Sex" is generally understood to refer to biology: genitals, gonads, hormones,
chromosomes, and physical shape. "Gender" commonly is used to refer to how those
bodies are enacted in social settings — the social beings o f men and women. That the two
terms are so often confounded shows how deeply the notion that biology is destiny is
entrenched within the culture. Despite the existence o f those who have intermediate
bodies —hermaphroditic individuals— duality continues to be held as the reality of
biology, and by extension, o f social gender; those whom nature builds in-between are
seen as mistakes.