“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” Maybe it was just Adam and Eve, but maybe Adam was a bit like Eve and Eve was a bit like Adam, and Steve? Maybe Steve was there too, along with Niamh, who was a bit of Steve, as Steve was a bit of Niamh. What do we really know about sex? Is it binary? Just Adam and Eve, male and female? Or is there also some of Steve and maybe Niamh? However, am I now talking about gender, not sex? Well, I’m not quite sure. It’s all rather confusing. Let’s have a closer look at the binary of sex.
Recent debates have been circulating regarding the binary of sex and gender. Including transgender athletes competing in the 2024 Olympic Games and rife social media debates surrounding pronouns. These discussions have been complicating the worlds of sex and gender more and more in our society, particularly in WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) societies. I denote these debates to solely WEIRD societies as non-western societies have been known to appreciate and celebrate sex and gender very differently. For example, prior to colonisation, native, indigenous Canadian and American tribes demonstrated wide gender diversity including the acceptance of ‘two spirit people’. ‘Two Spirits’ were not determined by their sex. This is an important distinction to make so as to not generalise the themes of this article to the whole globe.
So, what is sex? ‘Sex’ as a general phenomenon has changed numerous times throughout the history of science and humanity studies. Only more recently, has it been severed from the concept of ‘gender’. Since the 1970’s 2nd wave feminists called into question the principles of biological determinism (the theory that a person’s characteristics, behaviour and attitudes were wholly attributed to their genetics and physiology). They scrutinised biological determinism for placing the female sex at a proposed ‘biological disadvantage’, therefore destined to stay at home and not work. What was born from these critiques was a rip down the academic world. One side: scientific, focussing on sex, the other: humanitarian, focussing on gender. Today, this is still relatively normal, with neither side offering much progress of combining the two disciplines’ work. That is not to say that studies and research has not been conducted, but nothing so outstanding that it rejoins these two disciplines entirely. Thus, ever since, if a person is taught about gender they are taught about men and women. And if a person is taught about sex they are taught about males and females.
However, to delve deeper into scientific ideas on sex is to reveal a whole world that has multiple similarities to gender. Gender in sociology has commonly been depicted as fluid. Taking on multiple forms in different contexts, being perceived differently by different audiences. Sex in biology and other scientific disciplines, is also often seen as a complex multifaceted concept. As blood and cells and DNA information pass fluidly through the body they delineate sex in multiple ways. One could therefore argue that fluidity, is a trait of both sex and gender.
Let us look at sex. In genetics there is the classic XX (female) and XY (male), however there are many others that were left out of the school curriculum:
There are the ‘supermen’. Occurring when a male (XY) develops an additional Y chromosome (XYY), affecting one in every 850 males. This condition typically presents with neurodevelopment impairments including those symptomatic of the autism spectrum disorder, lower IQ’s, speech and language difficulties and poor attention spans.
There is also Klinefelter Syndrome. This is when males affected will develop an additional X chromosome (XXY). Klinefelter’s can be asymptomatic, but can also present as having hyper mobility, undescended or irregular testes and smaller genitals along with learning difficulties such as dyslexia.
Additionally, 1 in every 2,000 girls will develop Turner syndrome. This is where people affected have only one X chromosome, not two as seen in the more common XX female type. This particular genetic rarity affects a person’s height, reproductive development and fertility.
On top of all of that there are also intersex people. Intersex spans a broad range of various conditions and appearances of the genitalia and other sex characteristics that do not align with what is conceived as binary ideas of what male and female bodies are supposed to look and act like. Intersex can be apparent from birth, and parents may decide to surgically define the baby as either more male or female. However, intersex identities can be discovered much later in life, such as male or female pseudo-hermaphroditism. This is where the person will look exactly like a male or a female externally, but internally will have the opposite reproductive organs.
Evidently there are many fascinating biological titbits about how sex is not binary at all! I could type for hours on how certain fungi species can have up to or over 28,000 sexes, or how when matriarchal clownfish communities lose their queen, the eldest male clownfish will become both symbolically and anatomically, female. However, that would lose my focus. The question I posed from the beginning was ‘is sex binary’, and the answer is categorically, no! Sex is not binary in both humans and non-humans alike. Sex has also been presented in this article as a fluid, changing thing, not only anatomically say in fish, but also in perceptions of sex or gender. So why do we, as a society in general, continue to pursue the binary of something that is not binary at all?
Schools with strict sex educations that limit teaching to just the male and the female sexes. Governments banning access to life saving hormone treatments to transitioning young people, whilst throwing very similar treatments at young girls with menstrual issues or perimenopausal women. Sex in today’s society has become gendered. By that I mean the distinctions once made back in the 1970’s between second wave feminists and scientists (not to mention the feminist scientists, because you can have both) segregated sex and gender instead of treating them as equals. Gender is fluid, so is sex! Sex is biological, so is gender! People perceive sex’s differently, as they do with genders. Yes, they have their differences, I am not suggesting they are exactly the same, but I am suggesting that people must start to notice their similarities so institutional powers can understand sex as, as complex, as ever changing and as ever evolving as gender. So, it’s not just Adam and Eve. Next time you’re talking about sex, remember Steve, and Niamh.