There's absolutely nothing wrong with a feminine man or a masculine woman, people can behave however they wish regardless of biology. But the most feminine man on the planet is still a man and saying so shouldn't turn you into a pariah, it's true after all.
Imagine we came up with 'Gender' like terms for other physical characteristics, it seems to me like the logic quickly breaks down when you think about it-
Gender is to Sex as ____ is to Race as ____ is to Age as ____ is to Height as ____ is to Weight as ____ is to Eye Color etc.
Your analogies don’t apply because, with the exception of age (mental age vs. physical age), there is no mental analog to race, height, eye color, etc.
I’d analogize gender identity to sexual orientation: there is nothing physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people, but the former are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, while the latter are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex.
Why? What specifically makes transrace/race-identity any less valid of a concept than transgender/gender-identity? You say there is no mental analog to race but there's just as much proof of that as there is for gender identity. I've always loved african-american music and culture, I use black slang a lot, I felt like I didn't fit in with my white peers growing up- maybe I identify as black and will designate myself as such on my job/college applications going forward. Who are you to tell me my race-identity isn't valid? Maybe I'm just hardwired that way.
>I’d analogize gender identity to sexual orientation: there is nothing physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people, but the former are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, while the latter are hardwired to be sexually attracted to members of the same sex.
If there is nothing physiological to make that determination I think 'hardwired' isn't the right term
Because there aren’t any (or infinitesimally few) people who believe from a very young age that their “race identity” doesn’t match their genetically defined race. Gender dysphoria is rare but not infinitesimally so (~1% of the population), and it usually first emerges in childhood.
> If there is nothing physiological to make that determination I think 'hardwired' isn't the right term
Sorry, I was a bit sloppy with my language. I should have written “there is nothing grossly physiological that distinguishes heterosexual people from homosexual people.” Colloquially, we don’t generally consider neurology to be physiological, since we don’t yet have the technology to identify subtle differences in neural topology. Doesn’t mean that neurological phenomena aren’t hardwired, and thus “physiological” on a microscopic level we aren’t yet able to detect. As an extreme example, mental retardation is certainly hardwired, even though there’s often nothing grossly physiological (i.e. detectable physical brain abnormalities) that causes it.
I suspect that as science and medicine advance, we will identify the neural wiring patterns that determine one’s sexuality and gender identity (assuming we are allowed to study such things), at which point we can actually point to a definitively physiological determinant of both.
That's exactly the point. If someone's "gender identity" doesn't refer any observable characteristic other than their "gender identity", then the entire concept is circularly defined and therefore meaningless. It's like if I were to say my biological height is 5'7" but my "height identity" is 6'3". What meaning does "height identity" have and why should anyone take a concept like this seriously?
The left and center has decided it is not a joke to call someone who had a penis at birth a her, nobody will laugh at you why are you resisting being courteous?
It's as if there were two concepts, "race" and "grace", and you could be "biologically" white but "identify" as black, or "height" and "gheight", and you could be "factually" 180cm tall but "identify" as 165cm.
(This is why trans-exclusionary feminists exist, because the existence of trans people nullifies their belief that gender is 100% a social construct.)
Huh? How does that logically follow? (Hint: It doesn't.)
Feels more like it's the other way around, that the existence of gender dysphoria proves that gender is a social (and psychological?) construct: If gender were always the same as biological sex, there would be no feeling of conflict between them. That some people do feel such a conflict shows that they are not always the same. Therefore they cannot both be purely biologically determined.
Maybe it would be easier for you to grok if you thought of it not as “gender conflicting with itself”, but think of it as — privately rename it to — “sex-gender dysphoria”?
> (This is why trans-exclusionary feminists exist, because the existence of trans people nullifies their belief that gender is 100% a social construct.)
On the contrary, that seems to be exactly what the TERFs don’t believe. They should just come out and admit that “if gender is a social construct, then we’re ‘feminists’ not in terms of female- gendered people but only in terms of people of female sex.” Which, since feminism is about the role of females in society, i.e. very much a social issue, would show them up as pretty damn silly... But that’s their problem.
The last sentence does not logically follow from the other two. Lots of physical/neurological properties are correlated in the vast majority of people (e.g. biological sex/the sex you're attracted to, age/cognitive ability); the fact that they’re occasionally inconsistent in some people has no bearing on whether they’re biologically determined.
By your logic, sexual orientation is also a social construct. Most males are attracted to females, and vice versa. Using your words, “if the sex you’re attracted to were always consistent with biological sex, there would be no feeling of conflict between them. That some people do feel such a conflict shows that they are not always consistent. Therefore they cannot both be purely biologically determined.” How does that logically follow? (Hint: it doesn’t)
> privately rename it to — “sex-gender dysphoria”?
That’s exactly my point: trans people have the body of sex A, but the brain that people with a sex B body typically have. Just as gay people have the body of sex A and the brain wired to be attracted to sex A, which is again something that sex B people typically have.
>They should just come out and admit that “if gender is a social construct, then we’re ‘feminists’ not in terms of female- gendered people but only in terms of people of female sex.”
Feminism is about achieving equality between genders by advocating for women, who have typically been marginalized in society. If gender is 100% a social construct, then there should be zero difference between the brains of men and women, which makes it a lot easier to argue that they should occupy identical roles in society and thus be truly equal. The fact that trans people provide strong evidence that male (gender) and female (gender) brains are fundamentally different scares some people (i.e. TERFs), and their solution is to dismiss trans people rather than realize that different genders can still be treated equally by society even if their brains are wired differently.
> Feminism is about achieving equality between genders by advocating for women, who have typically been marginalized in society.
No, that's my point: For "TERFs", feminism is apparently not about achieving equality between genders, but about achieving equality between sexes.
As for the rest... I'm not up to going through it all in detail, but on the whole it feels like about the same level of misunderstanding.
I have problems on this front though, I'm pan myself and gender seems really insanely trivial to me - I do understand that my experience is not the common one though.
If gender is distinct from sex, then can you explain the qualifying characteristics of a "gender"?
What is the definition of "woman"? What is the definition of "man"?
Wearing high heels isn't related to being a woman intrinsically, and you don't have to be a woman to wear high heels.
The way I see it, either:
- ‘gender’ is a synonym for ‘sex’
- ‘gender’ is being misused as a synonym ‘gender roles’, which are defined by one’s sex.
If that’s not correct, then what is the actual correct definition of gender?
- man/woman
- male/female
- masculine/feminine
There is a concept of grammatical gender, where words can be masculine or feminine (or neuter in some cases, and there are other systems as well with different words). You don't talk about man words or male words, it's masculine. So, I tend to think of gender as masculine or feminine. That covers most people (although not all: nonbinary, gender fluid, genderqueer, etc. are all real).
I tend to think of sex as male or female. At least for human beings, that covers most people (not all, intersex is a real thing, and there are other unusual but 'natural' configurations as well)
So one way to look at this - which again, is probably not exactly correct, but it's how I think - male/masculine and female/feminine are what we've traditionally thought of as man and woman. But, I think it's pretty clear now that we need to account for the other combinations, i.e. male/feminine and female/masculine. That's where cis- and trans- come in: male/masculine is a cis male, female/masculine is a trans male, both are subsets in the set of all men. Same with women.
We've got nonbinary, genderqueer, etc. as well. I don't really understand the latter, but the former is pretty easy to explain: imagine being told you had to be masculine or feminine, and your response was "No, I don't. I prefer or reject some of each."
Overall, to me, gender is about what you like and how you behave, while sex is more biology (i.e., what's in your pants). It's easier to understand the arguments if you completely separate gender from sex, and don't make assumptions about one based on the other. In fact, I think the assumptions - e.g. gender roles - are the entire problem, and if people would just stop with that, a lot of things would get better.
Sure, “Gender” = “What gender role(s?) a person plays” is one way to put the social definition of gender. (Seems pretty succinct and workable, so you can drop the “misused”.)
Here's where you go wrong, though: Gender, in terms of what gender roles people play, is not always determined purely by biological sex.
There, no need to be confused any more. HTH!
Edit: as pointed out below, gender roles are something we've made up, but preferences and behavior themselves (which we're calling gender) are not. Still separate from sex.