Small children notice fairly quickly that girls are not like boys, and women are not like men. They are different shapes, have different bits, later on they have different types of voices and hair in different places. During the late teens and early twenties, the superficial differences may become blurred – one person with a pony tail and earrings may be male, another with cropped hair and jeans may be female -but as long as they themselves know which is which, who are we to criticise?
From the moment of conception, the foetus is programmed to develop the type of hormones that will give him or her male or female characteristics. A hormone is a substance produced by glands in one part of the body, which causes changes to occur in other parts of the body. The male child produces more of the male hormone, testosterone, and the female child more of the female hormones, the oestrogens (pronounced ‘eestrojens’). In fact, we all produce some quantities of both male and female hormones, but from puberty onwards ‘our own’ particular hormone starts to predominate and we develop the outward visible signs of one gender or the other.
At puberty, a boy’s level of testosterone starts to rise. As a result, his voice gets deeper, he develops facial hair, and his bones and muscles become bigger and stronger. At puberty, a girl’s level of oestrogen (in a form called oestradiol) starts to rise and, among other things, her periods start, her breasts develop and her body takes on a rounder shape. During the years of menstruation we tend to regard the monthly bleed as the only sign of hormonal changes occurring, but the levels of our various hormones go up and down throughout the menstrual cycle, and what we know as the menstrual period is the body’s visible response to these many changes.
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