Garth Rattray | The problem with sex vs gender

My last column spoke to transgenderism and the way that it is affecting our perception of reality. In it, I used the word ‘gender’ as I would the word ‘sex’. Of course, as expected, several people have said that I was incorrectly conflating (blending) the two. I particularly welcomed and respect the recent letter to the editor from my colleague, Dr Derrick Aarons, our premier bioethicist, on the matter. Notwithstanding the WHO position on the topic, I still find the subject very problematic.

Nowadays they are telling us that ‘sex’ usually refers to a biological male or female. But since there are differences in the manifestation of those biological attributes, the word ‘gender’ is used to denote the expressed identities (social roles and behaviours) of girls, boys, men, women, and gender diverse people (gender-expansive identities such as non-binary, agender, genderfluid, and genderqueer).

Although we are told that we must accept the ‘sex’ versus ‘gender’ nomenclature, the word ‘gender’ remains widely used to denote ‘sex’, as in – ‘gender-specific diseases’, ‘gender-based violence’, ‘gender discrimination’, ‘gender salary gap’, gender bias, and so on. Even the proponents for distinguishing ‘sex’ from ‘gender’ are using the word ‘gender’ as a synonym for ‘sex’.

We are instructed that most humans are born with a sex, not a gender (because our ‘gender identity’ is not expressed at birth). Therefore, choosing to physically express one’s [trans] ‘gender identity’ entails transitioning from one’s sex to a gender. But ‘transgender’ means transitioning from one’s gender to another. That is a clear, incorrect conflation; but nobody seems to realise it.

AMBIGUOUS

Even the word ‘sex’ is ambiguous. When seeing a question about ‘sex’ I choose to interpret it as asking whether I am male or female because “sex” denotes either of the two main categories (male and female) into which most living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions. However, ‘sex’ may also denote one’s sexual activity. Additionally, dictionaries still list the synonym of “gender” as “sex”.

There was a time when official forms requested your gender, but now, some of them circumvent the confusion by asking “M/F”. But this may be problematic. Most people would choose M or F, but a transgender (once referred to as transsexual) individual would be at pains to respond. That individual would wonder if the question was about their biological ‘sex’, or their expressed ‘gender’. Already we can see the inherent ambiguity.

Originally, ‘gender’ was defined as “… kind, breed, sex, derived from the Latin ablative case of genus, like genere natus, which refers to birth”.

However, this divergent sexuality paradigm began way back in 1945 when American psychologist, Madison Bentley, chose to define ‘gender’ as “the socialised obverse of sex”. That should have made people cautious about falling in line with the redefinition of ‘gender’ because ‘obverse’ means “the opposite or counterpart of a fact or truth”.

trans ideology

Ten years later, in 1955, sexologist and psychologist Dr John Money put forward the idea of differentiating between biological sex and gender. The landscape of sexuality was reshaped. The thinking is that, although human beings may be born with chromosomally determined sex (male/female) characteristics, that does not mean that they are male or female. Being male or female is said to be determined by someone’s gender identity. Hence the trans ideology that someone who is born a biological male can become a female and someone who is a biological female can become a male.

Extending that ideology leads to the conclusion that although ‘sex’ is determinate, ‘gender’ is indeterminate because it depends on the sexual emotion with which someone identifies. There was a time when people who were born with one type of body that did not match what they felt like inside had a “sex change operation” and was referred to as “transsexual” individuals. But the language got in the way, so the word ‘gender’ was substituted for ‘sex’.

Dr Money played a seminal role in the transgender movement. Not only was he the first person to speak of ‘gender’ instead of ‘sex’ to differentiate between the biological features and the behavioural differences between males and females, but he also popularised the term ‘gender identity’. Additionally, he founded the world’s first gender-identity clinic in 1966. It was located at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA).

Money’s early work was with intersex infants. He believed that, up to about two years old, the gender identity of children was malleable; then they pass through a ‘gender-identity gate’, after which their gender is concretised. He advocated the use of hormones and surgery on [the genitals of] those children to achieve streaming them into one gender or the other as early as possible. He believed that the sex organs that the children were born with were inconsequential. He was strident that the only thing that mattered was that they were raised as an assigned gender.

Up until relatively recently, Money’s work and theories were very influential in the treatment of intersex children. However, they are no longer accepted. It bothers me that this sex versus gender philosophy was partially rooted in and fuelled by work done with intersex infants and children, not with [chromosomally] normal children, yet the theory is being applied to any child, teenager, and adult alike. The principle is being used to decide on and assign their ‘gender identity’. The entire ‘sex’ vs ‘gender’ ideology is confusing and needs retooling.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com