2 ms·
But sex by that definition is a question of gametes, which cannot really apply to individuals within a species. Some people produce male or female gametes, but
by MrJohz 4y ago
But sex by that definition is a question of gametes, which cannot really apply to individuals within a species. Some people produce male or female gametes, but others develop the organs for both or for neither - they are truly intersex. That seems to be the point of, for example, the "gender unicorn" model that the author disagrees with: that, at the level of an organism, sex already is more complex than a simple binary state.
- yetin 4y agoThese various developmental anomalies of don't map to some sort of sex continuum though - they are all discrete conditions caused by specific disorders, and from a biomedical point of view are still analysed within the framework of male and female sex development. There's certainly ongoing debate amongst medical professionals on how best to categorise intersex conditions. I don't think models like the 'gender unicorn' really help with this though, it's not sufficiently technical, and seems more geared towards people who don't wish to conform to cultural stereotypes of gender, but would like some way of describing it.