W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, MARCH 2015There is a birth defect that is surprisingly common, due to a change in a key pair of chromosomes. In the normal condition the two look the same, but in this disorder one is shrunken beyond recognition. The result is shortened life span, higher mortality at all ages, an inability to reproduce, premature hair loss, and brain defects variously resulting in attention deficit, hyperactivity, conduct disorder, hypersexuality, and an enormous excess of both outward and self-directed aggression. The main physiological mechanism is androgen poisoning, although there may be others. I call it the X-chromosome deficiency syndrome, and a stunning 49 percent of the human species is affected.
It is also called maleness.
My choice to call being male a syndrome and to consider it less normal than the usual alternative is not (as I will show you) an arbitrary moral judgment. It is based on evolution, physiology, development, and susceptibility to disease. Once in our distant past, all of our ancestors could reproduce from their own bodies; in other words, we were all basically female. When biologists ask why sex evolved, they are not asking rhetorically—the fact that sex feels good was a valuable addition. What they are really asking is: Why did those self-sufficient females invent males? It had to be a very big reason, since they were bringing in a whole new cast of characters that took up space and ...
