G is for GENDER
GENDER
Wikipedia describes gender as such…
Gender is the range of physical, biological, mental and behavioral characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating between, masculinity and femininity Depending on the context, the term may refer to biological sex (i.e. the state of being male, female or intersex), sex-based social structures (including gender roles and other social roles), or gender identity.
The World Health Organisation defines sex and gender this way –
“Sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men and women.
“Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.
Not every person is born with the distinct gender binary that our society promotes as normal.
The Intersex Society of North America estimates that if you ask experts at medical centers how often a child is born so noticeably atypical in terms of genitalia the number comes out to about 1 in 1500 to 1 in 2000 births.
However there are a lot more babies born with subtler sexual characteristics than that.
Statistics are available on their website.
What generally occurs when babies are born with ambiguous genitalia is that doctors and parents make the decision whether the baby is to be a boy or girl.
Being transgender means that one’s gender identity does not match the sex which you have been assigned – male or female.
In the case of some transgender individuals or intersex individuals, gender identity is not consistent with the assigned sex or sex of rearing.
It is not just in humans that gender differences exist gender differences are common through the animal and even possibly the plant world.
And because of pollution which gets concentrated at the Earth poles polar bears are increasingly being found to have both male and female sex organs.
The pollutants thought to be causing this are polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs)
On The Anarchy Show 25 November we will discuss gender and play some excerpts from Against the Grain – http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/532/id/101154/mon-3-05-12-intersex-children-genital-surgery
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