Section 7

Citation: Section 7
Parent Document: Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 2020-06-15
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4760997/bostock-v-clayton-county/ ↗

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sex (sĕks), n. [F. sexe, fr. L. sexus; prob. orig., division, and
  akin to L. secare to cut. See SECTION.] 1. One of the two
  divisions of organisms formed on the distinction of male
  and female; males or females collectively. 2. The sum of
  the peculiarities of structure and function that distin-
  guish a male from a female organism; the character of be-
  ing male or female, or of pertaining to the distinctive
  function of the male or female in reproduction. Conjuga-
  tion, or fertilization (union of germplasm of two individu-
  als), a process evidently of great but not readily explain-
  able importance in the perpetuation of most organisms,
  seems to be the function of differentiation of sex, which
  occurs in nearly all organisms at least at some stage in
  their life history. Sex is manifested in the conjugating
  cells by the larger size, abundant food material, and im-
  mobility of the female gamete (egg, egg cell, or ovum), and
  the small size and the locomotive power of the male gam-
  ete (spermatozoon or spermatozoid), and in the adult or-
  ganisms often by many structural, physiological, and (in
  higher forms) psychological characters, aside from the
  necessary modification of the reproductive apparatus. Cf.
  HERMAPHRODITE, 1. In botany the term sex is often extended
  to the distinguishing peculiarities of staminate and pis-
  tillate flowers, and hence in dioecious plants to the indi-
  viduals bearing them.
        In many animals and plants the body and germ cells
  have been shown to contain one or more chromosomes of
  a special kind (called sex chromosomes; idiochromosomes;
  accessory chromosomes) in addition to the ordinary
  paired autosomes. These special chromosomes serve to
56                BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY

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