From: Hans Aberg (haberg@math.su.se)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2006 - 07:32:12 CST
On 28 Sep 2006, at 14:40, Andrew West wrote:
> On 28/09/06, Hans Aberg <haberg@math.su.se> wrote:
>>
>> This standard is rather limited, as it does not admit indicating
>> various androgyny, transsexual and indeterminate sex conditions. I
>> think the Unicode character set has a similar shortcoming.
>>
>
> U+2640 FEMALE SIGN
> U+2642 MALE SIGN
> U+26A2 DOUBLED FEMALE SIGN (lesbianism)
> U+26A3 DOUBLED MALE SIGN (male homosexuality)
> U+26A4 INTERLOCKED FEMALE AND MALE SIGN (bisexuality)
> U+26A5 MALE AND FEMALE SIGN (transgendered sexuality)
> U+26A6 MALE WITH STROKE SIGN (transgendered sexuality)
> U+26A7 MALE WITH STROKE AND MALE AND FEMALE SIGN (transgendered
> sexuality)
> U+26AA MEDIUM WHITE CIRCLE (asexuality, sexless, genderless)
> U+26B2 NEUTER
>
> What are we missing ?
First, I looked at an out-of-date code chart, missing those symbols.
So it could be that those are considered sufficient. (If U+26A4 is
the symbol for bisexuality, what is the symbol for heterosexuality?)
But I can attempt an input:
When I wrote the message, I had in mind a number of medical
conditions, causing ambiguous interpretation of the sex (or gender).
The maleness in humans is triggered by an Onko-Gene that normally
resides in the Y-chromosome, which causes testosterone production
during two periods of development, pregnancy and puberty. So there
are a number of variations, such as XX-males, XY-females, children
starting off at birth as females, but then developing during in
puberty as males, as well as androgyny having both female and male
cells residing side by side. And there are intermediates. So one does
not really know how to scientifically define sex in all medical cases.
So, as I am not sure how those symbols should be used, it could well
be the case they cover all of it.
But really only a medical expert on the subject could tell.
Hans Aberg
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