thehindu.com – K.D. Viswanathan, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
In animals gender identity is a sense of identification with either the male or female sex, as manifested in appearance, behavior, and other aspects of a individual’s life. It is very strong in mammals since sex is determined genetically on the basis of sex chromosomes called allosomes (X and Y chromosomes). In man the gender identity emerges by the age of two or three and is influenced by a combination of biological and sociological factors reinforced at puberty. Once established, it is generally fixed for life.