Biology vs. Environment

We talked about sex identification today in my gender class. My teacher is really funny. She told us about a study in asking toddlers how they knew if they were a boy or girl, and they looked down. So here are some questions for you. How did you know what sex you are? Did you know because your parents dressed you in blue/ pink? Did they tell you what sex you are? Did you know because of your biological parts? Did you know because you were reinforced of certain behaviors?

It is a interesting question to me. There are so many factors to how we know what sex we are. It is a interesting yet hard question to research because you can't isolate biology and environment. They interact together. It is something I never really asked myself today. We talked about transgender and people who can chose their gender. Have you heard of John Money? He is a psychologist who was convinced that when a child is young, they can raised a certain sex. There was a man whose penis was accidently burned off while he was in the hospital as a baby. The family didn't know what to do so they went to psychologist John Money who had this specific theory. They raised him as a daughter with feminine behaviors reinforced. Not surprisingly, his life was awful because he had the genetics of a male but was being raised as a girl. He ended up committing suicide after choosing to be a male. John Money's theory was not correct as his theory made a man miserable.

This is a sticky topic because there are a lot of variables. I can't give you the answers, I don't think even the research can give you the research too. I can give you the question and time to come up with your own answer!