{"id":2084,"date":"2011-05-17T14:01:19","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T18:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2026-02-23T15:51:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T20:51:51","slug":"gender-bender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/2011\/gender-bender\/","title":{"rendered":"Gender Bender"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"w-screen px-6 cu-section cu-section--white ml-offset-center md:px-8 lg:px-14\">\n    <div class=\"space-y-6 cu-max-w-child-5xl  md:space-y-10 cu-prose-first-last\">\n\n            <div class=\"cu-textmedia flex flex-col lg:flex-row mx-auto gap-6 md:gap-10 my-6 md:my-12 first:mt-0 max-w-5xl\">\n        <div class=\"justify-start cu-textmedia-content cu-prose-first-last\" style=\"flex: 0 0 100%;\">\n            <header class=\"font-light prose-xl cu-pageheader md:prose-2xl cu-component-updated cu-prose-first-last\">\n                                    <h1 class=\"cu-prose-first-last font-semibold !mt-2 mb-4 md:mb-6 relative after:absolute after:h-px after:bottom-0 after:bg-cu-red after:left-px text-3xl md:text-4xl lg:text-5xl lg:leading-[3.5rem] pb-5 after:w-10 text-cu-black-700 not-prose\">\n                        Gender Bender\n                    <\/h1>\n                \n                                \n                            <\/header>\n\n                    <\/div>\n\n            <\/div>\n\n    <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/researchworks.carleton.ca\/summer-2011\/gender-bender\/\">http:\/\/researchworks.carleton.ca\/summer-2011\/gender-bender\/<\/a><br>\nBy: Hannah Yakobi<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The findings of Lindsay Derraugh\u2019s study may change the field of biology forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Derraugh\u2019s project focuses on the assumption of sex being continuous or ambiguous. It uses a biological approach of evolutionary theory to look at the traditional or customary definitions of males and females, and the sexual selection between nuclei.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy study is asking the following question: are there any fundamental differences between males and females except if you look at them at the sperm and egg level?\u201d says Derraugh, who is conducting the study as part of her master\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is examining past literature and studies in order to support her hypothesis that the only differences between the two sexes are related to nuclear pores and meiosis, and even then they are very minute and insignificant.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Derraugh, who recently won an award from the Lambda Foundation for her research, says that her study shows that sometimes, within an egg, different nuclei will find each other when fertilization happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn some species, it\u2019s two females that fuse, or two males, as opposed to the traditional male and female, and sometimes they also flip back and forth,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following her theoretical research, Derraugh hopes that once it is published, other scientists will be able to test it on a practical level. She is currently also planning to do a rewrite of a lesbian ethics journal paper that was written in the \u201890s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was put together by a researcher, who was trying to weigh how possible it would be for two females to have a biological child,\u201d she says. \u201cThe problem is that a lot of science back then was either not very factually correct, or too old. So I\u2019m trying to do a modern rewrite of the paper and see what I can find.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/researchworks.carleton.ca\/summer-2011\/gender-bender\/ By: Hannah Yakobi The findings of Lindsay Derraugh\u2019s study may change the field of biology forever. Derraugh\u2019s project focuses on the assumption of sex being continuous or ambiguous. It uses a biological approach of evolutionary theory to look at the traditional or customary definitions of males and females, and the sexual selection between nuclei. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}