Sex hormones, such as androgens, estrogens and progestins are naturally occurring compounds that tightly regulate endocrine systems in a variety of living organisms. Uncontrolled environmental exposure to these hormones or their biological and synthetic mimetics has been widely documented. Furthermore, water contaminants penetrate soil to affect flora, fauna and ultimately humans. Because endocrine systems evolved to respond to very small changes in hormone levels, the low levels found in the environment cannot be ignored. The combined actions of sex hormones with glucocorticoids and other nuclear receptors disruptors creates additional level of complexity including the newly described “dynamic assisted loading” mechanism. We reviewed the extensive literature pertaining to world-wide detection of these disruptors and created a detailed Table on the development and current status of methods used for their analysis.
Sex refers to biology; however, there is no single, universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for defining sex. Sex is complex, dynamic, context-dependent, and interacts with gender and other social factors (Ritz & Greaves, 2022; Dubois et al., 2025).
In humans (and non-human mammals), sex traditionally refers to the biological attributes that distinguish male, female, and/or intersex according to functions that derive from the chromosomal complement (generally XX/XY), reproductive organs (internal and external genitalia), or specific hormonal, environmental, or cultural factors that affect the expression of phenotypic traits (Barresi & Gilbert, 2023; Jones, 2018; Kessler, 1998).