Anyone who enjoyed Wheaties for breakfast in the 70s probably remembers Bruce Jenner being featured on the box.
You remember Wheaties, the breakfast of champions. More recently Bruce, now called Caitlyn, has been featured on the cover of Vanity Fair.
There are questions being raised about male and female identity. We will consider one of these questions later on in this article after we look at some definitions.
First, in a recent Newsweek article, Stony Brook University sociology professor Michael Kimmel talks about categories when it comes to transgender people.
Professor Kimmel uses the following definitions;
Transsexual – is an older term that usually refers to someone who wants to use hormones or surgery to change their sex.
Transvestites – now more politely called “cross-dressers,” occasionally wear clothes of the opposite sex.
Transgender – is an umbrella term that includes anyone whose gender identity or expression differs from the sex of their birth—whether they have surgery or not.
Second, we will turn to biology expert Regina Bailey for an understanding of how sex is actually determined.
According to Bailey;
The male gametes or sperm cells in humans and other mammals are heterogametic and contain one of two types of sex chromosomes. They are either X or Y. The female gametes or eggs however, contain only the X sex chromosome and are homogametic.
The sperm cell determines the sex of an individual in this case. If a sperm cell containing an X chromosome fertilizes an egg, the resulting zygote will be XX or female. If the sperm cell contains a Y chromosome, then the resulting zygote will be XY or male.
Question
So my question is how is a persons sex determined?
If your sex is determined by your chromosomal make up then you are either male or female at the moment of conception. If this is true, then how can the use of hormones or surgery change a person’s sex from male to female?
Professor Kimmel says in his definition of the word transsexual, that your sex can be changed by surgery or the use of hormones, is that really the case?
Last year this issue came up when MMA transgender fighter Fallon Fox broke the eye socket of his female opponent within 2:17 of the first round of their match. Fallon who was a man had surgery to become a woman and at the time of the match referenced, was fighting a woman as a female.
Tamika Brent’s, the woman MMA fighter beaten by the transgender mixed martial artist said, “I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night. I can’t answer whether it’s because [he] was born a man or not, because I’m not a doctor,” she stated. “I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right. ”
His “grip was different,” she added. “I could usually move around in the clinch against…females but couldn’t move at all in Fox’s clinch.”
Questions to consider
So, does cosmetic surgery or hormone injections change your chromosomes thereby changing one from male to female or vice versa?
Is it possible that the medical community found a way to do live surgical experiments on the public?
Is the medical community taking advantage of Gender Identity Disorder by creating a surgical money machine?
Gender Identity Disorder – also known as gender dysphoria, is the formal diagnosis used by psychologists and physicians to describe persons who experience significant dysphoria (discontent) with the sex they were assigned at birth and/or the gender roles associated with that sex. (see article below)
What about the gender of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner?
Chromosomally he is male.
Mentally she is female.
Physically Jenner is part female (breasts, cosmetic surgery, hormone injections) and part male (has male genitals).
Articles referred to in this article.