1. LO: Outline and evaluate the BIOSOCIAL approach to Gender
Nature AND Nurture, but how?

2. Dr. Money
Study of gender re-assignment of a normal boy (Bruce Reimer) after disastrous circumcision as a baby damaged his penis.
After surgical procedures, including castration, the boy was socialised as a girl (Brenda).
Tomboyish behaviours displayed were explained by Money as imitation of ‘her’ twin brother.
The case was reported for years as a success

3. Original Conclusion
Implies that gender identity is undifferentiated at birth and is determined by social influences.

4. Postscript
Unfortunately what was not originally reported, is that Brenda was increasingly difficult and unhappy with her gender.
Eventually he discovered his biological identity aged 14 and reverted to it (becoming ‘David’)
Bruce/Brenda’s gender reassignment did not work
This suggests that gender is biologically determined

5. Postscript David committed suicide in 2004 aged 38.
He was vehement that the treatment he had received should not be carried out on others.
He was even filmed, some years before his suicide, asking whether it would take someone blowing their brains out to stop this happening to anyone else.

7. HOWEVER…
This is a single case study and therefore has all the usual difficulties with generalisation.
However there are other such cases
Bradley et al (1998) report on a similar situation of a boy who had damage to the penis at 2 month.

8. Bradley et al (1998) A boy who had damage to the penis at 2 month.
At 16 and 27 the individual, who is aware of her history, felt unquestionably female.
She is however, bisexual in orientation (unlike ‘David’ who was heterosexual)

9. Could timing be a factor?
In the Bradley case the decision was made to reassign the patient as a female and to raise the infant as a girl by age 7 months, if not earlier.
In the Money case the decision to reassign the infant boy to the female sex and to rear him as a girl was made at 17 months, with surgical castration and initial genital reconstruction occurring at 21 months.

10. Reiner and Gearhart (2004)
studied 16 genetic males born with almost no penis. Two were raised as males and remained as males. The remaining 14 were raised as females, and of these, eight reassigned themselves as males by the age of 16. Such research suggests that biological factors have a key role in gender development.

11. Biosocial approaches Money & Ehrhardt Eagly & Woods
Emphasises the interaction between nature and nurture. The theory acknowledges the importance of biology and social factors to influence gender identity.

12. Money and Ehrhardt
First ‘attempt’ at the biosocial theory, proposing that there are a number of critical events that affect the early development of the child.
These events begin before birth with the biological influences and then from birth onwards social factors play an important part.

13. Critical period
Money believes that, providing that a child’s sex of rearing is decided upon before the third birthday, then social factors are so strongly influential that such children will accept their assigned gender identity.
The third year is a critical period - gender identity cannot be changed after that age without causing psychological problems. This applies to intersex children as well

14. Back to David …
David’s case SEEMS to suggest the importance of Biology, but the other cases where ‘gender change’ happens at a young age successfully SEEMS to suggest Socialisation is of importance
Need to bear in mind the myriad of other factors that would be involved in such cases (social support vs. bullying, sexual orientation, etc), so GENERALISATION either way is tricky!

15. BUT…
The biosocial model gives room for both biology and social contexts, which best reflects the human experience
The questions then remains –as it started- what is the BALANCE between nature & nurture when it comes to gender?  this brings us back to Evolutionary influences, and Eagly & Woods …

16. Eagly & Woods
Social Role Theory