Originally Posted by FastFelony
In addition to Ark2’s comment “David” or Bruce Reimer, got married to a woman with three children and even then he was troubled by his childhood. His case confirmed that the genetic sex and prenatal hormones play a big role in a person’s sense of self as female or a male, and turning him into a girl when he was a baby was a failure because his male biology “overwhelmingly demanded a consistent sexual identity”. Oh, and he committed suicide while in his thirties, because his sense of self identity was unbearable to him . However, he also mentioned that he hated how adults encouraged dependency in girls, so that shows how culture and/or society influences gender roles.
Also in cases of girls born with Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a disorder, when the adrenal system produces high levels of androgen (male sex hormones) during the prenatal period and onwards. The girls are born with masculinized genitals and usually undergo surgical correction in infancy and with that they are given drug therapy to balance their hormones. They have also assessed these girls while growing up, they prefer to play with toys like trucks, cars rather than dolls, they have playmates that are boys, and seemed to be interested in “masculine” careers. They also showed masculine behavior, such as aggressiveness. Although it is unethical to do studies on human, by inducing them with sex hormones to see how it changes their behavior, there are many researches done on animals, by injecting them at a prenatal stage with androgen, which showed male-typical sexual behavior, aggression and lack of maternal caregiving.
Therefore, one cannot say that society, environment or biological sex play a role in gender identity, it is a combination of both, as much our biological sex is responsible for our gender identity, how we are reared in terms of gender is also important for a healthy sexual development.
|