What is a male? Is any human being with XY genes a male—the `Y’ chromosome being the carrier of genes which mostly lead to male development and the maintenance of male characteristics? (There is a recent discovery that the `X’ female chromosome actually can play a role in the development of males; this might greatly complicate the issue.) So, what is necessary for one who is fully and obviously male? Do environmental factors influence male-ness? Maybe we should consider epigenetic processes? (See Epigenomics for some background on this important complication which is neither quite `nature’ nor quite `nurture’ as those terms are conventionally used.)
I recently discussed this and related issues in a Christian context: see Sex and Categorical Reasoning in a World of Evolution and Development, but I wanted to give notice to an article published by Ed Yong in early September, The Tenuous Beginnings of Men. This article discusses an interesting and disturbing phenomenon in which a genetic male carrying a particular mutation in a specific gene which is a “master switch” for the masculinization processes might or might not develop into a fertile male; if not, the embryo will develop into an infertile and partially developed female. Yong has this to say about the somewhat disturbing news (which was actually known before but some scientists have now provided a good explanation of the workings of this defective switch):
Daughters inherit many things from their fathers, but a select few get something unusual—a Y chromosome. Women typically have two X chromosomes while men have an X and a Y, but some XY people are born with female genitals and a uterus. They’re almost always raised as girls from birth, and their hidden Y chromosome only becomes obvious during puberty. That’s because they don’t develop working ovaries, and without these organs providing a flood of hormones, they don’t menstruate, grow body hair, or develop larger breasts on their own. They’re also sterile.
This condition, known as Swyer syndrome, is often caused by changes to SRY, a gene on the Y chromosome that acts as a master switch for maleness. Human embryos develop into females by default, but SRY diverts them from this course. It switches on many genes that transform an embryonic ridge into testes instead of ovaries. But SRY can pick up mutations that interfere with this role, and prevents it from launching its male-making programme. As a result, embryos develop into baby girls despite their Y chromosome.
But sometimes, fathers and daughters carry identical copies of SRY. He develops into a typical fertile male. She grows up as a sterile female. How can this be?
The interested reader can follow the link to the article for the easy-to-follow scientific explanation. I’m trying to understand why God would have created a world, why He would be telling a story, in which such disturbing strangeness can occur. Didn’t He create them male and female? Does He create some of us as male only to let them fail to develop as males?; being genetic males though having a specific genetic problem, those XY human beings also fail to develop into females: “[T]hey don’t menstruate, grow body hair, or develop larger breasts on their own. They’re also sterile.”
This most certainly doesn’t argue conclusively against traditional sexual morality and may not argue against it at all in the end—my personal belief at this point, but it does demand of us a different, more complex story of human being, a story more consistent with empirical reality, a more “exact” story truer to reality. (There is also an issue of humane understandings of the sexual development problems or non-conventional sexual attractions.)
My use of “exact” comes from this quote:
Modernity is not simply a historically-datable cultural phenomenon; in reality it requires a new focus, a more exact understanding of the nature of man. [Pope Benedict XVI, in a speech given on 2008/06/07 to participants in the sixth European Symposium of University Professors, which was held in Rome from 2008/06/04 to 2008/06/07 on the theme: “Broadening the Horizons of Reason. Prospects for Philosophy”.]
We need to pay closer attention to God’s story, out of respect for our Creator and out of respect for our individual and communal selves. (Those seemingly different forms of respect actually overlap a lot given our creaturely natures.)
We need to develop A More Exact Understanding of Human Being as I argue in this freely downloadable book. To do that, we need to develop a better understanding of created being, as I argued in Four Kinds of Knowledge, also in many shorter writings included in A Modern View of Creation: Making Peace with Empirical Reality. More writings on that and other topics are included in Acts of Being: Selected Weblog Writings from 2006 to 2012. In fact, all of my writings, described in Catalog of Major Writings by Loyd Fueston deal at least in part with the problems we modern human beings have caused for ourselves with our inadequate understanding of human being, of created being in general.
We can only write our currently best version of God’s story, that is—come to a plausible understanding of God’s Creation, if we accept empirical reality and tell the story so that this world is within that reality and Creation as a whole contains this concrete realm of being. This story must be plausible in terms of current knowledge of empirical reality rather than plausible in terms of ancient or Medieval knowledge of empirical reality. We will be able to write this story only as we begin to understand modern empirical knowledge in light of our very small stock of Christian truths. If we do it well, that story will be the foundation of a new Christian civilization or, equivalently, form the basic thoughts and understandings of the citizens of that civilization.