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Hello, all. Just interested in a calm and civil discourse around this topic, if that's possible these days. I haven't decided my own opinion on this, so I'm just looking to be convinced by rational arguments.
Is gender a social concept, distinct from the biological concept of sex? Or is it just a synonym for biological sex?
Meaning, if this framework is accepted as valid, then sex would be referring to the concept that's assigned and binary and biological and physical- in terms of male/female. So, you can't identify as the opposite sex.
And gender, within that framework, would be the more social-realm type of concept of being a man/woman/boy/girl, in terms of identity/behavior/roles in society, etc.
I don't know my opinion on this, so I'd like to hear some arguments. Let's be respectful and descriptive in our arguments and avoid snarky one-liners and such. (You have plenty of threads for that in the Politics forum.)
There has to be some aspects of gender which are cultural - there's nothing biological about what clothes are natural for your gender to wear. Supposedly pants were feminine in Roman times. So we can't say that all aspects of gender are determined by biology. The question is whether all or even the majority aspects of gender are social?
There has to be some aspects of gender which are cultural - there's nothing biological about what clothes are natural for your gender to wear. Supposedly pants were feminine in Roman times. So we can't say that all aspects of gender are determined by biology. The question is whether all or even the majority aspects of gender are social?
Well, we've always (in our modern western culture) had a sliding scale/spectrum of different people, of both genders, with different levels of masculinity or femininity in their appearance/personality/etc. But it seems like until more recently, most of them were still thought of and referred to as being the gender that corresponded with their equivalent physical sex.
Could just be because I live in Seattle, but now in 2023 when I walk down the street and see obvious males who are wearing women's clothes and with feminine hair, most likely they aren't people who identify as being men, in terms of their gender identity, if I politely asked them. I guess some of them could be.
I don't have answers like I think you would want. I've seen people who claim to be biologists, experts in science, who claim that what most people think of as "biological binary sex" as in, the basics we all learned in middle school health class, are grossly oversimplified and that the reality of it is vastly more complex. That you cannot with 100% accuracy in the great variety of human existence, expect to see all individuals presenting with a matching gendered set of genitals, chromosomes and hormones, defining each as fully male or fully female. That any given criteria you could try to use to sort this out definitively, will eventually come up wanting for the mere fact of how many exceptions there will be to the so-called rules.
A little funny to me, is that when some of us find out that history class in our education through high school left out a lot of things, and that so much has happened that has been deliberately kept from the knowledge of American citizens, we might get a bit upset about it, but we don't insist that the basics as taught by some guy in an ugly sweater were absolute and anyone trying to expand our knowledge now, must surely by lying to us...
I don't know. I am NOT that expert. But I can tell you, it is more important to me, to try and be open minded in how I treat friends, family, loved ones and even strangers, than it is to stamp my foot and insist that I have a right to tell them who or what they can or can't be. I have watched loved ones transform before my eyes, in ways you would not believe, given the will to do so and the medical tools to make it happen. We each have the task of doing our best to try and live a reasonably happy life. If that's how they do that for themselves, I haven't a right or desire to argue it with them. Why would I?
The only area where the matter of gender being a changeable thing, starts to get hairy for me (no puberty puns intended)...is when it comes to young people, kids. And that is not specifically ABOUT the question of gender. That is more this huge conviction I have, that teens and even very young adults, should be protected and cautioned against making moves that they will have to live with for LIFE. Even if a choice they want to make ends up being the right one, and yes, truly I'm on board if that's so...I really wish for young people to leave as many doors open to possibilities as they can, until they are nearing their mid 20s at least. And that's mainly just because I know myself and others have a lot of regrets about checks written by our younger selves that our older selves spent decades paying off. I feel exactly the same way about having kids and getting tattoos. I love tattoos! And I know that most parents adore and don't regret their children! All the same, a person could wait a little, just to be very sure...?
But all of the non-permanent stuff, like names, pronouns, hairstyles, fashion, any of that, I think it's great for a young person to have freedom to experiment with as they please.
And the idea of interests and toys and such for kids being segregated by concepts of gender has always annoyed me. I was born female and never had a problem being female. Never wanted to be a boy or a man. Yet I am not a very feminine person, don't care for the color pink, didn't like toys marketed for girls, sometimes buy clothing from the men's section not because I want to look masculine, but because it may be more comfortable or utilitarian for a specific purpose I've got in mind. I mean, cargo shorts with the most excellent pockets! I can put so much stuff in them! I like language and art and poetry, and ALSO, engineering, math and science. As a kid I loved building things, and craved an understanding of fire, magnets and electricity...now I have a career in data science and analytics. I am the breadwinner in my household and have always been the main decision maker. I'm a proven problem solver. I am not very emotionally demonstrative, and some consider me to be a dry and nerdy intellectual. Some of those things could SEEM "masculine" somehow? But for me they don't, because I just think of me as me.
So it goes beyond questions of gender and into whether social gender stuff really has to be such an important part of how a given individual shapes their concept of SELF? I just don't have a lot invested in gender conceptually, I feel like...out of all things that could be definitive about who and what a person is, that one seems like possibly the least interesting. And although I do want to be supportive of my friends who consider it, one way or another, to be a really important thing for themselves, sometimes I feel like I'm being asked to care a lot about a thing that just is not of great interest to me. I am "gender apathetic." Don't care what is in your pants or under your skirt, so long as ya keep in in there, and would much rather talk about what's on your bookshelf, besides.
The words gender and sex have historically just been different words for the same thing. The decision that they now should mean different things is a totally subjective innovation. If the people behind this decision were intellectually honest, they would simply say that there is a spectrum of masculinity-femininity and individuals exist on different points of it. But it isnt an honest mistake, there is an agenda behind it that most dont understand and it isnt genuinely about transgenders at all. It is the gender marxists behind the "non-binary" contrivance. This creation has allowed them to essentially hijack the trans movement and turn it in a direction that serves their interests.
I came across an interesting argument not so long ago. Forgot the name of the young man, he's very popular in media now, constantly arguing with all kinds of non standard people. He said to a TG female person: in several hundred years, when archeologists will find your skeleton, they WILL determine, that that was a man buried and, should they take a DNA sample from it, it will confirm that indeed, that was a man.
I came across an interesting argument not so long ago. Forgot the name of the young man, he's very popular in media now, constantly arguing with all kinds of non standard people. He said to a TG female person: in several hundred years, when archeologists will find your skeleton, they WILL determine, that that was a man buried and, should they take a DNA sample from it, it will confirm that indeed, that was a man.
True.
The "very popular young man" is correct when he states that a TG female person has male sex identifiers but that observation ignores the question posed by the OP.
Is there a difference between sex and gender?
IMO, just like race is a social construct, gender is becoming a social construct and is differentiated from physical/biological sex identifiers.
I get that some people do not see it that way.
My opinion is that I'm not harmed by someone choosing to live their life according to their desired gender identification. And I don't buy into the "groomer" BS being flung around. I heard the politically conservative "Save our children from gay predators" mantra back in the 1970's and 1980's. Now gay conservatives are part of the landscape.
The "very popular young man" is correct when he states that a TG female person has male sex identifiers but that observation ignores the question posed by the OP.
Is there a difference between sex and gender?
IMO, just like race is a social construct, gender is becoming a social construct and is differentiated from physical/biological sex identifiers.
I get that some people do not see it that way.
Yes. Gender, like race, is a social construct, and sex is biology. It is clear that gender identity is separate from biological equipment when we consider the pain and effort people go through to be the gender they need to be.
But it is not without complications. Biologically a male body is more muscular and larger than a female, although males can be smaller than some women. When it comes to athletic competition for women, should a transgendered male participate as a female? Is it a fair competition? I don't know. If it is all the same then should we even have gender based competitions? Should we just let people compete as whatever gender they are at the moment?
Theoretically gender is a construct. Unlike race in real life it becomes very complex in certain situations.
Race as a construct is much more clearer. We are all just people and discrimination based on skin color and culture is simply wrong.
Yes. Gender, like race, is a social construct, and sex is biology. It is clear that gender identity is separate from biological equipment when we consider the pain and effort people go through to be the gender they need to be. But it is not without complications. Biologically a male body is more muscular and larger than a female, although males can be smaller than some women. When it comes to athletic competition for women, should a transgendered male participate as a female? Is it a fair competition? I don't know. If it is all the same then should we even have gender based competitions? Should we just let people compete as whatever gender they are at the moment? Theoretically gender is a construct. Unlike race in real life it becomes very complex in certain situations.
Race as a construct is much more clearer. We are all just people and discrimination based on skin color and culture is simply wrong.
In the early stages of fetal development, until about 11 weeks of gestation, there is one area of genital tissue which at about 11 weeks it starts becoming typical male or female sex organs.
From the Mayo Clinic: "Male and female sex organs develop from the same tissue. Whether this tissue becomes male organs or female organs depends on the chromosomes and the presence or absence of male hormones."
Tissue is one thing; physical.
Hormones are another thing; chemical.
My theory is that although the tissue develops normally as one sex or the other, the brain processes do not match up in parallel, thus we get people with same sex attraction. I've read many articles where people having same sex attraction say they knew in early childhood that they were attracted to the same sex. If it were one in a million it would be a freak of nature, but since it's one in twenty it's not a freak of nature, it's just nature, and we should accept it for what it is and stop obsessing over it and certainly stop hating over it. I was born in 1948 and by 1953 I knew for sure that I liked pretty girls. (Hint: I still do!) This was before any outside influences of any sort played upon my thinking; five years old, never seen any sexually oriented materials of any sort, yet I loved pretty girls.
Before her passing in 2003, my Mom told me this story about me, which I had forget. I started first grade in Sept 1954 at age 6 at Maidenchoice Elem school where my teacher was Miss Swift. I don't remember much about her other than that she was young and pretty. In Nov 1954 we moved to a home a few miles away and I began attending Arbutus Elem school where my teacher was Miss Lankford; an old German spinster and mean as a Nazi. Mom said that on my first day in her class I came home crying my eyes out, she said, "Butchie, what's the matter" and I sniffled out "my teacher's ugly." Age 6, no outside influences, but knew I loved pretty girls. So, when GLBT folks say they knew at an early age, I believe them.
I think one day science will tell us why same sex attraction occurs in about one in twenty persons, but until then we all need to live and let live and hope science frees us from the hatefulness that has stained human existence for centuries. Until then I do not want gender reassignment surgery on minors who IMO are too young to really comprehend what's going on.
So, back to the question at hand, Gender may be a social concept at this time, but one day science will inform us that it's just nature and, as the Beatles sang so many years ago, "nothing to get hung about."
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