Your Brain is 67% Female, 33% Male
Your brain leans female
You think with your heart, not your head
Sweet and considerate, you are a giver
But you’re tough enough not to let anyone take advantage of you!
What Gender Is Your Brain?

max:

this is an interesting piece. are you referring to kinsey’s scale? but i guess you are talking about something else. this replacement hormone therapy what does it achieve? and is it available just for anyone who wants it?

Thanks Max!
Nope, when my friend told me I’m 26.32% male, I don’t think he was referring to Kinsey’s scale. He was not pertaining to my sexual orientation–as defined by the sex or gender I find sexually attractive–rather he was referring more broadly about gender roles…the crude stereotypes of what men and women should be like in their clothing, their manners, and the like. Boys should be playing with cars and girls should be playing with dolls. People asking me if I’m lesbian is probably reflective of the fact that gender roles are intricately associated with and sometimes equated with one’s sexual orientation. That is, a woman who plays more of male gender roles = a woman sexually oriented towards finding other women sexually attractive–a lesbian. The thing is, sexual orientation is just a subset of the gender roles assigned in a particular society. Part of a woman’s gender role is to be sexually attracted to men. The other gender roles are fast changing in society. What types of jobs men and women are expected to have is fast changing. Male nurses and female pilots are now commonplace. Gender roles are increasingly obscured.I think, Kinsey’s scale, in showing the spectrum of possible sexual orientation and how people can be expected to be at different parts of the scale at different times in their life, reflects this same pattern of how gender roles are being increasingly obscured in the particular aspect of his or her sexual orientation. If I may extend the value of this scale to this discussion, what it does is to make the concept of gender, itself, a very fluid one.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is broadly about increasing levels of certain hormones in the body. It is most commonly used in menopausal women–women who have presumably low levels of hormones like estrogen and progesterone–to increase these lacking hormones for benefits like decreasing the discomfort of menopause and the risk of osteoporosis. It is also used by the transgendered or the transsexuals to have bigger boobs. This therapy may be in the form of tablets, intrauterine devices, or injections and are highly available.
It must be noted, however, that it is not without side effects. For example,it may increase the risk of having a heart attack in certain patient populations. In fact, some people should not have it such as if they are pregnant or they have liver disease or coronary artery disease. As such, it is recommended that this therapy be done under the supervision of a physician.
I used hormone replacement therapy as a metaphor in this entry for the vehicles of change in society. In the same way, we can change sexual characteristics with drugs, the society is able to change how gender roles are being defined through many avenues like education and mass media. Women are given more educational opportunities and this contributes to why they are able to take on previously male-dominated jobs. Startalk and other showbiz shows talk more about lesbians equipping people with the familiarity to these different sexual orientations people can assume. This increasing familiarity is possibly a vector to challenge norms like ‘women should be sexually attracted to men only’.