of “gender identity.” Sex and gender are not the same.

Tags: featured, Identity, Transgender, Transsexual

Category: Transgender Body & Soul