Sex, Gender and Sexuality

I’ve been thinking about sex for some time. In fact, I’ve been thinking about sex for about 11 years, and even more so recently (which I am attributing to the long-term effects of someone –who-shall-not-be-named giving me ant-flavoured hot beverages at the weekend), but that’s not what I’m referring to. It’s not even the same meaning, which is apt, as the meanings of sex is what this piece is about.

I’d always considered sex and gender the same thing, basically thinking the latter was a more formal and euphemistic synonym of the former. However, as I’ve now discovered, when you hang around psychologists, that bird don’t fly no more. Sex and gender become two different things; sex takes on a biological and deterministic meaning, while gender forms a more abstract, personal psychological concept, with inherent ties to the concept of self, and other such grandiose ideas that tend to send me scurrying for cover. It is this idea that drives the acceptance of transsexualism and gender-queerness, that such characteristics are indicative of conflict between one’s sex and one’s gender.

But my coffee-fuelled mind raises a couple of objections, or at least modifications, to this new idea. Firstly, sex isn’t deterministic. I don’t think it’s a bell curve as such, but rather two overlapping distributions forming a bimodal-like distribution, which I’ve described below:

 

Genetics define the two distributions; you are male if you possess a Y chromosome, and female if you do not. But it isn’t as simple as that. Sufferers of Klinefelter’s syndrome, for example, are XXY; they are phenotypically male, but textbook cases present with feminised features and often fertility problems. Sufferers of Klinefelter’s would fall in the cleavage of my graph (huh-huh it looks like tits), on the male side. However, maleness and femaleness needn’t be typified by conditions; there is probably a normal distribution across the whole population. If gene expression varies between individuals (which it almost certainly does), it stands to reason that some people may exhibit very high levels of one set of sex hormones, and very little of the others, and may fall at the edges of my graph, whereas those with more balanced levels (who may be more androgynous) would be in the middle. This androgyny would be separate to hermaphroditism, in that androgynes would be genitally one sex, but there degree of maleness or femaleness would be similarly low; the runner Caster Semenya comes to mind as an example of a very masculinised female. This complicates the sex-gender conflict; not only gender, but also sex, is a variable concept. Ms Semenya presumably identifies very strongly as a woman, which probably made her biologically ambiguous sex all the more distressing. This isn’t an abstract or philosophical argument either; fertility medicine must be concerned with a patient’s position on the sex dimension, regardless as to whether they identify as male, female, or transsexual.

 

That last word bugs me. I have nothing against transsexuals (I’m not Julie Burchill), although if I know one personally I am unaware of it. My qualm is with the word (still not Julie Burchill, don’t worry). I would much rather it were transgender, as it then lies on a gender continuum:

  The word transsexual confuses gender with sexuality. The two are definitely linked, and are also linked with sex in a three-way (obvious innuendo fully intended) interaction. However, being transgender does not preclude one from being heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual… hang on, there’s loads of these: this one’ll be a really FUN graph…

So, yeah. Those are my thoughts on that. You’d never guess I have real work that I’m supposed to be doing, would you?

Horses for (Main) Courses

(with apologies to Luke Surl: http://www.lukesurl.com/comics/2012-08-07-horserestaurant.png and http://www.lukesurl.com/comics/2012-08-05-h4c1.png)

It seems incredibly unlikely you've failed to hear this story (unless you are one of my random fans in Mauritius or the Dominican Republic, in which case, Hi! I’m sorry I’m not a website that will allow you to earn $$$s for nothing online. I don’t know why that URL sends you here either…). About a week ago, inspectors from the Food Standards Agency found traces of horse DNA in burgers sold by Tesco and Iceland (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21034942). The majority of these burgers were immediately withdrawn, but not before the populous of Britain was decimated as a result of eating such a poisonous substance as horsemeat. Oh wait, no, that last bit only happened in the mind of most of the British tabloids. In actuality, NOTHING HAPPENED. Nothing.

Yet this hasn’t prevented the media from stringing this story out for over a week now. Only today I was reading an exposé in a well-known paper (whose name I won’t recount, but which rhymes with Bailey Birror), which contended that (shock horror) Tesco’s staff weren’t the most conscientious people on Earth and had let a few such burgers slip through the net, such that they could still be bought (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/horse-meat-burger-scandal-tesco-1556272). 

That is not the most ridiculous story on this subject I’ve read over the last week, though. No, the prize for that goes to Labour’s Mary Creagh. The FSA has detected phenylbutazone (a rather unpleasant drug that shouldn’t be eaten by people who don’t want to poisoned) in eight horses, none of which were shown to have gone into the food chain. Ms Creagh declared that strict measures need to put into place to prevent such drugs from entering the human food chain, with immediate effect (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21181499). Um… why? The FSA has strict measures. They test food horses exported from this country for bute, and if they find traces of it, they alert the relevant authorities in the relevant country. The drug wasn’t detected in the horrifically despoiled burgers, but in the horses before they became burgers. The system actually works, so it is ludicrous to be attacking the FSA over managing to do their job properly. While I applaud Labour for actually advancing a policy for once, perhaps they could make the next one on something relevant, like education, defence, or (God forbid) the welfare state they’re supposed to champion.

While Horseburgergate is a bit of a silly story, presumably designed to deflect from the various acts of murder and death that are occurring across North Africa and the Middle East at the moment, it also has a sad point to it. Horsemeat is entirely edible (when properly checked, which it is, as we’ve established). The French eat quite a lot of it, but that is only correlation: contrary to what that bloke in the corner of the pub says, there is no evidence that eating horses will make you French. What there is evidence for, however, is that half of the food generated in the world is left to spoil and wasted, while people starve, both at home and abroad (http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9783000/9783689.stm). In this context, the ridiculous reaction of the British media and public to the idea that their burgers might be made of edible meat that isn’t ground up bull’s bollocks is not just an over-reaction, it is an arrogant waste of food for purely cosmetic reasons. It is difficult to balance stories from a media that at one time is sobbing over a man having to walk 9 miles to reach a food bank (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-scandal-of-british-food-poverty-shames-us-all-8347109.html?origin=internalSearch), and then is damning supermarkets for failing to destroy perfectly edible food.

Getting around in London

*Squeak*

I just plain don't get public transport in London, on multiple levels. According to the CIA, those purveyors of openness and truth, the UK is the 9th most powerful country in the world (by purchasing power), and London, despite the smell, is supposed to be the rose of the country.

*Snuffling*
So if London is so good, why the hell are all the trains so full? I'm 6 inches long (ladies) and I JUST fit onto the 1713 from Denmark Hill. JUST. As in, I was sitting on the shoe of a consultant radiologist, which was rammed up against the door. Call me a Red (I'm not, I'm golden), but I think a capitalist train company should have to take no profit if their trains are so full people have to take a dump on the platform just to fit on. It doesn't take a genius to work out that more trains are needed at peak times than non-peak times. Stuff <insert train company>'s profits, they compete once every six years and give projected figures that they appear to be under no obligation to justify.

*Indignant chewing of carrot*

But its not just the trains. The stations are just as bad. I thought the Paralympics were excellent, if ironically lacking in running wheel-based events. So why, in this apparently economically prosperous country, can I not get down to the platform in my ball at every station? It's alright for me, I can just ask a passing student to carry me down, but at the majority of train and underground stations, someone in a wheelchair would not be able to get to the platform. And you know what? That's not ok. It has never been ok, but now, in the 21st century, when information flies through the air to those little black boxes that every human seems to carry, IT IS NOT OK THAT DISABLED PEOPLE DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO PUBLIC TRANSPORT. The word public is in the title for a reason.

*Eats some poo... yeah that's right, poo. Coprophagy, baby, look it up*

But, indignant commuting British public, it's not just The Man who needs to sort himself out. We, hamsters and humans alike, need to start having a bit of common sense and courtesy. If the next train doesn't come for 15 minutes, you don't need to barge through 1000 people climbing the stairs to get down to the platform. If there's 2 metres of empty train in front of you, move away from the door. If someone's waiting to get on the train you're getting off, you don't actually need to punch them on the nose in order to get past. You can, in fact, walk round them. I doubt your tea will get much colder for not being a prick.