A gender symbol is a pictogram or glyph used to represent sex and gender, for example in biology and medicine, in genealogy, or in the sociological fields of gender politics, LGBT subculture and identity politics.
In his books Mantissa Plantarum (1767) and Mantissa Plantarum Altera (1771), Carl Linnaeus regularly used the planetary symbols of Mars, Venus and Mercury (♂, ♀ and ☿) for male, female and hermaphroditic (perfect) flowers, respectively. Botanists now use ⚥ for the last.
Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilisation. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to at least one ovum from a female, but some organisms can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Most male mammals, including male humans, have a Y chromosome, which codes for the production of larger amounts of testosterone to develop male reproductive organs.
In humans, the word male can also be used to refer to gender, in the social sense of gender role or gender identity.