What, then, do we mean by "male" and "female" in man? Take Dr Russell Andrews' patient: photographs[[2, plate opposite p.243]] show a rounded bodily outline, hairless face, well-developed mammæ—the female sex characteristics in every respect which the ordinary person could detect. Yet an operation proved that the sex glands themselves were male.
Presumably extreme cases like the above are rare. Obviously operations cannot be performed on all those with female-type bodies who do not bear children, to determine the primary sex, and conversely with men. This does, however, point the obvious question: Are not some we classify as men more male or masculine than others—some we classify as women more feminine than others? Bearing in mind the fact that the genetic basis for both sexes exists in each individual, are not some women more masculine than others, some men more feminine than others? However much we may object to stating it just that way, the biological fact remains thus. The Greeks called these intermediate types urnings—modern biology knows them as "intersexes."
Only within the past few years have the general phenomena of intersexuality been cleared up to any considerable extent—naturally on the basis of the secretory explanation of sex. This secretory or endocrine idea has also given us an entirely new view of sex differences. These are best discussed as functional rather than as structural. To correlate this material, we must next give a rude sketch of the quantitative theory of sex.
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER II
Goldschmidt, R. Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex. Endocrinology, Vol. I, p. 434, 1917.
Bell, Dr Blair. The Sex Complex. London, 1916, p. 98.