NYT, are you trying to ask me out on a date?

[the_drifter]

The New York Times just published a very thoughtful, well-considered article (or I thought so, anyway) on gender-variance in small children and the growing trend among parents and pediatricians to let these kids choose their own gender expressions:

Supporting Boys or Girls When the Line Isn’t Clear

Comments

In two parts, 'cause I got long.

[the_drifter]

Well, I recommend the NYT online -- there's relatively little that you can't access by creating a free log-in, and it saves both cost and paper. Your point about the size of the minority is an interesting one -- because on the one hand, of course this is a small minority of children we're talking about, but on the other hand, we have no way of knowing what the real size of that minority is. This is the problem that plagues any epidemiological studies of sex/gender minorities -- lack of criteria distinguishing "normal" deviance from alternative identities; efforts by individuals, families, and professionals to "hide" the "problem;" and the fact that not all minority identities can be properly interpreted from the surface (i.e. it can be easy to "read" someone as gay or straight, but you're prone to misreading people who are bisexual). So we know that we're likely to be under-estimating the percentage of gender-variant children, and that increased sensitivity to their presence will likely result in identifying more of them, but it's

part two

[the_drifter]

You describe it as an "objective fact" that "gender is a biological issue." I agree with that statement as it's worded (the same way I'd agree that it's a social issue, and a cultural issue), but taken to the normal extension -- "binary gender is an objective biological fact" -- I'd have to dispute it. If memory serves, physical attribution of gender (aka sex) depends upon four biological factors -- chromosomes, hormone levels, primary sex characteristics (which are present at birth), and secondary sex characteristics (which develop at puberty). (Medical and psychological researchers often identify gender identity as a fifth factor, though not a biological one). Yes, these four factors tend to vary together -- to develop "in alignment" with each other and with the binary categories of male/female. However, all four factors are prone to subtle variations and interactions, not all of which occur on binary lines, and determinations about how much they can vary while still falling within the categories of "male" and "female" -- and when