CosmoMagazine.com – by David Salt
The Western world defines gender in two distinct categories. But in reality, gender is a spectrum. Why does society, and even science, struggle to understand and accept those who are somewhere between male and female?
After your name, what’s the first thing you’re asked on most forms? It’s almost always whether you’re ‘male’ or ‘female’, right? Gender is so basic to our identity that few of us stop to even think about it. However, for a significant proportion of the population it’s not so black and white. Consider these real-life stories:
There once was a boy named Bruce. As a baby he lost his penis in an accident and was surgically transformed into a girl called Brenda.
Then there’s Kylie. She was told that she was born with deformed ovaries that were surgically removed at age four. As a young woman, she discovered she was actually born with testes and male chromosomes, though she has only ever considered herself female.