Sex and gender blind spots and biases in health research
Sridhar Venkatapuram, Alex Broadbent in The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health, 2023
A third description is gender identity, which is a related concept to gender, but one that is unhelpfully and increasingly conflated with the term gender. Gender identity refers to a “person’s innate, deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth” (World Health Organization 2021b). The categories of gender identity include cis women, cis men, trans women, trans men, or gender queer/fluid (World Health Organization 2021b). The recognition of non-binary gender identities is becoming more frequent in public health literature. Estimates of what percentage of the population identifies as transgender and gender queer/fluid depend on whether countries recognize trans and non-binary gender identities, the variation in definitions of transgender (for example, based on self-identification, or those requesting hormone therapy or surgery), and societal attitudes towards non-binary, including transgender identities. Some estimates suggest a prevalence of 0.3% to 0.5% for people who identify as transgender (Reisner et al. 2016).
Gender
Wendy A. Rogers, Jackie Leach Scully, Stacy M. Carter, Vikki A. Entwistle, Catherine Mills in The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Bioethics, 2022
This, however, does not mean that gender is ascribed to bodies in an arbitrary manner. On Butler’s account, gender is maintained by dominant power structures and forces, which also ensure a particular combination of sex and gender. Butler (2007 [1990]) argues that in societies that observe the gender binary, the intelligibility of sex and gender is ensured by normative heterosexuality. The two “opposite” genders are constructed within a heteronormative matrix, which Butler defines as a “cultural intelligibility through which bodies, genders and desires are naturalized” (2007: 208). Typically, male gender is paired with male sex and female gender with female sex. As such, according to Butler, gender does not work as a closet from which one picks out different genders on different days; the heteronormative matrix produces specific constellations of sex and gender, constructs male and female as complementary opposites and maintains the stability of this order. In this framework, it is gender that shapes the understanding of sexed difference because sex itself is mediated by gender socialization (this is explored in more detail in the section below).
Reflections on the Relation Between Sex-Typed Behavior in Childhood and Sexual Orientation in Adulthood
Robin M. Mathy, Jack Drescher in Childhood Gender Nonconformity and the Development of Adult Homosexuality, 2020
The study of within-sex variation in sexual orientation differentiation has, for better or for worse, been strongly influenced by the underlying assumption that understanding the mechanisms that account for “normative” sex differences in behavior is important, i.e., behaviors that, on average, show significant mean differences between men and women or boys and girls (see, e.g., Hines, 2004). Sexual orientation is an example of a behavior that shows a strong sex-dimorphism in that most males are erotically attracted to females and most females are erotically attracted to males. In men, therefore, sexual attraction to other men would be considered an example, in purely descriptive terms, of either behavioral feminization or behavioral demasculinization because sexual attraction to men is a female-typical behavioral trait whereas, in women, sexual attraction to other women is an example of behavioral masculinization or behavioral defeminization because sexual attraction to women is a male-typical behavioral trait.
Predictors of Sexual Harassment Using Classification and Regression Tree Analyses and Hurdle Models: A Direct Replication
Published in The Journal of Sex Research, 2023
Jan-Louw Kotzé, Patricia A. Frazier, Kayla A. Huber, Katherine A. Lust
Sexual harassment is prevalent among college students in the United States, with more than half of undergraduate students and slightly less than a third of graduate students reporting experiencing harassment during college (Cantor et al., 2019). Although there is some disagreement regarding what behaviors are considered sexual harassment, the tripartite model of sexual harassment is the most widely accepted classification system (Fitzgerald et al., 1995, 1997). According to this model, sexual harassment consists of three types: sexual coercion (e.g., pressuring someone to have sex), unwanted sexual attention (e.g., unwanted touching), and gender harassment (e.g., offensive sexist remarks). Sexual harassment has been associated with numerous negative consequences among students, including lower academic satisfaction and greater psychological distress, alcohol misuse, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress (e.g., Buchanan et al., 2009; Huerta et al., 2006; Wolff et al., 2017). Although some forms of sexual harassment are more prevalent (e.g., gender harassment) than others (e.g., sexual coercion), all forms are associated with poorer mental health (Sojo et al., 2016). Thus, it is important to identify students who may be at greater risk of being subjected to harassment than others (Klein & Martin, 2021).
Hormonal changes resulting from transgender conversion therapy may represent a gap in the biological effects of radiation understanding
Published in International Journal of Radiation Biology, 2023
Edson R. Andrade
Recent data on mass exposures to radioactive environments suggests that the effects of whole-body exposure to ionizing radiation on females bring a net disadvantage in comparison to males under the same conditions (Narendran et al. 2019). However, because of a growing worldwide transgender community, the differences between male and female assume a nebulous role and may impact epidemiological studies. Furthermore, such concerns may become apparent even when it comes to the application of safety protocols where screening of individuals according to sex is required (triage). It is of utmost importance that when talking about the variable sex, the definition follows the biological designation at birth including reassignment after transgender hormone therapy, and should not be confused with the definition of gender. Therefore, sex refers to the biological aspects of an individual as determined by their anatomy, which is produced by their chromosomes, hormones, and their interactions. It is ordinarily referred to in binary form as male or female. Instead, gender may be defined as a social construction based on behaviors and attributes recalled from masculinity and femininity. Gender identity may differ from the sex assignment on a biological basis at birth. This apparently conflicted context about the sex and gender definition does not happen through prejudice, acceptance, or any other discriminatory social instruments.
Sex and gender differences in primary care help-seeking for common somatic symptoms: a longitudinal study
Published in Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care, 2023
Aranka V. Ballering, Tim C. Olde Hartman, Robert Verheij, Judith G. M. Rosmalen
Previous studies have suggested that women more frequently consult their general practitioner (GP) for common somatic symptoms than men [1–5]. This may partly be explained by sex and gender differences in the occurrence of such symptoms: female participants reported more frequent, severe and persistent somatic symptoms, whereas femininity (i.e. feminine gender) was protective of the persistence of symptoms [6–8]. However, also help-seeking behavior for these symptoms might contribute to the increased consultation rates in women. To understand how help-seeking for somatic symptoms is affected by sex and gender, it is important to clearly distinguish between these latter two concepts [9]. Sex refers to biological characteristics, including but not limited to chromosomes, hormones and anatomy, of female and male bodies. In contrast, gender is a socioculturally-constructed, multidimensional concept that entails the embodiment of different roles, behaviors, identities and relationships of women and men prescribed by social norms in a given time and society [10].