Abstract
This article discusses the role of so-called sex hormones as foundations of a binary view of gender. Based on the analysis of two frequently used basic science textbooks used in health undergraduate education in Brazil (Physiology, by Berne et al., and The pharmacological basis of therapeutics, by Goodman and Gilman), it is possible to demonstrate the permanence of a concept of sex hormones as chemical messengers of gender, in a process that gives stereotypical characteristics of masculinity and femininity to the molecules themselves. Thus, I want to collaborate in the discussion about the boundaries between nature and culture in the descriptions of the biomedical body’s functioning on a molecular level, and to explicit the myth of scientific neutrality characteristic of this field of knowledge.
Keywords
body; gender; science; sex hormones
