Man. Woman. Boy. Girl.
These are categorical terms placed upon the majority of the human species at birth and are used as identifying factors for the rest of their lives. Yet, as many argue, these terms are limited and there is an ever-growing group of outliers that get shoved to fit inside the scopes of male or female. These outliers go without proper acknowledgment causing the gender binary to be limiting, not only to individuals and their identity’s, but also to science and accurate collection of data.
Traditionally, gender is taught as a dueling concept that produces only two results, male or female. Which is incorrect. Gender is a societal and cultural concept that is unconnected to the assignment of an individual’s sex. Sexes are assigned after birth depending on the length of the clitoris according to medical margins known as the “phall-o-meter”. This form of measurement often causes clitorises ranging from about .85cm-2.5cm to require surgery, so that the biological result will reflect the sexual assignment of either male or female. The erasing of intersex babies allows society to interchangeably use the terms gender and sex perpetuating the standard of the gender binary.
Currently, there are debates discussing the limits to science and science based medicine and research. Developing out of feminist critique, new lenses are being used to overview old topics such as, but not limited to, science, truth, the body, gender, and sexuality. The gender binary is being used to show that old and traditional topics based out of science must be revisited and assessed. Just because something is labeled as scientific does not mean it is accurate.
Sex and gender are different, the gender binary is flawed, and science has cultural ties.
