by Anne StClair

Created on: April 09, 2009

Gender is defined (by Webster) as the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex', and from this definition it is clear that gender embodies much more than just anatomical differences that determine our sex'.

In Western society we suppose there are two sexes, and we assume that this is a universal truth. This is not the case, however, as other cultures (such as the Hijra in India) recognise more than two sexes or genders. There are also children born whose sex is indeterminate, either because they are born with both male and female genitalia or with neither. Even at a chromosomal level, the sex of some individuals is indeterminate. A normal' female has two X chromosomes, and a normal' male has one X and one Y. What then is an individual with two X's and one Y?

So there may be more than two sexes, and in fact there is no explicit line separating males from females, but rather a wide grey area between the two, including anatomical males who act and feel like females, anatomical females who act and feel like males, individuals whose sex has been assigned' by doctors in their infancy because it was indeterminate, and individuals who do not identify with either gender.

There are therefore grey areas in sex-assignment, but in gender assignment the grey areas are even greater. What does the behavioural, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex' actually mean? Who decides what is typical? In the recent past, for example, people of the female gender were individuals who wore dresses, did the housework, brought up children and sat at the back of the church with their heads covered and their mouths shut! Are people who routinely wear trousers, share housework and child minding with their spouse, and who may even be ordained ministers of the church less female' than their predecessors?

Societies change, culture changes, and psychological traits also change in response, and so gender allocations, and what gender means, changes over time as the culture changes.

Western society tries desperately to slot everyone into one of two genders, but many people simply do not fit neatly into one or the other. In my own family, for example, I have a nephew/niece, who is anatomically male but who has been gender-ambiguous since the age of around three. His uncle and great-uncle are also gender-ambiguous, having been born anatomically male, but living as transsexuals. They report that they do not feel like men pretending to be

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