Tier 1: FOUNDATIONS

Day 2

Welcome Back Activity:

Anatomical Diversity

Standard Instructions for All Activities:

  • Choose one person who will read these instructions for the group. And choose one person to be your group’s spokesperson for this activity when you come back to the main room to share with the larger group.

  • If you have trouble understanding these instructions, have one group member go back to the “main room” to ask the facilitators for help.

  • You will get a one-minute warning to come back to the “main room”.  If you don’t do anything, you will automatically be brought back to the large group after the one-minute warding has expired.

Specific Instructions for This Activity:

  1. Remember to choose someone to be your team’s spokesperson for this activity when you come back to the main room to share with the larger group who has not done it before.

  2. Your group will be creating a mural / drawing related to the information we just read as a whole group. (no text!, just drawing and/or images).

  3. Use the link to the drawing boards that matches your group’s break-out room #:

    Drawings Board #1

    Drawings Board #2

    Drawings Board #3

    Drawings Board #4

    Drawings Board #5

  4. Everyone can contribute to the mural / drawing, and it could be anything inspired from what you just read about the amazing diversity of anatomy and physiology in humans. (i.e. strands of dna, what you think a hormone looks like, an artistic representation of chromosomes, a body with diverse organs and body parts, or all of the above… whatever you want!)

About Our Sex Chromosomes

  • Humans are born with 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. The X and Y (a.k.a. ‘sex’ chromosomes) determine a person’s biological sex.

  • We’re taught that people have either XX or XY chromosomes, have either a vulva / vagina or a penis, and have either Estrogen OR Testosterone.

  • However, that isn’t the reality. There are over 26 different combinations of sex chromosomes known today.

  • Sex chromosome varieties are relatively common, but may not be diagnosed until puberty; others may never be discovered.

Genetic Variations

  • Monosomy = missing a whole sex chromosome (such as 45X or 45Y)

  • Trisomy = more than one copy of one of the sex chromosomes (such as 47XXX, 47XXY, or 47XYY)

  • Polysomy = more than three sex chromosomes (such as 48XXYY or 49XXXXY)

  • Deletion when a person is missing part of a sex chromosome

  • Chromosome Mutations = some ‘males’ are born 46XX and some ‘females’ are born 46XY

    Some sex chromosome varieties cause syndromes that are associated with a range of physical and developmental issues. (examples are: 47XXY Klinefelter Syndrome and 45XO Turner Syndrome)

Additional Variations

In addition, there are other variations that are important to note:

All people have varying levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone which will all affect many things, such as:

  • the development of secondary sex characteristics,

  • sexual function,

  • attraction/arousal,

  • brain development, etc.

There is a wide range of genital and reproductive organ development, also. Examples include: elongated clitoris, someone with a vaginal canal but no cervix, a person with ovaries and testes or a penis and a uterus, etc.

Intersex Bodies

Intersex is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical assumptions of female-bodied or male-bodied people.

Some examples:

  • genitals that seem to be in-between or a mix of the “typical” male and female organs

  • external appearance or body parts don’t match internal reproductive organs