If it was a niche viewpoint 7 years ago (which I would quibble with, given third gender and trans people have existed for millennia across many cultures, just not commonly in modern America), then great, we've seen science advance.

We used to think that being gay was a mental disease. We now recognize it as something that many animals have as a part of their population, including humans. 20 years ago, being gay was like, pretty much not accepted in public and the science was developing.

Trans identities are coming a bit later, but we're still learning and developing our models.

I am all about being nice to people who live their lives however, but the idea of "gender" as a fluid philosophical concept distinct from sex is super squishy.

It's massively overstating things to call it "settled science" or even "science" at this point. It's philosophy in theory and public opinion in practice.

When I talk about fluidity of gender, or gender distinct from sex, I start with well accepted terms.

Consider: you would probably agree with me that a butch tomboy and a valley girl fashionista are both women. But they represent different extremes on what we, socially, agree femininity is. We might say the butch woman is less feminine than the valley girl.

Likewise, we'd typically say Clint Eastwood is more manly than, say, Bill Gates. A similar spread of "manliness" for men.

If we're on the same page so far, we're comfortable with the idea that gender has a spectrum - two separate spectrums, one for men and one for women. I don't need you to agree that they intersect at all, just that the concept of "manliness" and "femininity" are not single points in their respective genders.

Now let's look globally. Are the same spectrums universal? In the Middle East, east Asia, Russia, central Africa, and Polynesia... Does feminity look the same?

I'd argue no. A hijab or niqab might evoke feminity in some parts of the world but not in others. Following this, there must be a social component to feminity and manliness. And this component is not genetic. So there must be "something" that exists that's a social construct related to sex.

What should we call this social construct, assuming we agree there is no chromosomal need to wear a niqab?

Academically, gender has evolved to be the word that describes the cultural expectations placed on men and women. These expectations allow for some flexibility for culture and personality.

If you are comfortable with this so far, and we can agree on the above, I'm happy to dive into the fluidity, non-binary, and forget separation of gender and sex as a follow on discussion. But if we disagree about the above, we should sort that before moving on.

My beef is with taking a particular set of social norms and calling it "settled science", then going a step further and banning alternate views.

I'm not even saying I have a problem with those norms, I like everyone, I just think it's an overreach.

That's fair! Science is never settled, in any field. It might be better to say something like, "the current consensus is tilting towards gender as a social construct, and sex being more complex than 'XX or XY'"?

Social norms are inherently non-scientific in their motivation.

It's an accurate observation to say that higher-income liberals tend to think this way and enforce these norms but the norms themselves are in the realm of culture and politics.

Similarly, it's accurate to say conservatives tend to think people who flout traditional gender norms matched to their genetics are weirdos. Not scientific on their part either.

Social sciences aim to be descriptive, reflecting the understanding of cultures.

But also, gender is beyond just US liberal and conservative. Plenty of cultures around the world and throughout recorded history have had third genders and trans people, and they were not considered "weird". I believe sociologists are attempting to review human behavior across all spans and across cultures and compare even to animals (there are recorded instances of animals fulfilling reversed gender roles for their species).

"gender" as a term on its own is used very confusedly by a lot of people, but there's a simple definition that makes things clear: "gender == sex". The trick is that "gender" disambiguates that you mean "sex as it relates to a social context" instead of "sex as it relates to a biological context".

Where this all gets cleared up is that you should use more specific terms such as "Gender norms", "gender presentation", etc. Someone of the male gender can present as very feminine, but that doesn't make them a woman. It is not bad that their gender presentation is at odds with the gender norms expected of their gender, but their gender is not fluid and doesn't change. Only their gender presentation.

I realize I'm probably tilting at windmills here, but if everyone realized that gender is simply sex as it relates to social contexts and got more specific with their terminology, there'd be a lot less talking past each other.

Gender doesn't equal sex, though. My non binary friends are very much equipped with penises or vaginas.

There's a wide variety of genders in the rest of the world as well. While this is a newer concept in American and Western cultures, there are non male, non female genders dating back to mesopotamia.

My point is just that more specific terminology should be used. Your friends have nonbinary gender presentation, but that doesn't make their gender something other than male or female.

And sure, there's historically been a wide range of gender roles, norms, and expectations, but there's only ever been two genders.