Quote:
Originally posted by gabshu
Can you explain this, please.
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Gladly.
1) Genetic Gender: At conception, a sperm with an X or Y chromosome melds with an egg. This is where XXY, XYY, and XO can occur. These variations are more often somewhat mentally retarded, but not always.
2) Physical Gender: During development, there is a release of hormones which determines the sex of your genitals. If estrogen is released, the embryo develops female sexual organs. If androgen is released, the embryo develops male sexual organs. Problems occur when an embryo is sensitive or insensitive to the "incorrect" hormones. Androgen insensitivity is when an embryo does not react to the androgen hormones the way it should and develops a mixture of gonads. Or in some cases a "female" embryo reacts to androgen or androgen is released instead of estrogen. It's when the hormones are mismatched with the chromosomes of the embryo that intersexed genders occur, they're also known as pseudohermaphrodites. True hermaphrodites are extremely rare.
3) "Brain Gender:" Later in the development of the embryo, another surge of hormones is sent that determines the gender of the brain. The difference between a male brain and female is minute, but it does exist and is not easily determinable unless you use high tech brain scanning stuff like MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging). If the hormones are mixed up here, you could end up with a female who has a male brain or vice versa. There is a theory that is suggesting this might explain the majority of transsexuals (man in a woman's body/woman in a man's body).
4) "Brain Sex:" is "psychosexual behavior" that appears to be "independent of environment." That means, if you raise a child with the brain sex of a man as if he were a woman, he would still feel and act like a man.
5) Gender Identity: Subjective gender, how we see ourselves.
This is a link to a site that has similar information that has been presented to me by actual transsexuals that are part of an outreach program, so I consider it pretty spot-on. Information is constantly changing, though because this topic/area has been underresearched for so long and new information keeps pouring in.
http://www.transgendercare.com/guida..._is_gender.htm