Sex
From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change
- For the article about the act of "sex", see sexual intercourse.
Biological type
When a biologist looks at living beings (plants and animals), there will be two different kinds to tell apart:
- Those animals and plants that reproduce by growing new cells, and by splitting of the newly created organism at some point. This is called asexual reproduction. Some germs, and yeast do that, some spiders do that as well. Such organisms are usually all of the same kind, and they are called asexual (they do not have a sex)
- Other plants and animals reproduce by a union of a male organism and a female organism. Such animals or plants have a sex, its called male, or female. Animals or plants which have both sex parts are called hermaphrodite. Most snails are hermaphrodites.
- Those organisms that produce sperm are called male, those that produce ova ("eggs") are called female.
Humans
A person's sex is either male or female. For example: John's sex is male. Mary's sex is female. This difference is sometimes called gender. Not all living things have a sex. There are not male or female germs or yeast. Only animals that make babies using an ovum and sperm have a sex.
In humans, the sex of a person depends on what sex chromosomes that person has in his or her cells. All of a woman's ova already contain one X chromosome. A man's sperm contains either an X or a Y chromosome. When a sperm and ova combine to form a baby, the baby may get either of these chromosomes from its father. If the baby gets two X chromosomes, it will usually develop into a girl. If the baby gets one X and one Y, it will usually develop into a boy. There are exceptions to this rule, though. For example, sometimes a baby with XY chromosomes will not respond to the Y and develop as a girl.
Before babies are born, they grow either male sex parts or female sex parts. Very few people grow none or both, but some do. It's hard for these people because they often feel sad about people seeing them as being different. These people can be called intersexed people or hermaphrodites.
Sometimes, people feel that they are the other sex. For example, they have male sex parts but they feel like a woman. If they think really carefully about this, and think they should be the other sex, they can say they are a woman, and even get their sex parts changed to female sex parts. These people are called transgendered people.
