Are Technological Advancements Reinforcing the Gender Binary?

[Please note that for the purposes of this paper, sex is defined as the physical characteristics that make a person biologically male, female, or intersex, while gender is defined as the mental perception of a person’s identity where specific types of gender are considered part an infinite set, including male and female, rather than a binary system. Also, instead of footnoting, each quotation links to the New York Times article it comes from.]

Before we were able to consider the physical, internal characteristics that determine a person’s sex, a baby’s sex was determined mainly by the appearance of the external genitalia. Each baby born had to be categorized as male or female and when faced with intersex babies, most doctors in the past 50 years determined a baby’s sex mainly by deciding whether the baby’s external genitals looked more male or more female. This technique was strongly influenced by John Money’s protocol for dealing with intersex children, which “guided doctors to perform genital surgery on intersex babies” so that the children could “be saved the anguish of looking weird.” This protocol is known as the “optimal gender of rearing” protocol and encourages parents to raise their child with the gender and sex they are surgically assigned. Not only does this protocol reinforce the gender binary, but it also promotes the idea that sex and gender are the equivalent terms.

Due to the work of Cheryl Chase, however, John Money’s protocol was overturned in August of 2006 in favor of a new protocol that still “promotes… [assigning] a gender as soon as possible after birth,” but specifically outlines that this decision should be influenced by examinations of “the baby’s genes, hormones, genitalia, internal organs (via ultrasound), electrolytes, gonads and urine.” This new method of determining which gender the child may prefer during its adult life is much more extensive and more appropriate than the “optimal gender of rearing” protocol. In addition, the new protocol encourages doctors and families to not rush into surgery. Cheryl Chase, a signee of the new protocol, “believes that… parents and doctors should remain open to the idea that they may have assigned the wrong sex” and should therefore not “surgically [reinforce]” their decision on the child. While this protocol is quite a victory for intersex children, it still supports the gender binary by forcing doctors to decide whether a baby is male or female and by promoting the idea that intersex children can be ‘fixed’ with surgery. Both the protocol and genital surgery are relatively new technologies that have certainly reinforced the gender binary.

One of the examinations outlined in the new protocol for intersex babies is hormone testing. In his essay, The He Hormone, Andrew Sullivan discusses the differences between men and women, in terms of both sex and gender. Sullivan contends that the main biological difference between men and women is the difference in levels of testosterone that men and women produce. “At conception, every embryo is female and unless hormonally altered will remain so. You need testosterone to turn a fetus with a Y chromosome into a real boy, to masculinize his brain and body.” The essay also discusses the effects of testosterone on gender by examining the behavioral differences caused by testosterone:

“A Stanford research group, for example, as reported in Deborah Blum’s book “Sex on the Brain,” injected newborn female rats with testosterone. Not only did the female rats develop penises from their clitorises, but they also appeared fully aware of how to use them, trying to have sex with other females with merry abandon. Male rats who had their testosterone blocked after birth, on the other hand, saw their penises wither or disappear entirely and presented themselves to the female rats in a passive, receptive way. Other scientists, theorizing that it was testosterone that enabled male zebra finches to sing, injected mute female finches with testosterone. Sure enough, the females sang. Species in which the female is typically more aggressive, like hyenas in female-run clans, show higher levels of testosterone among the females than among the males. Female sea snipes, which impregnate the males, and leave them to stay home and rear the young, have higher testosterone levels than their mates. Typical “male” behavior, in other words, corresponds to testosterone levels, whether exhibited by chromosomal males or females.”

Considering these behavioral differences between the sex of a species that has higher testosterone levels then the other, it is clear that technology while technology has allowed us to examine a multitude of physical characteristics that determine sex, it has also allowed us to discover just how closely the physical characteristics of sex and the psychological characteristics of gender are related. And just as technology is reinforcing the gender binary by empowering us to label intersex children as male or female, it is also helping us discover more about the mental differences between men and women, once again reinforcing the gender binary.

Not every case of using technology to categorize sex and gender has led to technology reinforcing the gender binary. The specific case of female Olympic athletes undergoing sex-verification tests demonstrates our desire to categorize sex and gender and how, in this case, technology no longer helps us in our quest for labels. Right before the Beijing Olympics, the New York Times featured an article discussing the history and controversies of sex verification tests given to female athletes. The tests are reminiscent “of an earlier Olympic era, when every female athlete was required to submit a sex-verification test before competing in the Games. The tests emerged in the 1960s, when the Soviet Union and other Communist countries were suspected of entering male athletes in women’s events to gain an edge.” By 1968, officials were using chromosomal tests to determine each athlete’s sex. Unfortunately, all of the athletes barred from the Games were later discovered to have been “born with genetic defects that made them appear — according to lab results, at least — to be men.” Tests at the Beijing Olympics were only performed on female athletes suspected of being male (a convention established in 1999) and the tests not only included an examination of external appearance and chromosome testing, but also evaluation of the athlete’s hormones and genes. Even with more rigorous testing, ““It’s very difficult to define what is a man and what is a woman at this point,” said Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon who specializes in transgender medicine.” Her statement strengthens the argument of other critics who “say the test is based on the false idea that someone’s sex is a cut-and-dried issue.” So perhaps the new technologies that, in some instances, reinforce the gender binary are, in other instances, significantly undermining it.

At this point, I would say that technological advances can reinforce or undermine the gender binary depending on what results the advances yield and how we interpret the results. From here, I think we must carefully consider how to use technology in future explorations of sex and gender. We can use it explore the ways in which sex and gender are intertwined, but if that leads us to the conclusion that sex and gender are somewhat analogous, then aren’t we restricting gender to a binary or ternary system? And if we use technology to determine a baby’s sex and then raise the child as the gender associated with that sex, aren’t we yet again reinforcing the gender binary by attempting to place the child in a nicely labeled box? And if we use technology to shatter the gender binary and prove how many varieties of gender actually exist (both biologically and psychologically), is that, in fact, something the world is ready for or even something that our society can possibly adapt to?