evaluation for both

• how does this lead to biological determinism/ show importance of biology?


  it was thought that intersex individuals eg David Reimer could be raised as either a boy or girl

  ultimately david showed a strong male identity despite being rasied as a girl

  • also supported by Reiner and Gearhart who studied 16 males born with almost no penis, two were raised as males, remaining 14 raised as females and eight of them reassigned themselves as males by the age of 16

  demonstrates biological factors are important
• case study of david reimer


  • twins were circumcised and one went wrong
  • the doctor advised to remove his penis and testes and be raised as a girl
  • this provided a natural experiment of an XY raised as a female with an identical twin brother
  • initially thought that the gender reassignment had been a success, turned out that david was not happy and when told his true sex in his teen years he decided to live as a man
• biology ignores other factors :(

  the eventual gender of someone seems to be a combination of

  • genes
  • hormones
  • sex of rearing
  • socialisation

  eg: CAH (congenital adrenal hyperplasia)

  therefore, gender is not just biologically determined by nature and nurture
• what is CAH?


  congenital adrenal hyperplasia

  • when XX females have prenatally high levels of male hormones which results in varying degrees of external male genitalia
  • research shows that whatever gender is assigned at birth seems to be accepted by some but not others: complex and not just due to biology
• the role of culture is also important


  The Batista boys (McGinley et al) in the Dominican Republic

  • 4 children were born with externally female genetalia and raised as girls
  • at puberty their male genetalia appeared externally
  • they were genetically XY but because of testosterone insensitivity, their male genetalia had not appeared until later
  • the 'girls' adapted to their new male role without any difficulty

  highlights the importance of culture, in an accepting community it seems relitively easy to move between gender roles (this also demonstrates the importance of testosterone)
• what study shows the importance of testosterone


  the Batista boys
• how does this have real world applications? :)

  • surgery used to be the norm for intersex conditions in order to make the person more 'normal'
  • now its recommended that intersex babies should be assigned a gender but not surgery conducted so they can decide themselves
  • also has implications for treatment: individuals with turners syndrome can be identified early and given hormone supplements to help with secondary sexual characteristics
• support for the importance of hormones on brain development


  • Quadagno et al
  • found that female monkeys (exposed to testosterone during prenatal development) engaged in more rough play + were more aggressive than other females
  • :( there are issues generalising from an animal study