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In discussing gender and sex, I am most struck by cases where males were castrated at a young age and raised as females, yet most of them grew up feeling as though that something was wrong, that they were somehow male in a woman’s body and social role. Even without a large amount of androgens circulating, these people still felt like they were in some manner male. In keeping with Paul’s reminder that there exists no single and absolute standard for differentiating between sex, I think it would be worthwhile for many studies to be conducted or re-conducted to examine what biological factors influence one’s perceived gender. While there is certainly a social component to gender, the previously mentioned cases seem to suggest that there are fundamental biological components that influence how one perceives one’s gender. I would be interested to see how various biological components influence the degree to which one perceives oneself as male or female, especially in the face of social conventions.  While several people have commented on the difficulty in ascribing to oneself a value of gender, a process which is rapt with subjective variance, I still believe such an approach could prove valuable for better understanding gender.