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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From House to

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Speaker 1: works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline, And honestly, Caroline, I'm surprised that

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Speaker 1: we have not done this episode on the difference between

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Speaker 1: gender and sex sooner, because we talked about those two

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Speaker 1: things all the time. We do, and and we got

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Speaker 1: into a lot of the topics um that are related

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Speaker 1: to this in our transgender one on one episode, you know,

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Speaker 1: so we do encourage you to go back and give

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Speaker 1: that a lesson if you haven't, And we're also going

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Speaker 1: to touch on an even farther back episode on people

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Speaker 1: who are intersex, and if you want to look for

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Speaker 1: that episode, it is called why is it so Easy

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Speaker 1: to Fail a Gender test? Um? And this was another

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Speaker 1: request that we got from Facebook when we put out

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Speaker 1: a call for people's dream top fix, and it's got

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Speaker 1: a number of up votes, I think because it's one

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Speaker 1: of those basic things that we hear a lot about

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Speaker 1: in terms of gender difference sex difference, but no one

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Speaker 1: ever really says, well, what are we talking about exactly?

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Speaker 1: And you and I use often descriptors of male and female,

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Speaker 1: sometimes two people's annoyance because it sounds so clinical. Um,

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Speaker 1: so why use male and female versus men and women? Also, yes,

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Speaker 1: trans issues, let's sort it all out, Caroline. Yeah, well

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Speaker 1: to start sorting it out. It's hard to sort it

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Speaker 1: out because all of this gender stuff really does exist

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Speaker 1: on a spectrum, as many sociologists psychologists have pointed out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and even academic conversations about gender insects exists on a

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Speaker 1: spectrum spanning biological determinis and this idea that if you

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Speaker 1: are born with two X chromosomes, you are female and

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Speaker 1: thus life is going to probably be like X, y

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Speaker 1: Z versus on the other end, social constructionism, where we

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Speaker 1: have how the environment shapes a lot of who we are.

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Speaker 1: In other words, that's a fancy way of saying we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be talking a lot about nature versus nurture. Right,

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Speaker 1: because you can be born biologically male or female. Um,

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Speaker 1: but the way that you're raised, the way that um,

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Speaker 1: you know, those the stereotypes that you fit into can

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Speaker 1: be sort of you know, in the gray area. Things

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Speaker 1: can be blurred along gender lines, but sex is more

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Speaker 1: of a biological determinant. And then we also have the

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Speaker 1: factor of talking about bodies. Yes, but also talking about behavior,

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Speaker 1: and behavior is such a complicating factor in a lot

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Speaker 1: of ways, because an evolutionary psychologist would probably tell you

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Speaker 1: that behavior is never going to be either just nature

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Speaker 1: or nurture. It's a very complex interweaving of both. But

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Speaker 1: we're going to try to break it down as easily

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Speaker 1: as we can to clarify at least the basics of

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Speaker 1: gender versus sex, and then at the very end we're

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Speaker 1: going to touch on how sexual orientation ties into all

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Speaker 1: of this. Right, and you might think that the words

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Speaker 1: gender and sex were always around, that those distinctions have

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Speaker 1: always existed, but that's not so. It wasn't until about

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and sixties that the distinctions between sex

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Speaker 1: and gender first emerged in the English language through psychiatrists

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Speaker 1: who were working with intersex and trans sexual patients. And

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Speaker 1: it is also, as would seem obvious, around this time

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Speaker 1: that the term transsexual itself was popularized. So that means

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Speaker 1: that the reasons why we have those terms is because

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Speaker 1: of those early recognitions of the spectrum factors that we're

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Speaker 1: talking about. Um, so let's talk about sex. What do

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Speaker 1: we mean when we're talking about sex, not in the

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Speaker 1: sense of sexy time sex. Sex refers to the biological

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Speaker 1: and physiological characteristics that define men and women. This includes

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Speaker 1: are internal and external sex, organs, chromosomes, hormones, etcetera. The

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Speaker 1: stuff that usually happens when an egg is fertilized. Right,

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Speaker 1: And so the words male and female would describe sex

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Speaker 1: categories and sex characteristics include things like menstruation, testical development,

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Speaker 1: and men tending to have more upper body strength, for instance.

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Speaker 1: So what about gender all right, if we want to

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Speaker 1: get textbook about gender, we're talking more about socially constructed roles, behaviors,

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Speaker 1: activities and attributes that it given society considers appropriate for

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Speaker 1: men and women. So for that reason, it's masculine and

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Speaker 1: feminine that you're used to describe gender categories, right, Like

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Speaker 1: you can still I'm biologically female, I'm a straight female

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Speaker 1: or woman, I am female, But you could describe certain

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Speaker 1: behaviors or clothes that I wear or things that I

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Speaker 1: say as more stereotypically masculine. So gender descriptions don't necessarily

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Speaker 1: match up to sex exactly. And so stereotypical gender characteristics

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Speaker 1: would include things like women doing more childcare and housework,

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Speaker 1: men being the breadwinners, men wearing pants when wearing skirts, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But once you move even a centimeter beyond these textbook definitions,

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Speaker 1: we get into spectrum land, where actually things are not

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Speaker 1: always so neatly divided between man woman male female. So indeed,

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Speaker 1: what we're getting at here is that sex itself, the

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Speaker 1: biological characteristic, isn't necessarily a male female binary. It's not

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Speaker 1: just one or the other. About one in two thousand

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Speaker 1: people in the US are actually born intersex, and that

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Speaker 1: is when sex chromosomes are different from the usual x

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Speaker 1: X or x y, and they may develop ambiguous genitalia. Yes,

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Speaker 1: so if you hear about people who have Turner syndrome,

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Speaker 1: for instance, that is an XO combination, and then there's

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Speaker 1: kind Felter syndrome, which is people who have x x Y,

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Speaker 1: And those chromosomal differences can result in people who who

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Speaker 1: have intersex conditions um being considered sexually ambiguous in different ways,

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Speaker 1: such as having an enlarged clitterist or having a very

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Speaker 1: small penis um, or they may have sex organs that

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Speaker 1: appear to be somewhat male and female at the same time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: one of the articles we read was talking to a

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Speaker 1: researcher whose daughter actually was intersex. She was, Uh, if

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Speaker 1: you looked at her, for instance, if you're superficially she

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Speaker 1: appears to be a woman female, but she actually they

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Speaker 1: discovered later in life that she had undescended testes in

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Speaker 1: a her neil sack, so she had you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: so that's just an example of you know, looking female people,

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Speaker 1: you're raised female, you are you know, considered to be female,

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Speaker 1: but you might have both characteristics. And one thing that

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Speaker 1: we need to mention in talking about research that's gone

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Speaker 1: into intersex identity is John Money, who is in New

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Speaker 1: Zealand born psychologists and sexologists, and he was one of

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Speaker 1: the main pioneers in theories of intersex identity during his

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Speaker 1: career actually in the United States at Johns Hopkins University,

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Speaker 1: and within that he invented the terms gender identity and

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Speaker 1: gender role. But we should also say though that Money's

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Speaker 1: career was also overshadowed by a really controversial decision that

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Speaker 1: he made in the sex reassignment of David Reimer, who

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Speaker 1: later committed suicide. Right, And one thing that was, um,

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Speaker 1: that's important to note, you know, doing all this research

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Speaker 1: looking into the issues of sex and gender, gender and

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Speaker 1: particularly intersex conditions, it's way more common than one would think.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of the time you hear about these

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Speaker 1: tragic stories of a baby is born with you know,

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Speaker 1: it looks like maybe both or they can't tell. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of ambiguous, and so they will say, okay, well

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Speaker 1: let's just you know, do a surgery raise this child

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Speaker 1: as female. And then the child grows up and well

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Speaker 1: she's more male actually, And so you know, tragic stories

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Speaker 1: like that. And so we have Germany actually who is

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Speaker 1: in the news. And in November, Germany will actually become

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Speaker 1: the first European Union nation to legally recognize a third

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Speaker 1: gender in the cases of babies born with ambiguous genitalia

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Speaker 1: and countries Australia and Nepal already offer that option. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean because in the case of those babies, there's

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Speaker 1: the clinical thinking, commonly that the best thing is to

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Speaker 1: assign that baby either a male or female identity so

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Speaker 1: that it can then grow into that. But if surgery

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Speaker 1: is involved in that, you know, as you've talked about,

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Speaker 1: that can be so damaging, right. And one of the

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Speaker 1: articles we were looking at on this, one of the commenters,

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Speaker 1: I know you're never supposed to read the comments, but

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Speaker 1: one of the commenters was saying, like, this is terrible.

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Speaker 1: You shouldn't allow parents to pick a third gender because

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Speaker 1: kids need stability. And my thought on that is like, well,

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Speaker 1: it's an infant first of all, so it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: know what stability is yet. Um, it might not be

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Speaker 1: aware of its surroundings, and so I think that must

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Speaker 1: be scary though as a parent, that's what the issue is,

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Speaker 1: because it's not so much that you won't love your

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Speaker 1: child regardless. It's more of like issues of like what

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Speaker 1: do I what do I name my child? How? You know,

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Speaker 1: how how do I raise a child who I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure biologically whether he or she is male or female? Well,

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Speaker 1: and I think that, you know, that's one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why it's important for us to learn more about intersex.

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Speaker 1: I mean because thinking about that one in two thousand,

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Speaker 1: that's a lot more common than people probably realize. Um.

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Speaker 1: And again, we did devote an entire episode to this,

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Speaker 1: why is it so easy to fail a gender? To us?

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Speaker 1: If you want to dig that up in the stuff

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Speaker 1: I've never told you ever expanding library, um, And if

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Speaker 1: you do want more information in the meantime, you can

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Speaker 1: check out the website of the Intersex Society of North America. UM,

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Speaker 1: but we've talked a lot about you know, we're talking

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Speaker 1: about gender identity, of what to assign a baby, that

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Speaker 1: kind of quandary that parents might encounter. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: about then, how the spectrum of sex then so quickly

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Speaker 1: intersect with the spectrum of gender, right, because there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of breakdowns as far as gender goes. We

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Speaker 1: have gender roles, which that's the way that people act,

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Speaker 1: it's what they do when they say, it's how they

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Speaker 1: express being a girl or a boy, or a man

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Speaker 1: or a woman. And a lot of times these characteristics

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Speaker 1: are shaped by society, but they do tend to vary

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Speaker 1: from culture to culture. Sure, because when you think about it,

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Speaker 1: what what's masculine and feminine? It is probably gonna change,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you go to different spots around the globe.

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Speaker 1: And along with that, the gender stereotypes might change, those

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Speaker 1: widely accepted judgments or biases regarding a person or group.

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Speaker 1: And I really liked this uh definition over I believe

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Speaker 1: it was from Planned Parenthood. It said that stereotypes about

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Speaker 1: gender can cause unequal and unfair treatment because of a

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Speaker 1: person's gender. And this is called old sexism. Right, So

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Speaker 1: when we go ahead and we make assumptions about people

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Speaker 1: based on their perceived gender and how they should be

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Speaker 1: treated and how we think they should act, well, so

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Speaker 1: then we have gender typing. And this is involved childhood.

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Speaker 1: This is the process by which children acquire their values, motives,

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Speaker 1: and behaviors which are viewed as appropriate for males or

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Speaker 1: females within a given culture. And it should be noted

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Speaker 1: that kids often pick quote unquote gender appropriate toys by

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Speaker 1: age three. You know, we've talked in other episodes on

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Speaker 1: other topics about how common it is for children to

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Speaker 1: already be assuming things about people and about their world

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Speaker 1: and their environment according to those dark gender divisions. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's the way they're raised. But also as early as

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Speaker 1: fifteen to thirty six months, children developed gender typed patterns

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Speaker 1: of behavior and preferences. But girls actually tend to conform

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Speaker 1: less strictly. But that I think goes back to what

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Speaker 1: we've talked about before, where you know, it's okay for

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Speaker 1: girls to do boy things, but not okay for boys

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Speaker 1: to do girl things. Yeah, and in a bit of

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Speaker 1: an ironic twist, uh, in a lot of ways, the

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Speaker 1: feminine gender role these days at least is a lot

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Speaker 1: more fluid and for giving in a way than that

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Speaker 1: for boys and men, which would be a lot to

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Speaker 1: do with the nurture aspect of this discussion. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so from the gender typing those early childhood developments, we

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Speaker 1: grow into our own gender identity, and gender identity is

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Speaker 1: kind of a combination of all of those gender terms

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Speaker 1: so we're talking about because it relates to how we

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Speaker 1: feel about and express our gender and gender roles. We

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Speaker 1: expressed us in terms of clothing, behavior, and personal appearance.

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Speaker 1: And again it's a feeling that we have as early

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Speaker 1: as age two or three, although the expressive parts of

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Speaker 1: it in terms of you know, the outward trappings of

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Speaker 1: gender with clothing, piercings, tattoos, etcetera, probably emerge more I

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Speaker 1: is when these gender identities conflict with our biological sex

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Speaker 1: people who identify as gender queer, which is um a

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Speaker 1: term that means identifying with multiple genders or no genders,

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Speaker 1: and with people who express themselves however they wish, and

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Speaker 1: it makes of masculine, feminine, and or androgynous ways. Right,

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Speaker 1: And we mentioned the term transsexual earlier. Have that emerged

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Speaker 1: at the same time in the fifties and sixties that

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Speaker 1: the distinction between sex and gender did, and so transsexual

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Speaker 1: preferred term these days transgenders, the umbrella term transsexual would

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Speaker 1: not be an umbrella term. Yeah, and Glad notes that

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Speaker 1: just a just a tip out there for language use.

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Speaker 1: And you know, in terms of talking about the fluidity

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Speaker 1: transgender may choose to transition so that they're outside matches

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Speaker 1: the way that they feel and they identify inside. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And transitioning could include anything from changing your name to

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Speaker 1: wearing different clothes, to getting gender reassignment surgery um or

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Speaker 1: really whatever that person feels is appropriate in order to

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Speaker 1: better match up that gender identity with their bodies, their

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Speaker 1: biological makeup. Right, And as we've touched on in the

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Speaker 1: trans podcast. We do see trans women in many other

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Speaker 1: cultures who go by different names, and that does include

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Speaker 1: the third gender like we talked about, but Mexico, Pakistan, Polynesia,

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Speaker 1: all of these countries and regions do have very distinct

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Speaker 1: other gender identities. Yeah. And in June two thousand thirteen,

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Speaker 1: speaking of gender identities, Australian Nori may well Be became

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Speaker 1: the first person in the world recognized as gender lists

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Speaker 1: following a legal appeal. And we are seeing more and more, um,

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Speaker 1: like you talked about in Germany and Australia, Nepaul already

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Speaker 1: have this option of having more than just the male

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Speaker 1: or female box to check, which is great because it

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Speaker 1: is as we're learning more about transvisibility. For instance, Um,

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Speaker 1: it really is so much more common than we might

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Speaker 1: think for the binary to really not fit a lot

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Speaker 1: of people. And that's why we talk a lot about

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Speaker 1: the spectrum because a lot of this, Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it does exist on a spectrum. I mean even talking

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Speaker 1: about I think, for um, some people that the idea

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Speaker 1: of biological sex being more on a spectrum might be

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Speaker 1: a little more difficult to conceptualize than something like gender,

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Speaker 1: which is so much more Talking about culture, and nurture

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Speaker 1: and society. Um, but even for that, I mean Judith

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Speaker 1: Butler for instance, and some other people have said that,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe in a way like the two are

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Speaker 1: not all that different in terms of being constructs. I mean,

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Speaker 1: obviously there's biology that goes into you know, sperm fertilizing

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Speaker 1: eggs and chromosomes and all of that. But what happens

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Speaker 1: when those biological mechanisms take place isn't always just oh

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Speaker 1: xx or x y and there you go, right, And

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Speaker 1: I think I think that's one of the great aspects

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Speaker 1: of having these movements, these basically civil rights movements, you know,

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Speaker 1: movements for visibility and acceptance not only among the gay

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Speaker 1: community but among the trance community, because you're getting more

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Speaker 1: people talking about it and people are thinking, and especially

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Speaker 1: you know, not sound like an old fogy, but thanks

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Speaker 1: to the Internet. Along of the Internet, you know, more

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Speaker 1: people are able to connect to people like them and

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Speaker 1: realize that they are not alone. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: you might have grown up and felt I'm the only

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Speaker 1: one who feels like this, this is I am so weird,

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Speaker 1: or as a parent, you might think, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: no one has ever been through what I'm going through.

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Speaker 1: But now with these movements progressing and more people talking

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Speaker 1: about it and these communities gaining more acceptance, I think

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Speaker 1: that it's a hugely positive step socially, mentally, emotionally for

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Speaker 1: everyone involved, but also just to get maybe more research

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Speaker 1: out there, you know, to to broaden our understanding of

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Speaker 1: what sex and gender mean. Yeah, and I think we

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Speaker 1: are seeing that in academia. I know that there have

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Speaker 1: been a lot of journals that have popped up in

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Speaker 1: more recent years focusing on the l g B t

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Speaker 1: Q community and how specific like health issues affect them. Um,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean there's always more is needed. And

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Speaker 1: now we've reached a point of talking about well, sexual orientation, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what about that? Even though I feel like sexual orientation

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Speaker 1: often gets the most press out of all of the

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Speaker 1: fastest of this conversation, in a way, sexual orientation to

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Speaker 1: me is the simplest of all because it's just oh, well,

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Speaker 1: it's it's who you're attracted to. Yeah. It does kind

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Speaker 1: of just boil down to, yeah, exactly who you're attracted to,

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Speaker 1: you know, are you gay, straight, bisexual? We do have

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Speaker 1: issues that we haven't touched on yet of being pan

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Speaker 1: sexual attracted to just about everybody. Yeah, I mean all

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Speaker 1: basically with pan sexuality, gender identity is sort of a

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Speaker 1: moot point because it's almost like you don't see gender identity.

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Speaker 1: And then there is the issue of being just questioning,

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Speaker 1: so kind of like sexual orientation agnostic. Yeah, and then

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Speaker 1: finally it's sort of the flip side of all this,

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Speaker 1: there's a sexuality talk about a group of people who

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Speaker 1: have really found a lot of community um on the internet.

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Speaker 1: It's with a sexuality that there's been a lot more

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Speaker 1: visibility that's come out, um just from people finding each

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Speaker 1: other online. And these are people who don't experience sexual

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Speaker 1: attraction at all. And even within a sexuality there is

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Speaker 1: a spectrum there of the kinds of relationships that they

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Speaker 1: do seek out. And again, we have done an episode

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Speaker 1: a while back on a sexuality, and I believe I

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Speaker 1: wrote an article for how sufwork dot com called how

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Speaker 1: a sexuality works if you'd like to learn more about that,

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Speaker 1: And that's sort of it in a way. With sexual orientation,

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Speaker 1: it seems so oversimplified. Now after we're talking about all

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Speaker 1: of the nuances of sex and gender and then coming

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Speaker 1: down to well and then you're attracted to people, and

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Speaker 1: then sometimes you you know, I want to have sex

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Speaker 1: with certain people, and then sometimes you really fall in

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Speaker 1: love and and then sometimes you have both. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean this this was definitely interesting to look at because

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Speaker 1: or to dive deeper into anyway. I mean, we've talked

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Speaker 1: about all sorts of aspects of sex and gender on

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Speaker 1: the podcast before, but really looking at how biology plays

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Speaker 1: into things, but also how you're raised, you know, like

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Speaker 1: the roles that you think you should be in versus

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Speaker 1: the roles that you feel like you are in and

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Speaker 1: also those innate feelings. I mean, when you think about

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Speaker 1: gender identity in kids and how from those very early

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Speaker 1: ages you have kids who with almost no prompting whatsoever,

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Speaker 1: just say, you know what, I'm not a boy or

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Speaker 1: I'm not a girl, and it's almost inborn in them.

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Speaker 1: So they're all these different factors. And I hope that

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Speaker 1: this has been a helpful primer for listeners, and it's

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Speaker 1: also a good refresher for us because we're always talking

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Speaker 1: about gender differences and sex differences, and you know, it's

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Speaker 1: a good way to make sure that we're keeping all

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Speaker 1: of those kinds of things straight as well. Straight kind

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Speaker 1: of a pun there, Yeah, So we would love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you listeners, UM, whether you have life experiences

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Speaker 1: you want to share with us, stories you want to

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Speaker 1: share UM, or just want to you know, give your

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Speaker 1: fellow listeners maybe resources where they can learn more. It

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Speaker 1: would be great to hear from you. Yeah, Mom Stuff

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Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters,

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Speaker 1: and you can also hit us up on Facebook or

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Speaker 1: tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast. And we've got a

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Speaker 1: couple of letters to share with you when we come

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Speaker 1: right back from a quick break and now back to

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Speaker 1: some letters. Alightis so, I have a letter here from Laura,

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Speaker 1: who says that she listens while working. She corrects and

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Speaker 1: implements spatial analysis of air imagery naturally. Okay, um, Laura

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Speaker 1: says your recent podcast on forgetfulness was wonderful. I regularly

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Speaker 1: find myself frustrated with my husband because he forgets things

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Speaker 1: like grocery items or dinner dates with friends. Your info

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Speaker 1: helped me realize because I'm the food prepare and party

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Speaker 1: planner in the relationship, those details are very important to me.

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Speaker 1: My partner, however, is an avid cyclist and has a

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Speaker 1: spectacular memory resolution when it comes to all things bikes, parts,

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Speaker 1: and things that I have very little memory for. I

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Speaker 1: feel detail memories more related to the things that are

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Speaker 1: important to the individual. I think she has a point,

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Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, I agree, I mean there is Even

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Speaker 1: though we often joke about selective memory, there is a

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Speaker 1: certain truth to that. Sure. If if you have emotions

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Speaker 1: or you know, life preferences tied up in something, then

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Speaker 1: you'll remember it better. So I have a letter here

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Speaker 1: from a listener who I think would prefer to remain anonymous,

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Speaker 1: and it's in response to our episode on infertility and age.

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Speaker 1: I think that you have so far underplayed the role

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Speaker 1: of the male partner in infertility because many women assumed

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Speaker 1: that fertility is a woman's issue and that the husband

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Speaker 1: or father will have healthy sperm well into old age.

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Speaker 1: They assume the burden of infertility treatments sometimes to know

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Speaker 1: avail because they are not looking at the whole problem.

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Speaker 1: About thirty percent of infertility and couples have to do

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Speaker 1: with male factors. Male infertility can mean inadequate sperm counts,

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Speaker 1: an adequate number of healthy sperms, sluggage and maliform sperm, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Male factors can be minor or severe, and sometimes both

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Speaker 1: male and female factors can contribute to a couple's infertility.

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Speaker 1: I went through about eight months of infertility treatments before

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Speaker 1: my partner finally agreed to do with Seaman analysis. He

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Speaker 1: was very resistant to testing his sperm on the assumption

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Speaker 1: that he was a healthy male with what appeared to

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Speaker 1: be perfectly normal and copious ejaculate. It turned out that

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Speaker 1: his fertility issues were not just a serious as mind,

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Speaker 1: and with the combination of both male and female factors,

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Speaker 1: it was virtually impossible for us to get pregnant good

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Speaker 1: old fashioned way. Happily, with very good medical treatment, we

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Speaker 1: were able to overcome these and are now the proud

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Speaker 1: parents of a baby girl. Nevertheless, the infertility journey was

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Speaker 1: long and hard fought. It took about four years all told.

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Speaker 1: We would have saved a lot of time and grief

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Speaker 1: if we had accepted the role of male factors and

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Speaker 1: infertility from the get go. So if you have thoughts

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Speaker 1: to send our way, you can email us. Mom Stuff

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Speaker 1: Discovery dot Com is our address. You can also find

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Speaker 1: us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at mom

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Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast. We're also on Instagram at stuff mom Never

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Speaker 1: Told You, And as always, you can check out our

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Speaker 1: videos as well, YouTube dot com slash stuff Mom Never

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Speaker 1: told you is where you can go and don't forget

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Speaker 1: to subscribe. Moreens at the task works dot com