Sex and Gender

Question 1

Describe the concept of sex

Answer 1

• sex refers to the biological status of a person as a male or female in their physical development
• judged on genital appearance at birth, reproductive organs, skeletal characteristics and musculature

Question 2

What are the 5 sexes?

Answer 2

• males
• females
• herms (true hermaphrodites)
• merms (male ‘pseudohermaphrodites’)
• ferms (female ‘pseudohermaphrodites’)

Question 3

Describe the concept of gender and its related aspects

Answer 3

• gender refers to the cultural rather than biological differences between men and women

3 related aspects:

• society’s constructed gender roles, norms and behaviours
• gender identity (internal perception)
• gender presentation/expression (the way someone lives in society and interacts with others)

Question 4

Describe the socio-biological theory of gender

Answer 4

• gender is fixed by biological reproduction
• men are driven by psychological and physiological urges ingrained in the caveman era
• women’s domestic labour, nurturing behaviour, attention to beauty is genetically predetermined

Question 5

What is the 4 criteria of gender dysphoria?

Answer 5

• strong and persistent cross-gender identification
• persistent discomfort with his or her sex or sense of inappropriateness in the gender role of that sex
• the disturbance is not concurrent with a physical intersex condition
• the disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning

Question 6

What is included under gender/sex reassignment?

Answer 6

• telling family, friends, colleagues
• changing one’s name and/or sex on legal documents
• hormone therapy
• hair removal
• voice therapy
• chest and/or genital surgery

Question 7

Describe the medico-legal process of transitioning

Answer 7

• visit to GP, referral to psychiatrist
• detailed psychiatric inquiry into gender development in childhood and puberty, current life circumstances and stability
• diagnosis of gender dysphoria allows referral to gender identity clinic for consideration of alternatives to gender/sex reassignment, range of options and implications
• real-life experience/test: period of living out of the gender with which they identify before start of hormone therapy or surgery

Question 8

Describe the endpoint of transitioning

Answer 8

• acquired gender: new gender of a person who has transitioned and had their gender reassigned and or legally recognised
• gender recognition certificate