Body Politics

Abstract

Sexual differentiation is a sequential process beginning with the establishment of chromosomal sex at the moment of fertilization and finding a preliminary completion with the formation of a gender identity/role. Disturbances of this process can interfere with normal development in a male or female direction at different stages, leading to ambiguity. Only a narrow window of time exists for each phase of the differentiation process, during which there is sensitivity to particular stimuli. The residual effect is immutable and cannot be induced at a later point. While there is a close parallel between the paradigm of sexual differentiation of humans and other mammals from the chromosomal through the genital sex determination stages, this parallel becomes less manifest in the mechanism of sexual differentiation of the brain believed to be the substrate of gender identity/role. Money, after extensive research efforts, concluded that the future gender identity/role of a child with a defective sexual differentiation is best prognosticated by 'non-biological' factors such as the sex of assignment and rearing. Much to his regret, the terms gender and gender identity/role have subsequently become divorced from their bodily aspects. In transsexualism there is a conflict between gender identity/role and the body. The only way out for transsexuals is that their body follows their identity. This substantiates that gender identity/ role cannot be viewed as an entity discontinuous of one's bodily existence.