this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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Interesting, everything I've read has indicated that it's largely set due to testosterone concentration prior to the development of the gonads in utero. I'd be interested to read some of the research about the association with synaptic pruning though, if you have a couple of links? It makes sense that children would begin recognising it then, because it's about that time they start developing a concept of self.
Have a read of Infants' Intermodal Knowledge About Gender (Poulin-Dubois, 1994) and Patterns of Gender Development (Martin & Ruble, 2010). Infants can't recognise gender in others or in themselves. Toddlers at 18 months can.
The way I see it, gender is probably like phoneme recognition. Infants can recognise the phonemes of all languages. During synaptic pruning, they specialise into the phonemes of the languages spoken in their home. Gender identity needs to specialise for the culture it's developed in, just like phoneme recognition. People need to develop a culturally appropriate identification with masculinity/femininity/other so they can achieve social status and attract a good mate. Identifying with trucks and baseball won't help men's fitness in feudal Japan. Calligraphy skills won't help men's fitness in 20th century America. Gender identity needs to be adaptive and context-responsive.