The Fluidity of Sex, Sexuality, and Gender

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Susan Kane responded to my posting by writing, inter alia:

> I think "pretend" assumes a sinister agenda that is not present.  Rather,
> the question might be, "Why all this effort to look at exceptions to the
> rule, rather than at the rule itself?"  "Why spend so much time talking
> about people for whom gender or sex is ambiguous and instead of talking
> about the majority of people who clearly identify as male or female and
> are clearly identified as such by society?"

I would like once again to state that in no sense have I suggested it's not
interesting or valuable to study anomalies. Nor have  I attacked "free
inquiry"  or intellectual curiosity. And, of course, I have never suggested
that transgendered or homosexual or any other minority should be persecuted
or treated badly.

 What I have written, consistently for quite some time, has constituted a
criticism of the *pretense* -- for it seems  clearly to be that -- that the
anomalies are more important and more central in women's studies than the
norms, and that the anomalies are to be stressed and insisted upon in
feminist classrooms.

 I got this sense from the discussions on this very list, from people's
enthusiasm for Anne Fausto-Sterling's work, from their own comments about
how terrific it was to teach this work in their courses because it upset
their students' ideas of sex and gender.  But my point was a simple one:
students who believe that the vast majority of  humans are biologically male
and female are correct in their beliefs and do not need re-educating.  When
those beliefs are assailed, as this list shows they often are in women's
studies, the agenda is a political, not an educational one.  That is what I
am criticizing.

It has been fascinating for me to see how Ruthann Masarrachia's
knowledgeable postings (the latest one on August 2nd) usually end the
discussion.  No one asks how these biological facts can be incorporated into
introductory women's studies classes, how they might be integrated into more
complicated visions that don't misrepresent the facts to students.  Instead,
after days of debate, there is silence -- as if this information were
irrelevant to women's studies --  until the next round of a similar
discussion in which the same dynamics arise again, the same challenges to
the biological facts, again erroneously presented as social constructions,
and on and on.

Let me note that last winter,  when  I wrote something similar, a listmember
wrote back that I kept asserting the fact of sexual dimorphism without
providing evidence.  I refer readers to 1) our reality, notwithstanding
postmodernist debates, and 2) the thousands of books, articles, and studies
in the field of biology

As to  Fausto-Sterling's writing -- on which many women's studies people
seem to be resting  their beliefs -- I note  her habit of verbal slippage:
from a discussion of truly constructed, i.e., imposed through surgery,
sexual identity on infants born with anomalies, she generalizes (often in
the same paragraph) to the constructed nature of male/female,  period.  I
see the interest in learning about these intersexed or otherwise 'different'
people, and I also understand and sympathize with the desire to call the
treatment they've received into question - but I continue to NOT understand
how this can be used to challenge the 'normalcy' of male/female.

Fausto-Sterling, in her book, various times criticizes scholars (e.g.,
Diamond) for falling into the language of "normal" in their writing -- as if
"normal" were always a moral judgment and not also a statistical one.  I've
at times wondered if the whole point of the feminist attack on science is to
clear the field for any and every claim without any standard of evidence,
since all can be dismissed as masculinist or patriarchal.

I read Fausto-Sterling's work  looking for some evidence that her
argument was being MISused by people on this list  for their own
purposes, but I conclude that it's not being misused, and that she does
indeed in the end make the same sort of case.  A close analysis of her
book's rhetoric  shows a constant  slippage from the anomalies to the
norm--thus inviting women's studies professors to make the very moves they
are repeatedly making on this list, which is to take the anomalies as
somehow casting doubt on the biological reality of the norms.

This is not a useful debate.  The only reason I bother about it is because I
am concerned about what is being taught to students and what is passing as
feminist education --  which I believe dishonors both feminism and any
notion of intellectual integrity.

Daphne
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

> I have looked over your response and I am concerned that
> you are taking bits out of context from my message and
> using them to support your views, and that you have gone
> further and attemptd to interpret my experience for me.
>
> "Lesbian" works for you, just as "woman" works for other
> people. That's what I was talking about in the paragraphs I
> wrote that you ignored.  You have come at this from your
> own subjective point of view.

Look--you had asked why people cling to a "rigid" use of terms when
describing their sexuality but are willing to play with terms when
describing sex itself, as a category of identity.  My point was that
probably _everyone's_ sexuality is more complex than any single term can
express, but that we need the terms for political protection.  I don't see
that kind of redefinition as a bad thing, of course.

As for my being subjective---well, yeah.  Women are always being accused of
that, aren't we?  I'm just trying to show, via admittedly anecdotal
evidence, that theory has a direct effect on people's lives.  If your theory
means to describe as many people's lives as possible, and I can show where
your theory misprepresents some people's lives, then I think my comments are
valid.  I really didn't mean to interpret your experience for you...


--
Sheryl LeSage
English Department
U of Oklahoma
sjlesage  AT  ou.edu
Sue McPherson wrote:

<< But my point was a simple one:
 students who believe that the vast majority of  humans are biologically male
 and female are correct in their beliefs and do not need re-educating.  When
 those beliefs are assailed, as this list shows they often are in women's
 studies, the agenda is a political, not an educational one.  That is what I
 am criticizing. >>

Hi, Daphne,

Isn't your insistence that since it is a normative belief that the vast
majority of people are biologically male or female, that we all should accept
it as a fact, a political viewpoint replete with its own agenda?  Moreover,
like myself, I am guessing many list members do explicitly acknowledge this
normative outlook in their research and teaching albeit exploring how such
binary outlooks make a possible oppression.  IMO, many of the normative
expectations associated with one-half of this binary, female, is about
embracing ways that make oneself more easily oppressed, while those most
associated with the other half, male, are about how to successfully oppress
others.  In spite of your protestations, every semester in reflection papers,
over 50% of my female students report experiences that legally would be
considered rape--ranging from I was passed out and woke up to find a man
"fucking" me to a father who forced them to have sex when they were a child
to situations of gang rape--and all of them seem quite adept at understaning
how doing/performing "femininity" often makes possible such violently
oppressive outcomes.  Conversely, most of my male students understand how
doing/performing "masculinity" often involves oppressing others. If
oppression is something done, ultimately accomplished/made real through words
and behaviors, isn't it true those doing masculinity have a decided advantage
in successfully doing oppression over those who are doing femininity?

IMO it is no ideological accident that these all too "normative" expectations
are largely, if not entirely dependent on essentialists notions of male and
female.  Doesn't this ideological outlook make it seem natural that there are
just men and women, which then is used to prescribe all sorts of oppressive
attitudes and behaviors? What I find suggestive about drag performers is that
they fracture these essentialist notions of how one should appear and
interact in relation to others. Isn't there something radically suggestive
about folks who are gender traitors of a sort?  I obviously believe so.

As for list silence, I am guessing many list members like myself are quite
busy finishing up summer projects, and feel stressed that classes start
really soon.  Moreover, given your propensity to troll the list for info,
often taken out of context, for your next book on what's wrong with
WMS/feminism, I can definitely appreciate others' hestitation about
responding.

Cheers,

Steve

Steve,
You wrote:  "Isn't there something radically suggestive
about folks who are gender traitors of a sort?  I obviously believe so."

Other feminists don't agree with you.  For one example, you might be
interested in an article in the June 2001 Off Our Backs in which  radical
feminist explains how transgender people --in this instance the Camp Trans
activists who were gathered across the road from the Michigan Womyn's Music
Festival folks--enact (in the author's view) essentialist notions of gender
rather than "transgressing" such notions.  From my point of view, it's an
accusation everyone likes to throw at anyone else--and indeed can do so
quite easily-- but that tells us nothing about the validity of the position
so labeled.  My interest is a little different - it's not in the label but
in the accuracy of it.

Your message accuses me of having essentialist  notions about gender --
evidently because I made comments about sex and the facticity of male/female
dimorphism (whatever we might want to call it--yes, the language is
arbitrary, as Saussure argued).  That's exactly the sort of slippage I was
describing.  I have not said a word about how men/women behave - all that is
your assumption about my beliefs.  Are other beliefs about physical
reality - e.g., the existence of gravity (whatever we might want to call
it) - also just political power plays?  I rather doubt it.

By the way, what course is it in which half your students say they have been
raped?  How many students are we talking about?  And what do you do for them
once they make this disclosure to you?

D.

---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

Daphne wrote:
>
>  I got this sense from the discussions on this very list, from people's
> enthusiasm for Anne Fausto-Sterling's work, from their own comments about
> how terrific it was to teach this work in their courses because it upset
> their students' ideas of sex and gender.  But my point was a simple one:
> students who believe that the vast majority of  humans are biologically
> male and female are correct in their beliefs and do not need re-educating.

I do know what you mean, and I agree, but aren't such students
correct in their beliefs only up to a point?  I wonder if most
students actually believe that the vast* majority* of humans are
biologically male and female or whether they believe all*
humans must be either one or the other. And whichever belief
they hold, isn't there the question of how to explain those
individuals who don't quite fit?

Part of the problem, as I see it, is in the limitations of language,
as male and female are seen as normative and anything
outside that, or between the two, is "abnormal" by default. So,
rather than call male and female the "norm", what we need is
another term for them, such as "end-norms", and positions
between them could be "mid-norm".

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk

In his latest post, Steve talked about "normative"
behaviours and expectations dependent on being male
or female, and how drag is a means of throwing gender
ideology into question.  But I don't see that drag could
be altogether effective if it means denying that there are
biological/physical male/female differences. I agree with
Daphne and don't consider it essentalist to acknowledge
such differences.  But it is essentialist to assume that
because of such differences women and men must be
assigned particular roles to play in society.

I don't think it should be forgotten how this discussion first
began, with a question about "gender roles", and asked in
a rather ambiguous manner: She said "I'm looking for a term
that describes a woman who dresses up to look like a drag
queen (so really calling those gender roles into play)".  I do
believe that the multiplicity of responses might have reflected
the different interpretations of this question. Thus, this could
have been the reason for the over-emphasis (in my view) on
drag and how it can be used in the classroom to inform about
gender.  But it seems to me that what she really meant was
how could she demonstrate to her class, in a dramatic
fashion, the illusion of gender roles.  And there were many
ideas suggested that were not about drag but were about
what it meant to be a man or a woman.

Ruthann's emphasis was on biology, and the effects of
testosterone and estrogen, which of course, is part of what
it is to be male or female, or man or woman, and does
change over a person's life cycle. She chose finally to
focus on "sex" as defined by whether or not a specific
gene is present and functional.  But that's just one way
of describing what a man or woman is, and maybe for most
people it doesn't seem too connected to women's gender
roles.

Steve's discussion of rape and incest implied that there
are physical (genital) differences between males and
females but did not actually acknowledge this.  Talking
about rape and incest as though they are "normative"
behaviours and expectations associated with gender
roles, but not with physical differences, is a bit
problematic.  Femininity and masculinity aren't just
things that people do*.

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk

Sue,
Yes, of course students should have their horizons broadened - but that is a
rather different prospect than intentionally distorting the facts to make
political points, which is apparently what some women's studies teachers
feel it is their mission to do.  But, of  course,  they don't see it as
distorting "facts"-- which they deny are facts.  If at least students were
given both sides of the argument, that would be an improvement -- though few
women's studies teachers would say that about including "creationism" along
with evolution in biology classes, which means respect for facts and
evidence does count -- and should, but not in an inconsistent and
opportunistic fashion.

Daphne

---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

>>But I don't see that drag could be altogether
>>effective if it means denying that there are
>>biological/physical male/female differences. I agree
>>with Daphne and don't consider it essentalist to
>>acknowledge such differences.

You know, I might be missing some crucial point here, but I haven't read
*any* posts that seem to me to deny biological/physical male/female
differences.  The claim that that's what people have been saying seems to me
to be a straw person.  Obviously, most people have one of two packages of
chromosomal patterning, gonads, and external and internal genitalia.  I
would be amazed to hear from anyone who has been involved in this discussion
that they do *not* agree with that statement.  The disagreements have been
about 1) the significance of the fact that a small number of people do not
fit neatly into these categories; 2) the question of the extent to which
other biological features are congruent with the two categories; 3) the
significance of the biological male/female differences in constructing what
most people mean by "men" and "women."  I personally have said that I think
the Sex is Biological/Gender is Cultural formulation is too simple a
representation of all that is going on in the construction of the categories
"women" and "men."

(I do tend to present something close to the sex/gender construct to
students when I teach gender, even though I think it is an
oversimplification.  Pedagogy often works best if ideas are first presented
in an oversimplified form.  Bright students spot the oversimplified aspects,
and the conversation can move on from there.  I oversimplify when I teach
about kinship systems, too, and I would bet that almost all anthropology
teachers do.)

Daphne has been saying that other posters deny biological sex.  I don't
think so.  What is denied is that a whole host of other biological
differences and realms of social action inevitably accompany the
chromosome/gonad/genital package.  It has seemed to me -- and this is
probably also an overinterpretation of the position based on reaction to
certain rhetorical emphases -- that Daphne is treating "women" and "men" as
natural categories.  What drag shows is that representing oneself as a "man"
or "woman" is, indeed, a learned performance, because people with penises
can learn to enact "woman" virtually perfectly, as can people with vaginas
learn to enact "man."  This seems to me just as obviously true as the fact
of biological sex, and it is totally unclear to me why pointing it out leads
to the accusation of denying that most people fall into one of two
chromosome/gonad/genital package categories. (I hesitate to even use the
term "biological sex" because it telegraphs to the average reader so much
more than what I intend to mean, most of which is culturally constructed.
It seems to me that this hesitation that I have and others seem to share is
part of what is so upsetting to Daphne.)

My sense is that most people who have taken part in this discussion share a
lot of common ground about what they believe the bottom-line facts to be --
but there is something about the rhetoric in which people put their points
that somehow grates on those on the other side of the argument.  I'd love to
see people try to see why this is so without over-reacting.

  -- Gina

<< By the way, what course is it in which half your students say they have
been
 raped?  How many students are we talking about?  And what do you do for them
 once they make this disclosure to you?
   >>

Hi, Daphne,

As I appreciate your obvious concern here, I think best for me to better
describe how the paper is assigned and the classroom discussion it is based
upon.  I am really busy, but will do my best to more appropriately respond to
the rest of your message later today or tomorrow.

In all my gender related courses--soc of women, soc of men, soc. of gender,
cont. feminist theories, feminism and sexuality, gender and crime--I
distribute and subsequently discuss an article I wrote with Patricia Atchison
entitled, "Heterosexual Instrumentalism: Past and Future Directions,"
published in Feminism & Psychology (1993, 3:1) and reprinted in
Heterosexuality: A Feminism and Psychology Reader (Sage, 1993).  In this
piece we argue that the bedrock of heterosexuality as an ideological practice
is cultural  expectations of male dominance and female subordination.  While
also found in more widely accepted sexual practices between men and women,
such as dating, we specifically explore what we argue are the quintessential
forms of the heterosexual intrumentalism (HI)--rape, incest, prostitution,
sexual harassment, and the presentations of these found in pornography.

After discussing the piece in class, I then ask course participants to write
about how  the ideological practice of HI (both attitudinally and
behaviorally) has personally effected them.  When giving the assignment I
note that, like all assigned papers in my classes, their answers will be kept
in the strictest confidence.  During this time I also note that writing the
paper may illicit some emotional feelings, and that while I will always
provide a sympathetic ear, I am not trained to provide couseling for those
who are survivors of sexual violence.  Accordingly, I then distribute flyers
for the local rape crisis center where my spouse works at as a victim's
advocate/crisis counselor, and ask everyone--both female and male--to take a
copy, so that those feeling that they may need someone to talk to are not
visibly singled out.

Making a very general estimate based on the past 8 years of using this
assignment, somewhere between 400-500 of my course participants have written
papers on this topic, perhaps 60% female.  While reading their papers,
especially those of the women, causes me considerable anguish, for many it is
the first time they have ever shared their experiences with sexual violence
with anyone.  On a more promising note, this occassion has provided an
opening for many of my female course participants to become involved in
feminist oriented activities.  I have also personally witnessed many of these
women move from thinking of themselves as a victim to a survivor of sexual
violence.  Again, the figure of 50% is a very conservative estimate on my
part and would increase perhaps another 25% if one was to include experiences
of attempted rape; not to mention, many of these women report mutiple
experiences, such as with incest, that occurred over many years.

More later.

Cheers,

Steve

Gina, I think your points in your last message are very good ones, and
perhaps you're right about misinterpretation being part of the problem. (I
also understand what you're saying about the need to go from simpler to more
complex explanations as a teaching strategy.)  But I'd like to hear more
from some of the people who have taken part in these discussions (in their
earlier incarnation, too, last winter), who did seem to be challenging the
notion that there were biological facts.  This is clearly not an impression
that I alone have gotten.  Ruthann's recent post, of course, asserted that
there are indeed biological facts not amenable to social construction.  My
concern all along has been that the feminist reliance on social construction
as a powerful explanatory tool of great political utility has led to an
overreliance on it and a distortion or suppression of inconvenient facts
that show the limits of social construction.

 I have never felt that the fact of sexual dimorphism in any way explained
or justified women's lesser civic status - but it's often seemed to me that
others did feel that way, hence their thoroughgoing commitment to
undermining notions of biological difference.
Daphne
---------------------------------
daphne.patai  AT  spanport.umass.edu

At 10:50 8/5/2001 -0400, Daphne Patai wrote:
>
>Instead,
>after days of debate, there is silence -- as if this information were
>irrelevant to women's studies --

Your charge of "silence" elicits a response from me.

i'm not "silent".  If folx don't remember the recent discussion, the WMST-L
Archives are readily available.  Thus far, the (interesting and
educational) discussion has been about social constructions and areas
distant from my expertise.

i absolutely agree that Ruthann contributed to the last discussion.  And
since that discussion ended pretty much at both her & i reaching the ends
of our mutual expertise and time/interest available or willing to devote to
the discussion, i haven't found much impetus to re-hash.

>  until the next round of a similar
>discussion in which the same dynamics arise again, the same challenges to
>the biological facts, again erroneously presented as social constructions,
>and on and on.

This statement is extraordinarily biased.  Challenges to "biological facts"
.. see facts and evidence such as, in humans the seemingly-anomalous (by
western standards) observation of inversion of the sex ratio at birth among
certain groups of isolated, matrilineal indigenous groups in Peru?
("Nature", Volume 399(6733) 20 May 1999, p216) and the recent work of
evolutionary biologist Paul Erhlich (Stanford)?  and in other species, such
as the "evidence for ecological causation of sexual dimorphism in a
hummingbird"? (Temeles, Ethan J.; Pan, Irvin L.; Brennan, Jillian L.;
Horwitt, Jedediah N. Science, Volume 289(5478) 21 July 2000, pp 441-443).

(Since this group is familiar with Fausto-Sterling, i've never found a
reason to invoke her work as evidence; and as Judith Lorber is an actively
contributing member, i'm not going to attempt to speak for her work.)

i'm not familiar with Fausto-Sterling's critique of Diamond, however,
Diamond's work on the interconnectedness of evolutionary biology,
biogeography and ensuing social realities is complimentary to those who
present challenges to the purely binary, deterministic view of gender.

The impression that i get from your posts (which admittedly may be totally
inaccurate, however, this is the impression that you create ... please feel
free to correct my wrong impression if you want) is that you imagine there
to be some sort of single binary "switch" that has two (& only two)
possible positions: M or F, and you imagine it to be solely an unchanging
physiological mechanism.

Some more challenging thoughts to consider, from the world of biological
science:
"Reproductively, only two sexes make sense (at least for mammals) and all
variations from those must be seen as variations.  In terms of social
definitions of gender, society can do any thing it wants to, and different
societies do. We may decide as a society to accept only two norms and then
persecute deviants or we may decide on three, four, or a spectrum. As far
as brains or other anatomical parts go, the spectrum is a better way to
_describe_ the species but may (or may not) be a less useful way of
understanding its evolution."  John Langdon, Dept of Biology (anatomy &
neuroscience), Univ. of Indianopolis.

blue skies,
marg


Margaret E. Kosal, Ph.D.
Chem.Sensing, Inc.
600 S. Mathews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801  USA

tel:      217.333.1532
fax:     217.333.2685
email: kosal  AT  s.scs.uiuc.edu
web:   www.scs.uiuc.edu/suslick/smellseeing

This is in response to the debate on different perceptions of the
categories of femaleness and malesness and Daphne Patai's comments on
anomalies. As I read Daphne's comments, other cultures definitions of a
"third gender" (or whatever the respective term may be) represent a
breaking of norms. This raises the old question of WHO creates the norms?
Norms reflect the value systems of different cultures, and different
cultures have developed different ways of valueing  and defining things,
including gender. Furthermore, cultures do not agree on what constitutes "a
normal (or typical) woman" or "man". This includes issues of body type
(thin is not everywhere "in", for example), dress, how to become and be a
mother, etc. We should be very careful, I think, to avoid making universal
claims. barbara watson
Maria-Barbara Watson-Franke, Ph.D.
Department of Women's Studies
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182
mbwatson  AT  mail.sdsu.edu

Sue McPherson wrote:

I don't think it should be forgotten how this discussion first began, with a
question about "gender roles", and asked in
a rather ambiguous manner: She said "I'm looking for a term that describes a
woman who dresses up to look like a drag
queen (so really calling those gender roles into play)".

and

But it seems to me that what she really meant was how could she demonstrate
to her class, in a dramatic fashion, the illusion of gender roles.  And
there were many ideas suggested that were not about drag but were about what
it meant to be a man or a woman.

While Regina Oboler wrote:

What drag shows is that representing oneself as a "man" or "woman" is,
indeed, a learned performance, because people with penises can learn to
enact "woman" virtually perfectly, as can people with vaginas learn to enact
"man."

Response:

If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong, I deleted the post), I think
the original poster said that _her daughter_ and her young friends engaged
in the practice of dressing up in an exaggeratedly feminine style as a kind
of self conscious gender parody, and she was looking for a term to describe
this.  She may be a teacher, I don't know, but I don't think the original
question was about the classroom per se.

Also, I may be positing young college students as overly sophisticated in
saying this, and its been a few years since I taught any, but I am not under
the impression that they accept "gender roles" as natural products of
biological sex.  I think most of them come to class positing some kind of
distinction between embodiment and behavior.

Nor do I think they accept the social nessessity of the roles that "men" and
"women" seem to play, roles they would probably call "traditional."  Which
is a problemmatic term, but they don't have a more sophisticated language in
which to speak.

I think rather, what college students today come to class struggling with is
more of a question of how/ why _despite_ the questioning of these
"traditional" gender roles and "masculine/feminine" behavior in US culture
at large, those embodied male or female end up, nevertheless, _compelled
into_ "traditional" masculine or feminine behavior-- whether people learned
it and then forgot they learned it or whether people do it knowing full well
they're doing it.

As far as "sexual dimorphism" is concerned, they probably no longer really
hold this belief either, although they probably learned it on an afternoon
talk show and you'd have to take it from there.

JT Faraday
qwertyuiop68   AT  msn.com

Daphne,

I still think that rather than see the male/female
dichotomy as normal and variations of that as deviant,
a possible solution for the male/female dichotomy/
continuum issue is to incorporate both views in one
model.

You may be right.  Not all teachers are willing to tell
both sides of the story.  Sometimes it seems as though
people would rather keep these views in opposition than
find a model which would draw them together, which
this one would.

So, rather than call male and female the "norm", we can call
them "end-norms", and individuals in positions between these
two would be "mid-norm".  So maybe the most "natural" kind
of female, with all the right body parts, genes and hormones
would be represented at one end, and so on  . . .

Sue McPherson
sue  AT  mcphersons.freeserve.co.uk
http://samcpherson.homestead.com/homepage.html

Daphne's comments and questions and the responses from many participants
were leading this discussion to a really useful point, I think.  The
problem of semantics may be the heart of the issue and for the sake of
our students, we should be extremely careful about what we mean by sex.
I think all these arguments would benefit if we could view sex as merely
the biological mechanism which allows diversity by combining a genetic
complement from two separate cells.  Remember, plants have sex (male and
female)!  In lower organisms, parthenogenesis (sexless reproduction),
hermaphroditism, and a combination of both sexual and nonsexual
reproductive mechanisms occur as the norm. Organisms that can change sex
NO NOT HAVE SEX CHROMOSOMES.  Rather the SRY gene is incorporated into a
regular old chromosome and environmental and hormonal cues turn maleness
on and off.  THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN HUMANS SO FORGET THE LIZARD, FISH,
ANT AND APHID ANALOGIES.  Humans have sex chromosomes - a product of
very complex bi, tri, and pluri-furcations in the evolutionary tree.

In higher animals, these sex chromosomes are required and other
variations either do not occur (parthenogenesis) or occur extremely
rarely.  The best evidence I can find documents the occurrence of fewer
than 400 true human hermaphrodites (XX female/ovaries and XY male/testes
- this is the definition of hermaphrodite).  Very rare.  XO (Turner's
syndrome) are among the most common genetic differences - they, of
course, are female in sex because they lack the SRY gene, but have some
deficiencies in physical estrogen-dependent tissue development as a
result of the missing X.  THIS IS THE ONLY KNOWN DEPARTURE FROM THE XX
AND XY PARADIGM THAT IS KNOWN TO SURVIVE.  The other departure is the
XXY combination (Klinefelters syndrome) which is male because it has the
SRY gene although the extra causes sterility.

*****Even Fausto-Sterling would have to admit that "That's all, folks!"
 Except for the really rare hermaphrodites, everyone is either XX, XY,
XO or XXY.  All the other variations that Fausto-Sterling describes
result from developmental problems:  the existing genes not working
either because they are mutated or over or under expressed - but not
because a novel gene is absent or present.  So it seems with only four
possibilities, sex is a very useable term to describe male and
female.*****

So why can't we accept the restricted use of male and female to
designate sex (XX XY (really X+SRY gene as I pointed out earlier) and
say the behavior that develops is masculine, feminine, man, woman, etc.,
but that no single behavior can reliably be associated with either sex?
There certainly are biological basis for some of these behaviors but
there is no good evidence anywhere that this is linked to the presence
or absence of a <novel> gene.  Rather the basis for the behavior range
is related to the level of transcription factor expression and hormone
levels.  The steroid hormone receptors are examples of transcription
factors and in the case where the gene is mutated and nonfunctional,
tissues cannot respond to the hormone.  With respect to hormone levels,
as the ratio of testosterone and estrogen varies, the level of gene
expression will vary and this influences behavior - along with all sorts
of social influences.

Gender just seems like such a great term to convey the extremely
complex interplay of biology and psycho social factors that arises from
the XX and X + SRY genotypes.

nerdgirl wrote:

<<This statement is extraordinarily biased.  Challenges to "biological
facts"
. see facts and evidence such as, in humans the seemingly-anomalous
(by
western standards) observation of inversion of the sex ratio at birth
among
certain groups of isolated, matrilineal indigenous groups in Peru?
("Nature", Volume 399(6733) 20 May 1999, p216) and the recent work of
evolutionary biologist Paul Erhlich (Stanford)?  and in other species,
such
as the "evidence for ecological causation of sexual dimorphism in a
hummingbird"? (Temeles, Ethan J.; Pan, Irvin L.; Brennan, Jillian L.;
Horwitt, Jedediah N. Science, Volume 289(5478) 21 July 2000, pp
441-443).>>

Some of these citations are like comparing apples and red herrings.
Regarding the inversion of sex ratio at birth, the key phrase is <AT
BIRTH.,  This means that there are environmental influences that favor
survival of X sperm vs Y sperm.  There is no novel gene that gives rise
to this.  In likelihood the ratio has to do with the timing of
intercourse in the reproductive cycle, long documented as factor that
changes (slightly) the likelihood that the ovum will be fertilized by X
or Y sperm.

You have quoted Paul Erhlich before and I would expect that being the
esteemed biologist that he is, he would be horrified to think that his
words were being used to support an argument against sexual dimorphism.
If you have a specific passage that would like to quote so we all can
see how this interpretation has evolved, I think that information would
move the discussion forward significantly.   I have sent him a message
asking him if he wishes to comment.

Finally, it is irrelevant to cite examples from other species.  The
hummingbird man bifurcation of the genetic tree is the earliest among
terrestrial animals:  that is BIG differences.  We don't reproduce in
the same way and we don't fly and have feathers either.

Ruthann Masaracchia
Director, Women's Studies
Professor, Biological Sciences
University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203
940-565-2532
ruthann  AT  unt.edu