Ep. 17: Gender, Sex, and Biology

Are biological sex and gender the same thing? Do anatomy and genetics completely determine sex and/or gender?

In this talk from June 2018, Dr. Lisa Sardinia, Associate Professor of Biology at Pacific University, talks about some of the so-called "bathroom bills" proposed in the US to restrict access to public restrooms based on terms like "biological sex" or "genetic sex." Turns out that science isn't so binary, and legislators need to learn a little science (okay...a LOT of science...).

Resources mentioned at the end of the talk:

• Scientific American, September 2017 issue
• How Science is Helping Us Understand Gender, National Geographic Magazine, January 2017
• Gender: When the Body and Brain Disagree, Science News for Students, July 2015
• The 7 Sexes: Biology of Sex Determination, by Elof Axel Carlson
• Sex Itself The Search for Male & Female in the Human Genome, by Sarah S. Richardson, 2013

 

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Thanks to Graham Tully and Stephen Perry for sound production.

As always, a final thanks to Jonathan Coulton for the use of his song Mandelbrot Set as our theme music.