When I took a Women’s Studies course many years ago, the underpinning assumption of much of the class was that sexual differences were completely culturally determined. Although obviously there are some physical differences between men and women, everything else was simply a reflection of cultural expectations which could, of course, be modified.
Proof positive of this claim were the stories of babies who were genetically male but were born with deformed genitalia or had their genitalia altered by a surgical accident during circumcision. Some of these boys were raised as girls and, so the story went, acted like girls. Clearly sexual characteristics had more to do with culture than genetics.
The only problem was this turned out to be a myth, which is finally getting the thorough debunking it deserved. The first volley was fired in the book “As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl,” which dealt with a boy who had been raised as a girl after an accident during a circumcision. Contrary to the myths told about this case in my class, the “girl” rebelled against the social conditioning and reasserted his male identity.
Now the American Academy of Pediatrics is urging more causation about reassigning the gender of such babies, noting the failures that have happened over the years.
Contrary to the politically correct views of the radical feminists, human sexuality isn’t some simple cultural artifice but is deeply ingrained in our genes.
U.S. doctors urge caution on baby gender questions. Reuters. July 4, 2000.