At the end of The Wasp Factory Frank learns that he was born a biological woman. His father has been giving him male hormones since a dog attacked Frank when he was young.

This revelation is startling because Frank expresses misogynistic thinking and blatant hatred of women throughout the text. He believes that men are stronger than women and that he is superior to females because he is a man. Before this revelation, this misogyny seems to be rooted in Frank’s frustration about his impotence. It is also suggested that the way his mother left him fueled his anti-female sentiments. However, now Frank is faced with a new reality. He switches to female pronouns and goes by Frances after the reveal.

As Frances becomes more in touch with notions of femininity, she realizes that her previous beliefs about male superiority were socially constructed. She feels like the same person she was before the reveal. Because of this she begins to realize that traits historically associated with being a man and those associated with being a woman are socially constructed stereotypes. Frances’s lack of genitalia also symbolically reinforces this point because it underscores the distinction between biology and gender. Biology may categorize reproductive functions, but it does not determine character traits.