Gender vs. Sex in Biology and Society

Our vocabulary fails to capture reality

Photo by Brock Kirk on Unsplash

Before the 1950s, and still for several decades after the fields were enlightened, medicine and science had assumed that society’s gender roles were driven by biology. This resulted in the fallacy of gender dichotomy and binarism. With the discovery of DNA and an understanding of how secondary sexual characteristics are determined, it became even clearer that dividing humans into two categories should be limited to reproduction.

In Science, we’re still trying to untangle the traditional conflation of sex and gender, with journals composing inclusivity statements and guidance on word choice even while researchers try to break the habit of focusing on men in health-related studies. In medical research, we need to be able to parse out hormonal and development effects by having gendered cohorts, but the intention isn’t to exclude a particular identity, so getting the language right is necessary.

Defining Gender and Sex

Genotypic gender

So-called genotypic gender is determined at conception. Genotype means the genetic code. Phenotype is the physical manifestation of that code (via gene expression). So genotypic gender is based on the sex chromosomes, which in humans is usually 46XX (female)…