NPR

Nature, Nurture, And Our Evolving Debates About Gender

What does it mean to be a boy and what does it mean to be a girl? We delve into debates over gender – and explore how some people are moving beyond labels and building gender identities of their own.
How much does biology shape who we are, and how much is determined by culture and the environment in which we live?

When a baby is born, one of the first questions people ask the parents is this: "What is it?" "Gender is unquestionably the most salient feature of a person's identity," For some two decades, Eliot has pondered and researched the origins of gender differences between boys and girls. She says she didn't start by looking at boys' brains and girls' brains. She started with an insight about brains. More than any other organ, the brain is uniquely adaptable, designed to change in response to the environment.

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