I don't understand how someone can simply adopt stereotypes of another gender, consider themselves that gender, and then be considered that gender. If I'm a man according to my chromosomes, but my mannerisms, grooming, music and fashion choices are considered feminine, am I woman? Or just a feminine man? And if I'm a woman, but I'm still attracted to other women, am I entitled to represent myself as a lesbian? All I've done is choose to express some preferences, and then consider myself a part of a group based on stereotypes of that group. How is that not stereotyping and appropriation? The only thing left is what label I want to put on myself, which is largely meaningless.
> The only thing left is what label I want to put on myself, which is largely meaningless.
That's... that's the point. I'll refer to you however you want to be referred (inb4 helicopter joke). There's nothing more to it. Just accept other people's preference and move on with your day. It's that simple.
I'm fine with that day-to-day. Has literally never been a problem for me. But when it's affirmative action, sports divisions, or in this case, people discussing if a study is reflecting biological sex differences or things people choose to express in a study, yeah let's be really fucking clear that someone is choosing to express social stereotypes and that's not always the same thing as "being a woman".
You're confusing sex with gender. Sex is biological, gender is cultural, albeit often correlated with biology.
For instance - it was once considered perfectly masculine behavior for men to wear pantyhose, high heels and makeup, and to kiss each another on the mouth. Now, those traits would likely be considered feminine (or at least, not masculine.)
Does that mean men were formerly somehow more biologically female, because they expressed what we would consider feminine traits? Obviously not. Was their gender female, then? Not in the context of their own culture, they were men being what men were considered to be.
It does mean the constructs of "masculinity" and "femininity" are not innately biological, and that the correlation between sex and gender is mostly a manifestation of cultural norms, not biological imperative.
All of the confusion in your comment seems to stem from the assumption that sex and gender are a priori the same. You may find Wikipedia's article on gender to be useful[0].
No, I very intentionally never used the word sex, because everything I mentioned was gender. My concern is when stuff that is entirely social (okay, let's keep calling that gender) starts getting codified or labelled, and I'm still confused why we have discrete labels for things that, according to many of the same people using the most labels, are a completely fluid spectrum. I'm okay with completely fluid spectrum, but here's what happened in this HN discussion: someone commented about the research being about "biological genders", and everyone says they're confused. Do a Ctrl+F of the linked article for "Gender" and "Sex" and then tell me that the research isn't also confused because everyone is confused all of the time, especially people who are "confused".
>and I'm still confused why we have discrete labels for things that, according to many of the same people using the most labels, are a completely fluid spectrum.
Visible light is a spectrum, yet we still use labels for distinct colors, despite "color" being arbitrary (a "social construct".) Labels can still be useful for communicating concepts and establishing a common ground, even if they're imprecise, or if different cultures don't even agree on the difference between "blue" and "green."
>Do a Ctrl+F of the linked article for "Gender" and "Sex" and then tell me that the research isn't also confused because everyone is confused all of the time, especially people who are "confused".
Everyone isn't confused all the time. People do disagree, though, and society is still working out just what gender means in the modern day.
That would be expected identities from society, as opposed to the personal identification to one of them.
If you believe that a persons gender identity is put onto them by the expectation of society, might as well forcibly decide which identities are valuable and supress all the rest. It would have no downside.
The distinction between a social construct and biology is artificial. Reading and writing are a social construct but learning to read and write at a young age has a profound impact on your brain structure.[1] I think what you mean to say is that there is no instinctual sense of gender identity that people are born with... that it is purely a learned identity. I'm not certain that is true as gender distinctions are pretty deeply ingrained nearly every culture around the world including most hunter-gather cultures, (The exact extent and nature of the distinction varies, but mere existence of an distinction is close to a constant.) and there is reason to believe that the sexual division of labor was key to the evolution of human sociality, which would make gender identity distinction hundreds of thousands of years old at the youngest. I'd be interested in any studies demonstrating that there is no instinctual component.
The parent is completely correct, why are you fighting it? This isn’t something you can out-logic, the words have definitions. Sex is the biological part and gender is the social & cultural aspects of sex.
According to Merriam-Webster, gender /includes/ the social & cultural aspects of sex. The exclusion of sex from gender is an extremely recent development that isn't widely accepted yet.
Also, motherhood and fatherhood are biologically gender-linked roles. They are measurable biological phenomena that tie strongly into your definition of gender.
Gender doesn’t exclude sex. Gender relates to sex, but it is not the same thing.
> The exclusion of sex from gender is an extremely recent development that isn’t widely accepted yet.
What are you talking about? The use of gender as a sex “role” was coined in 1955, over 60 years ago. Before that “gender” referred to grammatical gender, not to people. So if you use “gender” relating to people, that form of the word has always meant the social aspects of sex, not the biological aspects. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
There was never a time when “gender” meant the same thing as “sex”.
> Also, motherhood and fatherhood are biologically gender-linked roles.
You’re confusing yourself. Being a mother & father are sex based facts. Fatherhood and motherhood as words that can mean that someone is factually a mother or father, or it can in context be referring to the gender roles of motherhood and fatherhood. The stereotype of a father playing catch with a son is a gender role, not biology. You’re choosing words which have both meanings, which doesn’t help you understand what sex and gender actually mean.
If there is nothing innate to the human on Gender identity, if its purely a construct, then you can engage in full repression of gender identities with no consequences.
