What is Male? What is Female? [Part 1]

There's no denying that male and female conditions exist, both in biology and in man-made systems. In most cases it's pretty obvious which category a given specimen should be classified as. A lot of people would like to write off the few that aren't easily classified as a fluke of nature, something that doesn't warrant consideration. Well, personally I'm kinda offended at the idea that I shouldn't exist and therefor don't matter. But going off on personal identity and human sexuality would just cause a ruckus without any real gain in shared understanding... so I'm going to explore the issue using terms and illustrations that are fair game for display at your local hardware store.

For those of you who aren't already aware of the standard terminology used by virtually every sub-field in American industry, "male" parts are the ones that have "outie" connecting bits and "female" parts are the ones that have "innie" connecting bits. Probably the most common example of this is a typical threaded connection... the shaft with external threads (bolt, threaded stud, etc) is the "male" side and the larger-diameter part with internal threads (nut, sheathing, etc) is the "female" part. There's also a vast multitude of mundane examples, such as plug-and-socket connections (glancing at the phone cord connection on my desktop phone right now as an example) and the hook-and-eye interface of Velcro. Even a simple glued-connection system such as PVC pipe has a smaller diameter typical (male) section that fits into a larger diameter (female) hole in the connecting parts. Each has a male side and a female side, and in order to get a connection you need one of each. Two male parts aren't going to work, and neither would two female parts. You can get adapters, but those are essentially just two more parts of the "sex" that you're missing that interface with the two that you do have.

I can understand human relationships in those terms. I'm not denying the existence of male and female, or the mechanism of what does and doesn't work for a typical interface. The part I feel the need to question is whether or not that narrowly defined male/female standard is the ONLY type of connection available.


Let's wander over to the electronics section for my first example of a connector that doesn't neatly fit the male/female binary: Coaxial cables have two concentric conducting elements (as opposed to parallel or twisted wires in the types of wiring that you're probably more familiar with). With concentric conductors involved in the connection, it's no surprise that the connectors have two concentric connecting interfaces... and where it gets interesting is the fact that these connectors typically have the male/female orientation of the two interfaces flipped. So a typical coax connector has a male interface for the center conductor paired with a female interface for the outer shield, OR a female interface for the center conductor paired with a male interface for the outer shield. So how how do we know whether to call a given connector male or female, or do we call them intersexed? Well, in order to make it possible to clearly tell somebody which part to fetch for you, the electronics industry has decided that it's the interface of the center conductor that determines the sex of that part and the outer shield interface is referenced relative to that by the name of the connector type.

 Lets pretend that we don't know what that center wire is for, and we pick up a female SMA connector... we'd likely spot the external thread and identify this object as a male-type threaded part. Find an ordinary nut that matches the thread pitch and size, and we've got a connection! Except that this connection completely missed the center conductor, so while it might securely hold the two parts together, it's not going to conduct electricity through that center wire which defeats the entire point of the SMA connector's existence.

Even worse, if we pick up a male SMA connector we'd likely spot the internal thread and identify this object as a female-type threaded part. But that pesky center pin is in the way, so we cut/break it out and can now fasten this object onto the end of a bolt or stud! Except we now not only have a silly pointless connection, we also BROKE what was a perfectly functional part in order to make it.


Now that we've discussed a connector that follows the male/female binary but in a more complex way than the standard, let's go check out the plumbing section to see if they have any hoses with Storz connectors. This is a unique type of coupling in that there is no male part or female part... they're all the same, and they can all connect to each other. But if we didn't know that, we might ignorantly search around a bit for the connecting part that's different from the one we're holding, and when we can't find one just give up and trash it.


Are these other types of connectors better than the typical male/female binary? Only in VERY limited circumstances. Standard male/female threaded parts have a huge advantage in that they're so simple and easy to identify. How many times have you tackled taking apart a device that you'd never seen the innards of before, and successfully gotten it apart and then back together just by twisting nuts and screws? There's no special knowledge required, and with the right-hand-thread standard you can even be 99+% confident that you know which way a part is going to move when you twist it in a given direction rather than having to guess-and-check that on each and every connection. The electronics industry has standardized almost all connections such that the female component of each connection is the one that supplies power to the male component, which significantly reduces the risk of electric shock to a user who comes in contact with a 'live' part. The shaft component of most male parts has an additional advantage of functioning as a pin for aligning other parts until clamped into place with the female component... can you imagine trying to change a tire on your car if you had to hold the wheel in place with one hand while trying to fit a bolt through one hole in that unsteady part into another hole in the brake assembly behind it? There's a reason that the studs are semi-permanently mounted and only the nuts come off!

Complex connectors like SMAs have advantages in specialized applications, but the thinner layers of material needed to create that complexity also makes them more vulnerable to damage. Sexless couplings like Storz connectors are even more specialized, being difficult to figure out on first encounter and possibly requiring a particular tool in order to manipulate. Storz connectors are popular for fire hoses (particularly large diameter ones) because while trying to put out an active fire is a bad time to realize you just grabbed the wrong end of a hose and need to turn the whole assembly around in order to make all the necessary connections, but they have very few other practical applications.

Tying this back to humanity... Am I contesting the validity of the male/female standard? Absolutely not. Am I suggesting that having one of the standard identities is somehow inferior? No, it's certainly got a wide range of circumstances in which the standard binary works quite well. Most people identify as either male or female (in agreement with what they appear to be) and seek out a companion of the opposite sex... and that works, so I have no reason to criticize it. Might there be some people who are more like coax connectors, having a non-binary personality/identity/appearance that is also valid although perhaps not quite as versatile? And might there be people out there that are completely outside the male/female binary like Storz connectors are, lacking ease of recognition but being capable of interfacing in a way that's not limited by the binary?

God made people of distinct male and female types. I'll accept that. But how sure are you that those are the ONLY kinds of people he made? And even if everybody is one or the other, how many are you incorrectly gendering because you're only looking at the threaded part of the SMA connection and completely ignoring that center pin... and how many have you felt the need to break in order to make them fit your idea of what the binary should look like?