What does it really mean to be "male" or "female?"

[Sean Nash]

This interactive multimedia experience is brought to you by HHMI, The Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This is one of the more well-constructed online tutorials over a sophisticated piece of science knowledge that I have seen. It really stood out a few years back when I first engaged in the website myself.

So what did you learn from this online experience? What kinds of facts about gender did you learn that are beyond the coverage of your college-level textbook? What is a "big picture" thing you learned from doing this? Did you enjoy this experience over a more traditional classroom experience?

So... what does it truly mean to be "female" from a biological perspective?


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[kristen sheehan]

Oh man this website was so cool. Weird, but cool! It's crazy because I always just judged a person's gender by their outside appearance. I learned from this website that even though a person that is nude that appears to be a woman, can be a man, because of things going on on the inside.

Well in society, people think that there is a male and female gender, "that it's black and white, but don't realize all of the different shades of grey." A great quote from Mr. Nash. :-) It's crazy to think that someone can appear a full functioning man on the outside, but can be a female on the inside. Which is not what people think could be possible at all.

I know that before seeing this website I just thought that people were either male or female, but not anymore. It was really interesting because "Jane Doe" had a fully developed female figure, but had a Y chromosome. Which isn't a true female.

I very much enjoyed this activity because this website let's you give your opinion on what you think, but allows you to see all of the different ways that a person can be tested for gender. It really opened my eyes.

[Ryne Relford]

From this on-line activity I learned that there can be gene malfunctions where ladies can be infertile because of a mutated X chromosome from their mothers. Things that I learned are that some females can have a Y chromosome but their bodies fail to complete the process of becoming a male. I also learned that females that have CAIS are still able to compete in the Olympics and events like these, because they are considered females.

A big picture thing that I learned from doing this activity was that gender can and is a complicated matter, not just a quick check thing like everyone seems to think. I really enjoyed this activity because it made me think, but at the same time I was able to learn just as much. It was also fun to be able to be the judge of this situation, it was a lot easier for me to learn like this.

Finally to answer the question of what it truly means to be "female", I would have to stick with the fact that true females are XX. Because CAIS only affects XY individuals, and makes the individual phenotypically female. Gender should be determined by your genotype not your phenotype.

In conclusion I thought this activity was really beneficial to me because it made me open up my eyes to the true world around me and realize that some things aren't as simple as we expect them to be.

[Kaylee Burris]

From this online experience I learned that nothing is for sure in science, that you can get pretty close to for sure but never quite reach positive. I learned that you can be a "female" with x and y sex chromosomes and that just would never be put in our science book because its to abnormal. I like learning about all of the abnormal stuff in science because it seems like we never get to learn about that stuff. The "big picture" thing that I learned from this is that figuring the true "gender/sex" of a person is more complicated then just x and y. I enjoyed this experience because it made me think harder about what I was really looking at.
To truly be "female" from a biological perspective it that you have the parts, I guess? Thats the part I'm confused on now, how do we really know. Are you "female" when you have one physical atribute but not all of them, when do you really get to the point when it's a positive answer? Everytime I start to answer that question I just end up asking another question.

[Abby Lucas]

This interactive site was interesting...in a disturbing fashion. I didn't think the athlete should be accepted...but, hey, whateva.

Anyway, this brought up some controversial questions to be answered. Like, of course, what IS a girl, and what IS a boy. It's not something that the average person really thinks or cares about, likely due to ignorance on the subject. But when one is exposed to the information it becomes truly fascinating to discover how gender is determined.

The physical characteristics of the athelete were that of a female, but the chromosomes told a different story. "She" had an X and a Y chromosome, often (I guess always...) associated with a male. "She" also had a functional SRY gene. By this point I thought "she" was surely more of a "he," but to my surprise, "she" was recognized as a "she" and not as a "he."

[Sean Nash]

Your last paragraph here went into some seriously Dr. Seuss-ian territory... nice.

[Erin McAndrews]

From this online experience I learned that everything reallly isn't in black and white. In this case there was a "female" that lived her whole life thinking she was a female, but after some genetic testing, found out that she had a X and a Y chromosome meaning she was actually male. At the same time, she had female reproductive organs, but they didn't work. Just because someone has XY chromosomes doesn't necessarily mean they are going to be male.

I really liked learning this way and I feel I am able to absorb the information better than if we were to just take notes about this topic. I really don't think the athlete should have been accpeted into the Olympics because if the athlete did really well, other competitors would start complaining and say, "well she did so good because she is really a man." But that's just me.

I really am having a hard time now what is truly means to be female. I'm still confused. Does it mean that you have to have working reproductive organs? The thing that is confusing me is that the athlete had a X and a Y chromosome and she didn't have working reproductive organs, but she was still considered female. The only thing female about her was that "she" looked female.

[Rachel Huntsman]

I thought it was really weird that this apparent "woman" was actually, according to scientific terms, a man. I know that some woman look more manly and some men more womanly, but I never thought about a "woman" actually having an X and Y chromosome. So, I learned that gender isn't always the way it seems. There really is meaning behind the saying "don't judge a book by it's cover".

I also didn't really know there were so many ways to determine gender. I guess, though, just because scientifically you are considered a man doesn't really mean you may feel you are a man. In this athlete's case, she didn't even know she was a "man", so I guess to a point you can be whatever you feel most suits you. (This can get into muddy waters here though.) I'm not saying if you are born a boy you can just become a girl, so no one flip out on me please. I'm just saying this girl looked like a girl, she felt like a girl, she just didn't have all the functions that most girls do, so I think she should be a girl, regardless of science.

I really liked learning this way because we already had a general understanding of genetics and this just showed that there are exceptions to every rule, and there are always going to be some things that we may not understand. Some things will always remain controversial.

[Skylar N. Womach]

This online web-site was really interesting, i never knew that they checked females to see if they had the body parts and the Xy makeup of a woman.

Once i read this interactive activity it is kind of hard to believe that some of these woman are in fact woman! They're muscular like a man an for all we know they might be butch and be able to grow beards in a short amount of time. Overall i think this site did a good job of explaining not only how females are tested for the olympics but how shocking it is that they're genetic makeup is somewhat mutated in a way.

[Chelsie]

I thought that this website was pretty neat but at the same time a little weird. I really didn't pay attention to gender much of course I just thought if you looked like a guy you were and if you looked like girl you were. From this website I learned that there can be other things inside a person going on but it may not exactly show on the outside.

I learned from this activity that gender is more complex than most people think it actually is. I think most people think its just something that says if your a boy or girl but thats not completely it, its more complex because some people can even be transgender or born with some kind of weird thing where you get both parts of a male and female.

All-in-all I think I learned a little from this website but I liked the interaction that came with it and not just reading off information on a plain piece of paper. I payed more attention to this then I would have a hand out.

[Matt Brown]

Wow. That opened my eyes to a lot of different ways as to how gender is truely decided in humans. I like how it went into detail about how, not only is it the x and y chromosome, its the SRY segment of the Y chromosome that intiates the cascade of events that start the embryo on the path to becoming a male. This was a very exciting and interesting experience that explained things in a way that made it easier to understand then how it is explained in our college-level text book.

To be a "female", it means that you have two X chromosomes and female reproductive parts. OR, you have an X and a Y chromosome,have a functional SRY gene, but physically look like a "female" and have "female" genitalia.

[Korby Trautman]

I really learned a lot from this website. It helped me understand how much of a "gray area" between gender there really can be. This really shows that you can't judge a book by it's cover. "She" may look like a she, "she" may be everything like a she, but "she" truly is a male because of her genetic makeup.

The one thing that I didn't worry about was the fact that she didn't menstruate, because many women who are in fit shape for sports don't either. Women with eating disorders have the same problem as well, a non-existent menstrual cycle. Also i believed she was a women because they said she had "fully formed" genitalia. I would have thought that if she had some genetic problem or chromosome mutation, her body would show the effects.

If CAIS effects only males, then why would she truly allowed to be in the event? I understand she is female to the judges, yet if the science world determines gender by the genotype, then why do they allow exceptions. That part is confusing to me.

Also, I wanted to know if you must get a karyotype test before being allowed in the Olympics? how much would that sort of thing cost? There are so many questions about stuff like this that are left unanswered...

[MIchelle]

This was probably one of the weirdest things i've read about recently. To know that it is so easy to fool people with your gender is just beyond me. Most people just say "oh, they look like a boy", or "oh, they are for sure a girl" but there is really so much more to it than that. I never thought it was possible, that a female on the outside, with all the correct body parts is truly a male on the inside.

I think that this activity is really awesome. It makes you think outside the box. It makes you go beyond what is "normal", to decipher something that isn't as easy as it seems. Females receive an X from their mother and an X from their fathers. Males receive and X from the mother and a Y from the father. Some females receive a mutated X chromosome.

The thing that bugs me is that this stuff never goes in our text books. They put such limits on the things that we can and cannot learn in school when this is real life stuff. Things that could potentially be involved in our careers in the future. I believe that these things really are important.