Evaluate the biological explanation of gender

The biological explanation of gender argues that gender is shaped and defined purely by our biological make up. David Reiner (Money, 1975), who was biologically male, felt and acted as a male despite being raised and treated as a girl from a very young age. This strongly implies that biological make-up defines one's gender since it is strong enough to override environmental experience. However Pseudo Hermaphrodites are individuals which are chromosomally one sex yet appear the other. Cases such as these imply that there must be other factors which determine gender. Though, there is some evidence suggesting that this discrepancy could be due to hormonal problems during prenatal development. For example, individuals with Androgenital syndrome have female chromosomes but develop male sex organs due to excessive exposure to androgens in the womb. Furthermore, similar effects have been found in animal studies, by exposing foetus' to excessive amounts of gender hormones. However, it is questionable how much the findings of animals can be transferred to humans. A more likely approach is interactionism, which argues that gender is shaped by an interaction between one's biology and environmental experiences.