I came across an interesting article that states biology and genetics do have a role in determining the sex of a child. It shows that it is difficult for nurture to overcome nature and that gender neutrality at birth is not true. The study is carried out with 16 male children who suffer birth defect that causes them to lack a penis. Because the traditional view states that children adopts their gender identity through the environment they live in, the treatment for these children has involved removing the testes, construct a vagina and raise the children as girls. If the theory of gender neutrality at birth were true then there should not be a problem, but the result is rather surprising: “At the last assessment, eight of the 14 individuals raised as girls had declared themselves boys, including four who had not been told of their surgical transformation. Reiner said that one child refused at the age of 12 to accept estrogen injections for induction of puberty because he felt he was a boy. An additional five subjects were living as females, apparently without complaint. One was too angry to discuss the issue”. Hence, is gender-identity completely a product of culture and society or is it genetically determined? Even though they are raised as girls and have female genitals, does it mean that they can experience full pleasure from sexual intercourses or will their desire for pleasure be repressed for the fact that they are gender-identified based on the physical biological features? I think this is where a line is drawn between sex and gender, inner-sex and outer-sex. The children, due to their surgeries in childhood, are gender-identified as female but their sex preference is still male. However, I do feel that we need to consider the circumstances in which these children grow up. Given our current culture that gives more privilege to men than women, I think that penis envy is influential to our preferences of sex and gender. The children might like to identify themselves as male because they refuse to be inferiors, lacking social power. Nonetheless, the rare cases of four children who live happily as females imply the power of nurture over nature. Then again, it is too quick to draw conclusion because some people take longer time to realize their true sex-orientation.
If sex-orientation is biologically determined, one can deduce that homosexuality and transsexuality are also biologically determined. Many transsexuals believe that their desire to change sex is innate, biologically derived and unalterable. However, twin studies have shown that even though identical twins have identical genes, one twin being homosexual does not always result in the co-twin being homosexual. In fact, the percentage of homosexuality among co-twins is only 11%. Hence, one’s gene does not make one homosexual. As for transsexuality, only one case out of four involves both twins being transsexual. Perhaps, gene does not completely determine one’s sex, but it is significant to the extent that it creates a tendency in sex-preference, but not necessarily an absolute determinant of sex-orientation. With these two somewhat contradicting articles, I feel that one’s sex orientation is not determined by one’s physical biological feature but the genes within that regulate one’s inner-sex. It is the outer-sex that is the basis for social and cultural construct of sex and gender, which it is also most vulnerable to.
References:
http://tarasresources.net/gender_study.htm
http://www.mygenes.co.nz/transsexuality.htm
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