Exploring the Complexities of Sex: A DialogueBeyond Binary
This July, the National Human Genome Research Institute hosted a two-day virtual symposium titled “Exploring the Many Dimensions of Sex and Gender in the Genomics Era.” Scientists, clinicians, and experts from various fields gathered to discuss the complexities of human sex and its impact on research and clinical care.
Beyond the Binary: Understanding Sex as a Spectrum
The symposium highlighted the long-held understanding that human sex is not strictly binary. Instead, sex encompasses a wide range of traits, including chromosomes, reproductive organs, hormone ratios, and secondary sex characteristics. Many of these traits, as Julia Serano, a biochemist and transgender activist, explained, are complex, meaning they are influenced by multiple genes, the environment, and time.
“Almost all human traits are complex traits,” Serano said. “Complex traits do not act like on or off light switches. They tend to give rise to bell curve–shaped spectrums. Most people are clustered around some kind of average outcome, but there are always going to be outliers from the norm.”
For example, hormone ratios can vary