As the Editor in Chief of the journal Biology of Sex Differences, Dr. Becker sees many scientific reports of how females and males differ. For example, there were sex differences in mortality due to Covid-19 - more men died than women [3, 4], at least partly because of sex differences in the immune response. Most people don’t realize it, but more women die of heart disease than men, yet more men are diagnosed with heart disease [5, 6] due to a lack of understanding of sex differences in cardiovascular disease and its risk factors. In Alzheimer’s Disease more women than men have the disease and we still do not understand the fundamental causes of the disease [7,8,9,10], nor is there an effective treatment for the disease, perhaps because most of the studies to date have been conducted with only male animals [11].
Sex differences research is not “woke gender ideology.” Sex differences research is fundamental biological science. The sex of an individual is determined by the genes on the sex chromosomes (XX is female, XY is male) and the hormones produced by the developing gonads acting on the body during development and after puberty. People differ in the sexual characteristics they develop due to environmental influences and biological differences. Furthermore, individuals that experience stress during development in the uterus or as infants have greater likelihood of mental health disorders later in life and there are sex differences in how this happens and what the outcomes are [12,13,14].
For example, variation in the number of X or Y chromosomes (e.g., XYY or XXY) influences total brain volume in humans and other species [15, 16]. Variation in genes that affect the development of the gonads can result in an XY individual that develops without testes and has female characteristics. Failure to synthesize gonadal hormones during development, making too much androgen due to an inherited genetic trait, or not having receptors to detect androgen, all affect the development of the body so that the apparent sex may not be consistent with the sex chromosomes. To use common language, this means that biological variation results in more than two forms; it is not as simple as male and female.
Read the full article in the Journal Biology of Sex Differences.
