Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2024 May;53(5):1595-1608.
doi: 10.1007/s10508-024-02851-3. Epub 2024 Apr 2.

No Bones About It: Sex Is Binary

Elizabeth Weiss  1
Affiliations
Review

No Bones About It: Sex Is Binary

Elizabeth Weiss. Arch Sex Behav. 2024 May.

Abstract

Anthropologists have led the way in formulating techniques that reveal skeletal differences between males and females. Understanding of physical differences in the pelvis related to childbirth, hormonal impacts on bones, and extensive comparative studies have provided anthropologists with an array of traits and measurements that help them estimate sex using just bones. Forensic anthropologists and bioarcheologists are improving their ability to differentiate males and females by increasing research on a variety of postcranial bones and through the use of molecular data, especially new methods called proteomics, to identify sex in prepubescent juveniles. As remains from more cultures and time periods are studied, sex identification will continue to improve, because skeletal sex differences are in large part biologically determined. Yet, anthropologists have also been at the forefront of arguing that sex lies on a spectrum. Anthropologists who view sex as on a spectrum may deter sex identification progress; from their perspective, an individual of an undetermined sex may just be a nonbinary individual. Anthropologists who consider sex is on a spectrum are coming to this conclusion in part because they are looking for anatomical ideals, mistaking pathology for variation, and confusing independent variables with dependent variables. Nonetheless, anthropologists need to continue to improve sex identification techniques to reconstruct the past accurately, which may reveal less strict sex roles than previously presumed and help with the identification of crime victims. Forensic anthropologists should also increase their efforts to identify whether individuals have undergone medical procedures intended to change one's gender due to the current rise in transitioning individuals.

Keywords: Archeology; Binary sex; Forensic anthropology; Gender; Sex estimation; Skeletal remains; Transgender.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Abdualhadi, E. M., Hegazy, N. I., & Abdelaal, G. M. (2022). Brief overview of sex identification from the sternum. NeuroQuantology, 20(10), 12060–12067. https://doi.org/10.48047/NQ.2022.20.10.NQ551167 - DOI
    1. Al Amin, A. S. M. & Carter, K. R. (2023). Polydactyly. StatPearls [Internet]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK562295/
    1. American Anthropological Association. (2023). No place for transphobia in anthropology: Session pulled from annual meeting program. https://americananthro.org/news/no-place-for-transphobia-in-anthropology...
    1. American Association of Biological Anthropologists. (2023). AABA statement in support of trans lives. https://bioanth.org/about/position-statements/aaba-statement-in-support-...
    1. Astorino, C. M. (2019). Beyond dimorphism: Sexual polymorphism and research bias in biological anthropology. American Anthropologist, 121(2), 489–490. https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13224 - DOI

LinkOut - more resources