h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm no expert at this, but I was watching the Discovery Health channel (one of the many cable channels we got here in the USA) just the other night, and was fascinated by an article about a strange and somewhat unusual condition: women who are born genetically male. In other words, the person had an x AND y chromosomes (the genetic definition of a male) but had the sex organs of a female. Apparently, the vast majority of these people are raised as women, and are quite happy being women. They look and act like women with perhaps a slight tendency towards some male characteristics, though these are by no means common to all affected by the disorder. After reading your article, I wonder if perhaps some of these cases have ever been sufferers of this disorder ... I suppose it would be quite obvious if the subject removed her (uhm, his?) clothes and revealed their sex organs. Still, as strange as it sounds, it seems hard to judge which is male and which is female, when females (given all the right parts, so to speak) can still be genetically male. Strange, but true. I wish I'd paid more attention to what this is called, medically. Perhaps it will (like many other shows on the Discovery family of channels) be rerun again soon.

I agree. I think there was at least one woman banned from sport because genetically she was a male (XY) although physical examination showed that she was a woman. As far as I know, such women can't have children, but appear to be women in every other way. It comes as a great shock to them to discover that they are considered to be men for the purposes of sport.

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You are right. This is Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

Sex testing is of course the correct term, not gender testing. I hate filling in those forms that ask me for my gender. I doubt they are really interested in whether I am masculine or feminine. What they really want to know is whether I am male or female, which is my sex, not my gender!

Yes. I tend to feel a bit miffed when you only get two tick-boxes, "Male" and "Female", on a form. It seems just too simplistic.

I didn't know there was a difference between gender and sex............... what is it?

I may be wrong about this but .....

From memories of psychology and sociology lectures - sex is a genetic thing (what you are born as), gender is a social environmental thing you grow up to be. Hence when in grammar you talk about the masculine gender, you are attributing characteristics that are associated with males to the item - however it is not of the male sex. Any clearer?

If this definition is so I'm not sure how it relates to the entry, as the author has deliberately called it Gender testing, rather than sex testing. Anyone?

Ahh! Thanks for explaining it and if that is the definition, I agree it must be sex testing.