Sex Differences In Humans

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A sex difference is a distinction of biological and/or physiological characteristics typically associated with either males or females of a species in general. This article focuses on quantitative differences which are based on a gradient and involve different averages. For example, males are taller than females on average, but an individual female may be taller than an individual male. Although sex is believed by many to be binary, with "male" and "female" representing opposite and complementary sex categories for the purpose of reproduction, there are many individuals whose anatomy does not conform to either male or female standards. Such individuals, called intersexuals , are sometimes infertile but are often capable of reproducing. The human genome consists of two copies of each of 23 chromosomes (a total of 46). One set of 23 comes from the mother and one set comes from the father. Of these 23 pairs of chromosomes, 22 are autosomes, and one is a sex chromosome. There are two kinds of sex chromosomes-"X" and "Y".