People often use ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ interchangeably, but their distinction is becoming more pertinent as more people become aware of gender identities outside those of the traditional binary. Sex refers to the biological differences between cisgender males and females, while gender is controversially conceived by the APA as “the attitudes, feelings and behaviours that a given culture associates with a person's biological sex”. Today, it is the possibility of more genders that seems to be primarily discussed, but are the biological sexes as irrefutable as we once thought?
A statement of difference between two categories assumes the existence of clear, mutually exclusive, and exhaustive categories. But these conditions, applied to ‘female’ and ‘male’, are disputable. We have long assumed that categorising individuals as ‘male’ or ‘female’ based on their genetics and genitalia is accurate and sufficient; a person with XX chromosomes will have ovaries and a vagina, and so is female; a person with XY chromosomes will have testes and a penis, and is thus male. People who don’t fit into this gender binary (e.g. people with ambiguous genitals or who later develop secondary sexual characteristics different to their assigned sex) are viewed as intersex outliers or suffering from sexual development disorders requiring medical attention.
However, Fausto-Sterling, has challenged the idea that these two categories exhaust the possibilities by arguing for at least five sexes which cover the variety of gonadal, hormonal and sexual characteristic pairings: male, female, merm, ferm and herm. Also, the significant overlap between hormone levels in cisgender men and women, and the variation within those categories, means that people aren’t so neatly divided. Scientific studies comparing two sexes often ignore the contestability of the female/male binary, and thus ignore the possibility that they are fundamentally structured around a tenuous way to label humans.
Written by Anna Mitchell
Artwork by Zara Masood
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