Beyond the Binary
In a previous post, I mentioned the difference between sex and gender to emphasize the importance of precise language when it comes to science, reporting, and everyday life. I generalized gender as being a person’s self-representation, while describing sex as the biological classification of organisms at birth. I want to delve into this idea further, to clear up any misconceptions about sex.
These days, I’m hearing more and more about how gender is a spectrum while sex is a binary based on biology. It’s easy to think this way when gender has to do with self-representation, which could vary on a diverse scale. However, it’s misleading to say that gender is not based on biology, or that sex is not influenced by the environment — each influences the other. For example, according to a statement by the American Heart Association, differences exist in the pathophysiology of the female sex in how acute myocardial infarction develops, and there are gender differences in clinical presentation and clinical outcomes when receiving treatment.
In addition, sex is not as clear-cut as one may think. People like to describe sex as what the doctor decided based on the appearance of your genitalia at birth. It’s true that what the doctors decide as your sex is binary — male or female. However, sexual development can be way more complicated than that.
Sex involves chromosomal sex, sex hormones, and having the right receptors in our bodies for those hormones. Beyond the classical XX and XY, one may be born with XXY chromosomes or an XX chromosome that has the gene for testes development. Though these conditions are rare, sex is the culmination of interactions between chromosomes and hormones, and the more you try to define what “biological sex” is, the harder it is to discern.
What we’re realizing now is that everything has nuance! Sex is less of a universal binary when we investigate further. For now, it’s easier for institutions to generalize sex as being male or female, but with more research into sex differences, we can flesh out the implications of what it means to have sex characteristics that are supposedly “conflicting.”
