Abstract:
Sex differences in the brain are reflected in behavior and in the risk for neuropsychiatric disorders. The fetal brain develops in the male direction due to a direct effect of testosterone on the developing neurons, or in the female direction due to the absence of such a testosterone surge. Because sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place earlier in intrauterine life than sexual differentiation of the brain, these two processes can be influenced independently of each other. Gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender), sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality), pedophilia, sex differences in cognition, and the risks for neuropsychiatric disorders are programmed into our brains during early development. There is no proof that postnatal social environment has any crucial effect on gender identity or sexual orientation. Structural and functional sex differences in brain areas, together with changes in sex hormone levels and their receptors in development and adulthood, are closely related to sex differences in behavior and neuropsychiatric disorders. Knowing that such a relationship exists may help bring about sex-specific therapeutic strategies.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20889965
Editorial comment:
THIS paper should have made a significant contribution to a complex subject. Instead it illustrates the desperate need for more consistency in terminology between researchers, commentators, advocacy groups – such as OII – and other stakeholders.
Gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender), sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, or bisexuality), pedophilia, sex differences in cognition, and the risks for neuropsychiatric disorders are programmed into our brains during early development.
Male and female are not gender categories. They are far and away the most common representations of biological sex among humans. But, as we see over and again, displays of gender do not always coincide with biological sex. Therefore a demonstration of social gender role behavior is not a reliable indicator of sex.
This is one of the many issues that create problems with so-called paediatric gender assignments.
The challenge at birth is to give a Social Identity or Gender Identity to an individual without knowing what his or her Individual Sex Identity … [is] going to be.
http://oiiaustralia.com/11400/oped-archivos-espaoles-de-urologa-surgical-challenges-disorders-sex-development-dsd/
As near as we can tell the two authors of this paper – Ai Min Bao & Dick Swaab – are probably referring to male and female as sex categories with one breath, then using gender as a synonym for sex with the other. It is also seems likely that they have confused gender identity with sex identity. In any event the paper is almost meaningless due to uncertainty with the nomenclature.
Milton Diamond has this to say on the subject:
Sex and Gender are Different: Sexual Identity and Gender Identity are Different.
Sexual identity speaks to the way one views him or her self as a male or female. This inner conviction of identification usually mirrors one’s outward physical appearance and the typically sex-linked role one develops and prefers or society attempts to impose.
Gender identity is recognition of the perceived social gender attributed to a person. Typically a male is perceived as a boy or a man where boy and man are social terms with associated cultural expectations attached. Similarly, a female is perceived as a girl or woman. The distinctions made between boy and girl and man and woman are of age and usually again represent differences in societal expectations that go along with increases in maturity.
Gender and gender role refers to society’s idea of how boys or girls or men and women are expected to behave and should be treated. A display of gender, as with a gender role, represents a public manifestation of gender identity… Gender has everything to do with the society in which one lives and may or may not have much to do with biology.
www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/biblio/articles/2000to2004/2002-sex-and-gender.html
OII calls on all the interested stakeholders in this subject to reach some kind of a consensus on terminology and language. That way we will all understand what each other is talking about, thus negating the extraordinary confusion that permeates the discussions at the moment.
