By Patricia Weerakoon
When we biologists say that sex in humans is binary, and there are two sexes, male and female, we are not talking about sexual intercourse, chromosomes, body types (body shape, breasts), behaviour (masculine or feminine) or personal identity (the so-called inner feeling that you are male or female). When biologists say that sex in humans is binary, we are making a statement about the number of distinct reproductive strategies the human species is capable of.
The term ‘reproductive strategy’ is a biological concept. It’s not something unique to humans. It simply means the system for propagating genes and forming a new individual organism. Different kinds of plants and animals have different reproductive strategies. For example, some plants reproduce asexually, through budding or fragmentation. The new plants are genetically identical to the parent, because no new DNA has been introduced.
Humans possess a binary reproductive strategy. I mentioned it briefly in my previous post about intersex conditions. Forming a new individual human therefore requires the combination of bodies with two distinct and complementary reproductive strategies: male and female. Males and females have two distinct reproductive apparatus (internal and external genitalia) and two distinctly different gonads (testis in males and ovaries in females) to produce and deliver genetic material in two types of sex cells called gametes: sperms in men and ova or eggs in females. These gametes each have half the genetic material (23 chromosomes: 22 autosomes and one sex chromosome) of the parent – an adult cell has 44 autosomes and two sex chromosomes.
Male and female gametes are very different to each other. First of all, there’s a massive difference in size. The female ovum (diameter 0.13–0.2 mm) is about 10,000 times larger than a male sperm (the diameter of its head being between 2-3 micrometres).
Secondly, they operate very differently. The female ovaries (generally) produce only one ovum a month. And even that only happens from menarche to menopause. Each ovum carries a load of nutrients and has no way of propelling itself. Once released it moves slowly along the fallopian tube in eager anticipation of meeting a sperm.
The testis in the male however becomes a non-stop sperm producer from puberty to old age. Testis produce millions of sperms daily. A normal sperm count ranges from 15 million to over 200 million sperm per millilitre of semen. With an average ejaculate is about 2-5 millilitres, that’s a lot of sperms!
Why that many sperms? It’s because each little sperm with a head packed with genetic material and a tail propelling it forward has a long swim from the vagina to where the ovum is waiting in the fallopian tube. For a cell the size of the sperm, the distance has been calculated to be equivalent to a person walking from Sydney to Perth and back again! Not only that, they must jostle for first position in this swim! The winner gets all!
In biology this asymmetry in size and behaviour between the gametes of the different sexes is well-documented. It’s called anisogamy, and is common beyond humans.
But although the male and female gametes are so different, those differences work together to create new life. The winning sperm gets to fertilise the ovum to form what’s called a zygote. A zygote is the earliest form of a genetically unique individual human being and represents the fusion of the parents’ two gametes. The zygote carries the paired autosomes that determine all the person’s other characteristics, and two sex chromosomes that determine his or her sex. 22 pairs of autosomes and XX sex chromosomes means you’re a female. 22 pairs of autosomes and XY sex chromosomes means you’re a male.
All going well, those autosomes and chromosomes initiate and guide the baby to grow and develop into a new person – a boy or a girl. Part of being a boy or girl is to have the appropriate genitalia which will mature in adolescence so as to produce new gametes, either ova or sperm. And that sexual maturity means your body is ready to play its role in reproducing the species. Your body, if it has developed properly, will possess the structures – the internal and external genitalia – appropriate for its sex’s reproductive strategy.
Let me make three qualifications.
First, the proper development and operation of all aspects of child’s body – their sexual organs and everything else – depends on proper development while in their mother’s womb. Some people suffer a disorder of sex development. I showed in my previous post how they deserve compassion for this disorder, but it does not stop them from being either male or female.
Secondly, our reproductive pattern influences, but does not strictly determine, our way of life. This is a fancy way of saying what we say in The Gender Revolution: that biology is connected to, but different from, gender roles or gender behaviour. Possessing female reproductive organs does not prevent a woman from being a fit, strong, competitive athlete. Possessing male reproductive organs does not prevent a man from being a gentle, empathetic artist.
Our third qualification is a specific application of the second. To say that the human body possesses a detailed and discernible binary pattern for reproduction does not imply an obligation upon every single individual to reproduce. Some people are infertile – they want to have children but cannot. Some choose to remain single, never have sex, therefore never become parents. They are still people in God’s image who can live full, productive lives. In fact, they may be able to use their childless or unmarried status to undertake exciting adventures which families with children cannot. Jesus draws on Isaiah 56:3b-5 to honour unmarried, childless people in Matthew 19:11-12, and, when it comes to serving the Lord, the Apostle Paul famously affirms singleness to be better than marriage in 1 Corinthians 7:32-38. Single missionaries – mainly women – have spread the gospel around the world for centuries.
For now, I want to make the following point. I often say that as a Christian sexologist, I get to know not just the general belief that God made sex binary, male and female, but I get to understand how sexed bodies works in detail. I get to delight in God’s work and thank him for it.
But we don’t have to be Christian to appreciate the goodness of binary sex. In a previous post, Kamal talked about how responsible science doesn’t require religious devotion. “All you have to do is pay careful attention to whatever it is you're studying,” which “[i]n the case of living beings [means] understanding… the operations of their bios, their life.” The same applies to enjoying the benefits of your body’s reproductive strategy. The body structures inherent to these reproductive strategies identify us as either male or female. They’re a way of identifying how our biology, our bodies, both identify us as either male or female, and how that biologically-grounded binary identity is deeply and ineradicably woven into every other aspect of our being. And the wonderful thing about them is this: although we call them ‘reproductive’ strategies, their existence doesn’t depend on whether you actually reproduce – whether you ever actually have children or not. So they’re relevant to all people, from all different backgrounds, of all ages and stages of life, everywhere.
Transgender ideology prevents us from receiving this self-knowledge. In fact, it trains us to despise and reject it, as if our given sex was some alien growth, like a cancer, instead of something inherent to our being and our identity. Which is both wrong and tragic. As Kamal wrote, “[t]rans ideology trains people to hate what gives them life.” And as Carl Trueman said in an article commenting on the sexual revolution in general, it expresses a “culture of desecration and consequent dehumanization.” This is why it is so important that we resist trans ideology and learn to embrace the inherent goodness of our given sex.
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