Sex and Gender

• Sex is the biological difference between males and females including chromosomes, hormones and anatomy.
• Gender is the psychological and cultural differences between men and women including attitudes, behaviours and social roles.
• A sex-role stereotype is a set of beliefs and preconceived ideas about what is expected or appropriate for males and females in a given society or social group. They are reinforced by parents, peers, the media and schools.
• Sex is innate and is the result of nature, whereas gender is partly environmentally deterministic and is therefore also due to nurture.
• Gender is a 'social construct' rather than a biological fact, so it is fluid.
• Gender dysphoria is when an individual's biologically prescribed sex does not reflect the way they feel inside and the gender they identify themselves as being. Such individuals may have gender reassignment surgery to change their sex.
• Ingalhalikar et al (2014) scanned the brains of 949 young men and women in the biggest investigation of its kind to date. They mapped the connections between different parts of the brain using MRI imaging. They found that women's brains have far better connections between the left and right sides of the brain, whilst men's brains display more intense activity within the brain's individual parts, especially the cerebellum, which controls motor skills.
• McGinley et al (1974) studied a family in the Dominican Republic, who had 4 children who were identified as girls at birth. However, the children had a rare genetic disorder, in which their male genitalia were not external at birth, but were revealed during puberty. The boys abandoned their female gender identity and adapted to their new identity as boys. They were known as the Batista boys.