polar role definition, and the social institutions related
to it (marriage, the family, the Church, ad infinitum)
are “human nature. ” Homosexuality, transsexuality,
incest, and bestiality persist as the “perversions” of this
“human nature” we presume to know so much about.
They persist despite the overwhelming forces marshaled against them —discriminatory laws and social practices, ostracism, active persecution by the state
and other organs of the culture —as inexplicable embarrassments, as odious examples of “filth” and/or
“maladjustment. ” The attempt here, however modest
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and incomplete, is to discern another ontology, one
which discards the fiction that there are two polar
distinct sexes.
We have seen that androgyny myths present an
image o f one corporality which is both male and female.
Sometimes the image is literally a man-form and a
woman-form in one body. Sometimes it is a figure
which incorporates both male and female functions.
In every case, that mythological image is a paradigm
for a wholeness, a harmony, and a freedom which is
virtually unimaginable, the antithesis o f every assumption we hold about the nature o f identity in general and sex in particular. T h e first question then is: What
o f biology? There are, after all, men and women. They
are different, demonstrably so. We are each o f one sex
or the other. If there are two discrete biological sexes,
then it is not hard to argue that there are two discrete
modes o f human behavior, sex-related, sex-determined.
One might argue for a liberalization o f sex-based roles,
but one cannot justifiably argue for their total redefinition.
Hormone and chromosome research, attempts to
develop new means o f human reproduction (life created in, or considerably supported by, the scientist’s laboratory), work with transsexuals, and studies o f
formation o f gender identity in children provide basic
information which challenges the notion that there are
two discrete biological sexes. That information threatens
to transform the traditional biology o f sex difference
into the radical biology o f sex similarity. That is not to
say that there is one sex, but that there are many. The
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evidence which is germane here is simple. The words
“male” and “female, ” “man” and “woman, ” are used
only because as yet there are no others.
1. Men and women have the same basic body structure. Both have both male and female genitals —the clitoris is a vestigial penis, the prostate gland is most
probably a vestigial womb. Since, as I pointed out earlier, there is information on only 2 percent of human history, and since religious chronicles, which were for
centuries the only record of human history, consistently
speak of another time in the cycle o f time when humans
were androgynous, and since each sex has the vestigial
organs of the other, there is no reason not to postulate
that humans once were androgynous — hermaphroditic
and androgynous, created precisely in the image of
that constantly recurring androgynous godhead.
2. Until the 7th week of fetal development both
sexes have precisely the same external genitalia. Basically, the development of sex organs and ducts is the same for males and females and the same two sets of
ducts develop in both.
3. The gonads cannot be said to be entirely male or
female. Dr. Mary Jane Sherfey writes:
In their somatic organization, the gonads always retain
a greater or lesser amount o f the opposite-sex tissue
which remains functional throughout life. 1
4. Chromosomal sex is not necessarily the visible
sex of the individual. It happens that a person of one
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chromosomal sex develops the gonads o f the other sex. *
Gonadal sex and chromosomal sex can be in direct contradiction.
5. Chromosomal sex is not only X X or XY. There
are other chromosomal formations, and not much is
known about them or what they signify.
6. A person can have the gonads o f one sex, and the
secondary sexual characteristics o f the other sex.
7. Men and women both produce male and female
hormones. T h e amounts and proportions vary greatly,
and there is no way to determine biological maleness
or femaleness from hormone count.
8. One hormone can be transformed by the body
into its “opposite, ” male into female, female into
male. In Sex, Gender, and Society, Ann Oakley gives this
example:
. . . the fact that rapidly maturing male adolescents
sometimes acquire small breasts —the substantial increases in testosterone which accompanies puberty
[are] partially metabolised as oestrogen, which in turn
causes breast developm ent. 2
9. It is now thought that the male hormone determines the sex drive in both men and women.
* Question: Can a person with the chromosomal sex o f a male and the
gonadal sex o f a fem ale conceive? I f so, we would have to accept the notion
that men can have children. I would think that such cases do exist in nature,
even though I could find no confirmation that such persons are ferule. Since
anyone who has children is defined as a woman, and chrom osom e tests are
not done routinely, such persons would probably not be discovered except
by accident.
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10. The female hormone (progesterone) can have a
masculinizing effect. Dr. Sherfey writes:
We may have difficulty conceiving it, but natural selection has no difficulty using sexually heterotypic structures for homotypic purposes. For example,
progesterone is the “pregnancy hormone” essential
for menstruation and the prolonged pregnancy. It is as
uniquely a “female” hormone as one can be. Yet progesterone possesses strong androgenic properties. It may be used to masculinize female embryos. In 1 960,
Jones (27, 63) demonstrated that progesterone given
to human mothers early in pregnancy to prevent
threatened miscarriages. . . severely masculinized a
female fetus. 3
11. Visible sex differences are not discrete. There
are men with tiny cocks, women with large clits. There
are men with highly developed breasts, women with
almost no breast development. There are men with
wide hips, women with no noticeable hip development.
There are men with virtually no body hair, women with
much body hair. There are men with high voices,