Gender can't be freely chosen

THE RECENT decision by Canadian couple Kathy Witterick and David Stocker to withhold knowledge of the sex of their third child, Storm, from everybody except Storm’s siblings, as a “tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation”, has provoked quite a controversy.

The plan is to raise four-month-old Storm in a “genderless” fashion so as to avoid imposing gender stereotype identities on him/her. Public reaction ranges from accusations of child abuse to enthusiastic support. This affair raises profound questions about the relative extents to which gender is biologically and socially determined.

There is a fundamental difference between sex and gender. Sex is genetically determined and, under ordinary circumstances, exists in two varieties – male and female. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and one pair (sex chromosomes) determines sex. There are two varieties of sex chromosome, X and Y. In females, the sex chromosome pair is XX and in males XY.

Sex is determined at conception when a sperm fuses with an egg to form the embryo. Eggs have X chromosomes only, but the sperm can have either an X or Y chromosome. An X sperm forms a female embryo when it fuses with an egg and a Y sperm forms a male embryo. The embryo implants in the womb where male and female embryos embark on different developmental pathways.

Foetal development is influenced by many factors, including sex hormones, predominantly male sex hormones (testosterone) in males and female sex hormones (estrogens) in females. The male develops male sexual organs (testicles and penis) and the female develops a vagina. Males and females also develop different secondary sexual characteristics later – for example, different conformations of bodily muscle development and fat deposition, different voice timbres and extent of facial hair; females develop breasts, and so on.

Biological sex cannot be changed. “Sex-change” operations do not change the biological sex – they help to change gender identity. Thus, “changing” a man into a woman involves the surgical reconfiguration/ removal of the male genitalia, the fabrication of a “vagina” and female hormone treatment to encourage breast development. However, the chromosomal characteristics of the new “woman” remains XY.

Gender is the cultural expression of sex and, in the great majority of cases, parallels biological sex. Gender is probably determined to some extent by culture because we determinedly treat boys and girls differently from birth – we even colour code them differently. Some authorities claim gender is entirely culturally determined, but I am convinced they are wrong.

Many developmental psychologists in the 1950s and 1960s claimed that gender is a social construct. This hypothesis was powerfully tested in the case of a Winnipeg boy called David Reimer, whose penis was burned off in a tragic circumcision accident in 1967 when he was eight months old. Under the advice of Dr John Money of John Hopkins Hospital, the leading proponent of the social construction of gender hypothesis, it was decided that the kindest thing was to surgically remove the rest of David’s genitalia, raise him as a girl (Brenda), treat him with female hormones and, later, to surgically fashion a vagina for him. Money advised that Brenda would grow up to become a contented woman.

But, things didn't work out. Brenda always had an inner knowing that something was wrong and never felt like a girl. Eventually, at 15, Brenda began to live as a boy and threatened suicide if she was forced see Money again. Brenda/David's parents revealed his true identity to him. He underwent surgical reconfiguration and got married. David suffered from depression and committed suicide. His story is told by John Colapinto in As Nature Made Him(Quartet Books, 2000). It seems clear to me that gender is largely biologically determined, as illustrated by the Reimer case.

Male and female foetuses are exposed to different sex hormones in the womb, which influence the developing brain in different ways. In extensive experiments on rats in the 1970s and 1980s, Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri reported that the behavioural characteristics of male and female rats are exquisitely sensitive to their exposure to male or female sex hormones in the womb.

If gender is largely determined by biology, the idea that gender can be freely chosen is wrong in the great majority of cases and its encouragement, as in the current case of baby Storm, risks frustrating natural development. But, there is no need to confront children with a forest of gender cues to ensure the appropriate expression of gender. The biological inner knowing will come through anyway without the assistance of cues, which only serve to produce crude stereotypes – things won’t fall apart if little Johnny goes to school wearing pink socks.

Prof William Reville is a member of staff of the Biochemistry Department and Public Awareness of Science Officer at UCC. See understandingscience.ucc.ie