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Gender isn't real: it's just an idea
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this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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I don’t get the gender conversation. Before you discuss, define what gender means. After you defined it, it should be clear how many types there are or can exist.
If you can’t decide on one definition, then make up several. „Genders A“, „Genders B“, …
It should be very simple.
Sex is biology, gender is sociology.
It is the spectrum between feminine and masculine, where we as a society decide which traits fall where. This changes per culture.
Also how much you will earn. I was paid a quarter less than my male colleagues (ICT).
If it changes by culture, then each culture will have their own definition. So if we ask a Texan Redneck and a Swedish Librarian, we will get two very different answers. But they both might be right in their culture.
Culture does not have borders. You and your neighbour have different cultures. So I believe this is nothing you can argue about, unless you specify a definition first. It does not have to be a global definition, it does not have to apply to all people, it doesn’t even have to make sense.
The definition will make it possible to discuss the topic. When the definition is precise, it will be a very short discussion. The interesting part is coming up with that definition and figuring out what aspects you want to include and what you deem not relevant.
Yeah, I agree that OP's explanation right above is precise and short.
Obviously every culture has their own definition of things (same way Japanese people considered blue and green to be the same colour) but that doesn't mean either is right, they're both made up to serve a purpose.
Eg. It's useful to break down the gender spectrum as it allows us to be more precise and descriptive with our language, same way it can be useful to differentiate between blue and green. Still, if you're blue-green colour blind you probably don't really care if someone else has two words for what you perceive to be the same colour..
Gender is a bimodal distribution between "dude" and "lady"
People are the gender that they are, and it's arrogant to think that we can tell someone "actually, your experience of your own body is incorrect." If someone says they're one gender, the other, or neither, who the hell am I to tell them they're wrong?
Gender describes your sex. Or at least that's what people want it to be.
There are various reasons why people decide to use no gender at all or what ever. In the end it's a creation of humans to describe how people should act accordingly.
People who say there are only two genders are very narrow minded. Let them explain intersexual people. Checkmate.
There is a specific group that speaks about gender all the time: The people who believe there should be 2 genders. If that was nature's law, have a look at animals. Good luck.
Human brains are literal pattern-recognition and classifying machines. It's what they have evolved for millions of years to do. We're hard wired to observe nature, detect patterns, and classify things based on those patterns to help focus on new info and not be overwhelmed by the world.
Gender is just a shorthand that we've developed for classifying people into groups, based on key commonalities about how most of us tend to look and behave.
It's like the names we give to colors. We can all name a handful of main colors off the top of our head, and we've even named a few as "primary" colors because of how they interact together. But someone would have to be an absolute fucking moron to insist that primary colors are the only "real" colors, just because the idea of primary colors has some basis in color theory.
You're running together gender and sex and then saying gender isn't real. The reality is more nuanced.
1 ) You're born with your sex (biologically determined), 2) you're also born with gender identity, and 3) the way you present your gender is called gender expression. So I can be born a biological male but have a woman gender identity and this would make me transgender. Now whether I choose to dress in masculine or feminine clothes this doesn't change my sex or gender identity.
This is where it gets murky for me and I don't understand it at all. If someone is born male but identifies as female, but doesn't adopt feminine social norms... Then how is that identifying as female?
The idea is that gender identity is something you're born with but gender expression is a choice. Consider three examples:
Just like sex and gender are separable, gender identity and gender expression are separable.
I don’t know any person like this so this is just my imagination guessing:
Could be that you were born with male phenotype and raised that way. But you discovered that your feelings are really more aligned with the feminine realm.
But since you look male you don’t want to appear strange for others, so you keep the way you have been looking all your life, how you are used to dress and behave, and just identify as female. Might make you feel better and more aligned with your inner self.
We could define two genders: Males are all humans larger than 175 cm Females are all that are 175cm or smaller.
Or we take the degree by what the jaw line is curved and sort it from most masculine with strong curves to most feminine with slow elegant curves.
We could go by genetics. Then we only have a handful of genders (xx, xy, xyy, xxy, … etc)
What I am saying is: define what it is first, and then the discussion is very simple. By my first definition there are exactly two genders, second one has infinite, third definition has a handful of genders.
Gender≠Sex
"We could define two colours: Reds are all wavelengths longer than 600nm Blues are all that are 600nm or shorter.
Or we take the amplitude of the intensity of light and sort it from brightest to dimmest.
We could go by genetics. Then we only have a handful of colours (blue, red and green)
What I am saying is: we've already defined what it is and the discussion is very simple. By all definitions, colour means different things to different people and by trying to fit them all in a predefined box all you're doing is limiting yourself to seeing only in black and white."
Yep! I agree. And I believe the whole discussion is unnecessary in most cases.
There are some instances where it is important.
Do you cut the red or the blue wire when defusing a bomb (a clear definition is mandatory!)
Who can participate in the women’s sport competition and who in the men’s (this conversation should be done by the people who are actually doing the sport, not by me!)
Should I as a boss apply a gender pay gap to you or not?