PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Adrenal Gland, Pubic Hair, Secondary Sex Characteristic

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

100 years ago sex was being used more broadly can refer to all aspects of sexual activity. Biological sex femaleness or maleness as indicated by chromosomes, reproductive organs, hormones and anatomy. At birth anatomy rules the decision to whether the infant is a boy or girl: chromosomal (genetic) sex. Human cells typically contain 23 pairs of chromosomes. One pair of the 23 chromosomes is the sex chromosome pair. An egg donates an x chromosome to this pair and the sperm donates either an x or y chromosome. That produce reproductive cells, the gonads: testes and ovaries. Before the 7th week of gestation, the fetus has no gonads. Only possess chromosomal sex at this point, so the internal structures have not yet developed. At around the 7th week of gestation. A gene from the y chromosome, if present, called sry, triggers others genes to create proteins that develop into testes.