Sex, Genes, and Gender KEY

Original Document: Sex, Genes, and Gender

Introduction - Even before you were born, your parents wondered whether you were going to be a boy or a girl. Most of the time, it's pretty obvious when a baby is born what their sex is - boy or girl.........

Accept any reasonable answer.

Why Do You Need a Y?

It was understood that if a person had the Y chromosome, then that would indicate that the person was male. We assumed that until a curious case developed involving gender testing in the olympics. Follow this interesting case to learn more about why the Y isn't all you need to be a male.

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/gender/index.html -Go to "Gender Testing of Female Athletes"

1.   Historically, why was gender testing implemented? during sports, people were worried that males were competing as females and having an advantage

2.  What were the early gender tests like? physical exams, where they looked at the athletes naked or had a doctor exam

3. How is sex and gender categorized (name 2)? anatomy, physiology, chromosomes, genes

4.  Read Jane Doe’s History and view here Karyotype.

5.  What does it mean that an embryo at 6-7 weeks is “bipotential”? it can become either male or female

6.  What does the SRY gene do? turns on the development of testes

7. After tests confirm that Jane has a functional SRY gene, did you think Jane was male or female? ___seems she should be male, she has a function sry gene____

8.  What is CAIS and what does it do to the person who has it? complete androgen insensitivity, blocks testosterone and the development of male features.

9.  How does a person get CAIS?  it is inherited on the X chromosome (sex-linked)

10. Should female athletes with CAIS be disqualified?  Why or why not? accept any reasonable answer, according to current law, CAIS athletes are not disqualified.

11. Opinion - should Jane tell her fiancee' that she has CAIS? Why or why not. accept any reasonable answer