It is fundamentally different.
The range of behaviors that Humans have is fundamentally far, far more broad than animals, because we are much more intelligent creatures. Example from a few thousand years ago: Farming, Cooking food. More recent examples: Fixing cars, doing taxes. Most of what Humans spend their time doing these days are things that animals don't do in nature.
Human cultures like to ascribe gender roles to most of these things, but in reality most of what people do doesn't have any implicit gender role associated with it, since it's pretty far removed from biological functions at this point.
Even in nature, the things people and animals do doesn't always neatly align with gender roles. For example, child rearing or even bearing live young is sometimes done by the male, even though it's usually a female gender role.
What's different between us and animals (as is usually the case) is our big thinky brains, and the things which follow on from that.
I suspected as such. In my life, I've often heard this point trotted out to justify "Why men/women are good/bad at X thing", which is why I was asking what they were getting at, specifically. Even if they weren't getting at that, their comment doesn't add much by itself.
In fact, very few behaviors are specific to only humans.
We aren’t that special. At the end of the day, we’re just very clever mammals.
This is a difference in scale not a difference of kind.
It's not an argument about scale. "Dogs Playing Poker" is not based on anything real.
I am positing that, in fact, most of how we spend our time as human beings (such as arguing on YC news threads) is behavior which does not exist in the rest of the animal kingdom.
That is not an argument about scale as you say, it is an argument about the type of behavior.
It would be interesting if male birds learnt how to put on more successful mate displays by watching other males, or if birds set their standards by those of the opposite sex they grew up around. Humans obviously do this, and I wouldn't be surprised if other primates did too, but which other animals might?
> The assertion that gender is “socially constructed”
Who asserted this? A straw man?
The reason to bring it up was in the comment you replied to. This reaction seems very knee jerk.
Conservatives trying to use biology to argue that gender and sex are fully equivalent is akin to 19th and 20th century attempts to use evolutionary theory to support racist social policies. It's not only wrong morally, it's bad science.
Ironically, the social changes in gender expression you’re referring to are actually premised on the opposite of the assertion you’re making. They posit that gender expression is biologically rooted—because otherwise it would be within the purview of society to regulate it as a matter or culture or individual expression.
My entire point is that’s the morally and legally correct framework, because we shouldn’t be using scientific determinism to make decisions about how individuals with free will and rights can express themselves. The article is correct to have the disclaimer, in this light.
By contrast, what you call the “mainstream liberal interpretation” is actually the radical position. It rejects society’s right and prerogative to impose norms and regulate voluntary self-expression. What generates concerted opposition from conservatives and moderates is the feeling that liberals are using sexual minorities as a vehicle for loosening restrictions on voluntary behavior.
You’re correct the two positions lead to the “same” outcome—but only initially. Eventually, a conflict arises between liberals, who want sanction for a broader range of voluntary self expression, and gay or trans people, who often simply want to fit in as best as they are able. You’re seeing that conflict of interest play out right now. Bostock, which granted equal civil rights to trans people, was immediately accepted by the majority of conservatives. That caused liberals to pivot to causes like drag shows involving voluntary non-conformance, which generated immediate backlash and opposition. For the reasons you explain, liberals can’t tell the difference—to them, it’s self expression, whether it’s voluntary or biologically rooted. But to everyone else that makes a huge difference.
There is a huge wave of anti-trans laws being pushed through by conservative elected officials at the state level right now. They're specifically attacking trans children and school policy, as the soft underbelly that gets conservative parents riled up for a culture war and which is legally more vulnerable.
The culture war came later, when liberals tried to use trans people to promote their own view—which you aptly characterized above—that people should be allowed to express themselves free from traditional social norms and roles. Liberals rushed to promote things like drag shows, which have nothing to do with trans people, and everything to do with voluntary self expression. As RuPaul (a cis man) put it: “Drag says 'I'm a shapeshifter, I do whatever the hell I want at any given time.’” That liberalism is what has “conservative parents riled up for a culture war,” when they mostly didn’t bat an eye at actual advances in trans rights.
I don’t think anyone claims it is completely deterministic.
But it is very significant, to the extent that is may as well as be completely for purposes of discussion or publishing papers.
While there are female lions that act in an atypical manner, the vast majority act similarly enough to say something like “female lions hunt for the pride” without need an asterisk.
The problem is there are a ton of people who try to use that fact to justify forcing everyone to fit the typical trend. "Most people are right hand dominant, so everyone should learn to write right handed or be punished" is the milder historical example. The worst case scenario is "it's legally defensible to murder someone because they don't conform to expected gender roles" https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/member-...
Do you know this to be true for the set of *all* penguins? Or just most of them?
So, when we say "humans have X," it doesn't mean every single human has X. Rather, it means that a significant enough number of humans have X for us to consider it a characteristic of our species.
I mean of all possible mammals to choose as an example for your point (presuming in good faith that your actual point was as stated), penguin is an unusual choice. Maybe you just happened to have penguins in mind as an example of a mammal, I don't know.
Oh, and by the way: penguins aren't mammals! Though I'm sure someone has already pointed that out, or at least I hope they did.
Like everything else, humans have layered social and cultural constructs on top of sex and gender. For example, cultures have different ways of marking the transition from childhood to adulthood. But the fact that e.g. a bar mitzvah is a cultural construct doesn’t mean that the behavioral and social changes accompanying puberty aren’t rooted in biology.