Sex and gender Flashcards
What is sex?
Sex is the biological differences between males and females including chromosomes, hormones and anatomy.
What is gender?
Gender is psychological, social and cultural differences between males and females.
What is brain sex theory?
It suggests that dysphoria is caused by specific brain structures that are incompatible with the person’s biological sex.
What is gender dysphoria?
It is where a person’s external sexual characteristics on their body are perceived as the opposite to the psychological experience of oneself.
What is social constructionism?
It is where “confusion” in gender arises because society forces people to be either a man or a woman.
GD is not a pathological situation but a social phenomenon.
What is the evidence of possible genetic basis?
-Coolidge- assessed 157 twin pairs for evidence of GD and the prevalence of GD was estimated to be 2.3% and 62% of cases were to be accounted for genetic variance.
-Heylens compared 23 MZ to 21 DZ where 1 of each pair was diagnosed with GD. 39% of MZ were concordant for GD compared to none of DZs.
What is the psychoanalytic theory suggest?
Ovesey and Person suggested that GD in males is caused by children experiencing separation anxiety before the phallic stage. It is where the child fantasises of symbolic fusion with the mother and adopts female gender identity.
What is one example of social constructionism?
Martha McClintock found individuals of Sambia cause biological males to be categorised as females because they have a labia and clitoris.
At puberty, there is an increase in testosterone and the testes descends and clitoris turns into penis.
A03- limitation for social constructionism?
All cultures do not have two genders. For example the fa’afafine of Samoa have more than two genders. This suggests that gender identity is best seen as a social construction rather than a biological fact.
A03- limitation of brain sex theory?
Hulshoff found that MRI scans showed that the size of BST changed significantly over that period and this suggests that the differences in BST could be due to the effect of hormone therapy rather than GD.
A03- limitation for genetic basis?
Findings are inconclusive and it is difficult to separate the influence of nature and nurture. Sample sizes in twin studies are really small limiting the extent to which effective generalisation can be made.
A03- limitation for the psychoanalytic theory
We cannot generalise to GD in females as theory only applies to male transgender individuals.
-George Rekers suggests that GD in transgender females is due to the absence of the father rather than the fear of separation from the mother.
