Abstract
A theory of gender development is presented that incorporates early biological factors that organize predispositions in temperament and attitudes. With activation of these factors a person interacts in society and comes to identify as male or female. The predispositions establish preferences and aversions the growing child compares with those of others. All individuals compare themselves with others deciding who they are like (same) and with whom are they different. These experiences and interpretations can then be said to determine how one comes to identify as male or female, man or woman. In retrospect, one can say the person has a gendered brain since it is the brain that structures the individual’s basic personality; first with inherent tendencies then with interactions coming from experience.
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Notes
Not all societies limit themselves to only two choices.
In contexts, such as in lesbian or gay readings or conversation, one’s sexual identity can indicate if the person sees self as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Among sexologists, however, one’s relation to a sexual partner is called sexual orientation or sexual partner preference; identity refers to how one sees self as male or female, man or woman.
The study was conducted on the relatively isolated and uninhabited 10,600 hectare island of Rhum off the west coast of Scotland where about 1,200 red deer were free ranging.
In a well known legal case a 13 year old girl is cited as reporting to her psychiatrist that “he grew up in his first years of life believing that he was a boy” and that “he has always thought of himself as a boy.” This teenager was allowed to proceed to transition (Alex, 2004). The recognition of being different from others is central to Deryl Bem’s developmental theory of sexual orientation “Exotic Becomes Erotic” (Bem, 1995). In that similarity our theories are comparable. But in many significant ways they are not. The awareness of being male or female is one of the earliest features of development and children learn very early—by 3 or 4 years of age—to which sex or gender they are supposed to belong. Preschool children will readily and vigorously correctly declare they are boy or girl if questioned or provoked. The average child will repeat the identification given by parents. The transsexual child, although reared in a typical manner will nevertheless identify as a child of the opposite gender. In contrast to this early adamant knowledge of gender, sexual orientation preferences will usually not become recognized until or after puberty. A study by the CDC of 34,706 7th–12th graders, found that 10.7% described themselves as unsure of their sexual orientation. And the direction of this attraction, androphilic, gynecophilic or ambiphilic, did or did not accord with their professed gender or original feeling of being different (CDC, 2002).
The brain areas found among transsexuals that are different from the typical are the sexually dimorphic regions called the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc) This area differs in males and females both in size and in neuronal number.
There are two known cases where male conjoined twins with a single set of genitals were separated shortly after birth. The babies with a penis were raised as boys and their twins as girls. In both cases the ones raised as girls, as they came into puberty, asserted their identity as males (Diamond, 1999; Wong, 2004).
David’s story is a unique one of masculine development. Other examples can be found in The Phallus Palace (Kotula, 2002), Transsexuals and Intersexuals (May, 2005), and Becoming a Visible Man (Green, 2004). For the development of female sexual and gender identity in persons raised as males see the personal stories in the aforementioned Kotula and May books and in Transgenderism and Intersexuality in Childhood and Adolescence (Cohen-Kettenis & Pfäfflin, 2003).
Self-testing, for those such as transsexuals—or individuals with gender doubts—is challenging oneself significantly to personally measure “Am I male or female; am I a man or not?” This might go to extremes where the male, for instance, decides to join the Marines or Paratroops and then volunteers for life-threatening assignments (“This will prove I am a man or make a man out of me.”) A female in self-testing might become a stripper or purposely get pregnant (Diamond, 1996). The significant feature of all these actions is that those “self-testing” find they can pass the test but, nevertheless, feel they must transition. While they can manifest same they realize they are and must live different.
Virginia Prince coined the term transgender around the year 1970. She used it to distinguish males like herself from transsexuals. She called herself a transgenderist and wanted to live as a woman but did not want surgery or think it necessary. In contrast transsexuals usually feel it imperative that surgery be part of their transformation process of male-to-female (M2F) or female-to-male (F2M). Now the term transgender has come to be used in all sorts of ways that generally refer to individuals who somehow bend or blend gender categories.
MSM refers to those males who do not consider themselves gay or associate with this social group but nevertheless are men who have sex with other men. The term FSF is not common but has comparable meaning for females.
There are many newsworthy accounts of homophobic and transphobic aggression. Not to downplay the significance of these hate crimes, it is my impression, however, that almost every boy has experienced at least some physical assaults and fights to defend himself for one reason or another. It is just a part of growing up “boy.”
The insignificance of the penis in fostering a feeling of masculinity is probably most strongly indicated by female-to-male (F2M) transsexuals. Female individuals born with XX chromosomes, ovaries and a vagina, and no obvious male physical characteristics, nevertheless, see themselves as males and undergo psychiatric counseling, hormonal treatment and surgery to foster a male appearance and life. While they aspire to masculinity and typically undergo surgical breast and uterus removal and other reconstructive surgeries, it is estimated that in about half of such cases phalloplasty is not pursued. For these persons satisfying their brain’s dictates to live and interact as a man in society as such is more important than satisfying some of society’s myths that a phallus is needed to document masculinity. In contrast, male-to-female transsexuals, despite having a penis, feel a negative or no attachment to a penis and do not see it as part of their identity. It is not the presence or absence of a penis but the sex of the brain—how it has developed—that determines how one comes to identify as male or female and how one wants to live.
Prenatal programming and biasing work through alterations of the nervous system; thus can be said to reflect brain sex. During prenatal development the nervous system, the brain in particular, is programmed along a track that is usually concomitant with the development of other sex appropriate structures like genitals and reproductive organs. The brain, however, as in other Intersex conditions, can develop along one sex/gender path while other organs develop along another. Put simply, the brain can develop as male while other parts of the body develop as female. Further, it is important to recall that the developing nervous system controlling gender-linked behaviors is more sensitive to certain stimuli than are the tissues forming genitals and thus can be modified while the genitals are not. I think that transsexuals are intersexed in their brains.
Actually, as discussed years ago (Diamond, 1965), it might be easier for intersexed children to be sex reassigned than are typical children since they have already demonstrated biological markers of being “partially already there.” This might be a reason that some sex-reassignments appear to be accepted. This flexibility, however, without foreknowledge of how the brain has been affected by the intersex condition, is not justification to transform the child without his or her informed consent (Beh & Diamond, 2000, 2005b).
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Support for this work has come from the Eugene Garfield Foundation of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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Diamond, M. Biased-Interaction Theory of Psychosexual Development: “How Does One Know if One is Male or Female?”. Sex Roles 55, 589–600 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9115-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-006-9115-y