I guess people can identify however they want. I think once it gets a little ridiculous or doesn't even relate to gender anymore then it doesn't count but let people do what they want
5
3 Reply
Asker
+1 y
I'm okay with people doing what they want unless it's destructive to themselves or others. In this case, it's self destructive, that's why so many doctors won't perform so called "gender confirmation" surgery.
Hormones aren't good for their physical or mental health, either. About 42% of people with gender dysphoria attempt suicide and that number stays the same after hormones or surgery and they report that they don't feel better afterwards, so it's clearly not helping them. 98% of people with gender dysphoria completely grow out of it and lead normal lives after support, therapy, medication, or just some time. There are only two genders and it doesn't matter how they look, their chromosomes can't be changed. For those reasons, many doctors won't perform surgery and many insurance companies won't cover hormones.
Fricking butthurt millennials have to create genders so that they can feel special and discriminated against. What you people really have is a mental disorder from eating Tide pods, voting for Bernie Sanders, and thinking that adults give a shit about what you think. Go back to your blogs and Fortnight and earn another medal for participating and leave running things to the adults
I finally think I understand. It totally makes perfect sense. I am now Woke AF! Sex is male female. Gender is a social construct, society constructed what gender is. We made it up. There are infinite genders, just make one up and believe. Its playing "Make Believe " They are all playing make believe, and it's fine really, I used do it. I used to it when I was a kid. Hell I was Aquaman
there are 2. you can either assign male, female or both to every behavior and preference. every person has a different set of behavioral patterns and preferences. no man has only male and no woman has only female. we mix and mash and just because we mix and mash we don't magically become something new. we're individual but still nothing more but a composition of male and female characteristics or such that can be assigned to both.
How many dummies posted this? Stop obsessing over the gender thing. It makes you seem dopey. Focus instead on getting your penis pleasured. It is going to waste.
Well it is a relevant topic since laws are being passed. Can a person with a penis born male be allowed in a girls changing room, businesses are boycotting Georgia over their bathroom laws, male born athletes are dominating girls in women's sports, a male born person is fighting women in MMA, people's jobs are being threatened if they don't go along with the numerous gengers movement.
Do not act like this is trivial.
What are we going to teach in biology? What about the medical field? Does factual science biology exist or not?
How dare you try and silence debate and discussion.
@NewUser19 I will take your advice about the stuffed thing but my butt will not be sagging anytime soon. I have good genetics. All of my ancestors had really hot butts way into their older years.
In my language sex and gender are the same. thing, so there are more that 2 just for English speakers? I believe there are 2 plus genetic exceptions which are difficult to put into 1 category.
There are 2 genders. Period. Dosn't matter what language you use. It won't change a biological fact. How did it ever come down to people thinking there was a secret society of lizard people, that the earth is flat, that a man can be a woman. or there are more than 2 genders?
Only two. Male, female. Sometimes people count trans as a third, but they forget that transgender people identify as either male or female, so there's still only two.
Biologically there are only two genders. Spiritually, who knows how many there are? Many Native American tribes had a unique way of looking at this. A woman who exhibited male tendencies was considered to have two spirits residing within her. It was not uncommon for such women to become warriors. Men who exhibited female tendencies were also considered to have two spirits and quite often became teachers.
Psychopaths, sociopaths, rectangles, triangles, octagon, dragon, sleep. Gamers. Half breed, vampire. And i will give out transgender because of how advanced the surgeons have come!
Male, and female! Only two i know of. (Or were born/brought up around)
Give proper examples of how someone can be a particular gender that were/is not from an era they were born in and the world gets a little bit complicated/more complicated than what it already is. The world struggles with two genders as it is already!
Already been put through loops of how someone were not the gender they said/born with.
Here! 👋, wander what it would feel like if people actually started treating others more like humans, and less like assholes whom think they know everything! Thank you for the thumbs down though, feels great to have someone know more, or feel they know more than what they do!
99.9% of time there is only 2 in the rare cases you can be born with both sex organs but that is rare and fixed and solved by doctors at a young age, but that doesn't mean there's more then 2 genders so means something went young. so how can anyone say there's more then 2 genders? if you truly feel that way go educate yourself of sex ed 101.
Anyone that says 2 obviously never heard of a hermaphrodite. I know a girl that outwardly she was a female but she also had male reproductive organs (what are the implications of sexual orientation) I digress, everyone also seems to forget as we developed in the womb we all start out as female until we are given a Y chromosome.
We don't all start out as female. At the very beginning of fertilization, the zygote is either XY or XX. Anything else is an anomaly. The genitals start off in a way that is neither male nor female.
@Xyline789 You can’t discredit anomalies, it’s not necessarily a rare occurrence. This is the heart of the debate. Sure you may not agree with it but there are more than a fair share of people saying I exist this does happen. It happens in nature, with amphibians when there’s an abundance or shortage of male or females they adapt and change sex who’s to say humanity isn’t the same. There’s no precedent bc for the first time in humanity we have close to 8 billion people on the planet
How many colors are there? At the level of biological, psychological, and social complexity that humans are at, very very very little is actually binary. Not even sex is properly 100% binary, why would gender be?
@JaklenHyde because we lump colors into finite categories cause it's useful and kind of accurately describes the pattern, but if you're gonna be precice about it then color is a spectrum with an effectively infinite number of points on it.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch A. Chromosomes aren't the only thing that defines sex. B. Sex isn't synonymous with gender. C. There are chromosomal combinations possible in humans other than XX or XY.
But there is a binary factor in the presence or lack thereof of the Y chromosome. Secondly, I would like a direct definition of gender. If it is a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex, then there is are two regularly defined normality curves depicting scales of such things. Attributes are in gradients, that is true, but groupings of these attributes have only ever followed one curve. Outliers do not indicate false premises. If you define gender as something other than what I have described, please enlighten me.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Sure? By and large, humans pattern into two groups in terms of sex. But that pattern is not perfectly binary, because outliers do exist. It's like I said, we lump things into finite categories because it's useful, and because often it accurately describes the actual patterns that appear. BUT those finite categories ARE NOT perfect representations of the actual pattern, and pretending that they are is simply inaccurate.
As for how I define gender, I'd probably define it as social/cultural/psychological categories that people fall into, which are generally correlated with sex. So yes, gender tends to align with sex, which is largely but not perfectly binary. However, not only is sex not actually perfectly binary, but gender doesn't match up perfectly with sex, and is a rather more complicated category and thus even more prone to patterning like a spectrum rather than as truly distinct categories.
First off, would you agree that two categories are created by the question of the presence of a Y chromosome? Secondly, with such a broad definition, doesn't gender also cover Sci-Fi lovers vs Mystery lovers, or those who like chocolate ice cream from vanilla? These are also social aspects of identity.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Sure. That would be a binary way of dividing up the pattern we see. However, that way of dividing up the pattern isn't the method we use to class people as "male" or "female" sex-wise. Are you suggesting that it should be?
And yeah, gender is vague and nobody really has a great definition of it. That is part of the problem of trying to nail down precise gender categories. Nevertheless, gender is a thing that does seem to exist, socially certainly, innately maybe. But whether it's some inherent part of our brains or just some vague socially constructed category, it doesn't seem to be as neatly distributed as sex.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch definitions are by nature inexact, especially when they define a category like gender. Words are naturally used flexibly, mapping to general patterns, not to a set of very specific traits. Gender is used A LOT of different ways. The way I'm using it is to draw a distinction between sex, a set of biological factors that divide people into general categories, and the way that people are socially categorized into different groups that are somewhat mapped onto sex, which I call gender. The issue is that like most social groups, how gender is classified is kind of vague, or at least based on so many variables that no individual can identify each and every variable perfectly on the spot. The fact that the definition reflects that doesn't make the definition inaccurate.
"a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex, then there is are two regularly defined normality curves depicting scales of such things. Attributes are in gradients, that is true, but groupings of these attributes have only ever followed one curve. Outliers do not indicate false premises." I believe I said that earlier. While there are many attributes that are not directly correlated with what we would regularly reference, there is most definitely two distinct groupings (performed by a two-way ANOVA test) of nearly every characteristic worth testing at all.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch So then what does it mean to be a woman, as far as gender goes? As I would understand your definition, it would be generally having/fitting the habits, beliefs, and actions associated with the female sex? Honestly, that's not really too far off from my definition, I just tried to distance my definition from sex somewhat because that's how gender is understood in the community where I live.
And can you cite that test? Also, what does happen when someone doesn't fall into either of the two distinct groupings? What gender would you classify them as?
The existence of outliers does, I think, indicate false premises if the premise is a strict binary. A general binary is reasonable- again, the whole way we make categories is describing general patterns, meaning that while the categories aren't perfectly defined, they're still useful and still describing a real pattern. But it still happens that things crop up which can make us either create a new category or redefine the existing ones (like when Pluto was reclassified as not a planet because they discovered a shitload of other space rocks the same size and decided they didn't want to classify all those as planets too, so they changed the definitions being used so that the categories made more useful distinctions).
This is one. Outliers are expected in any normal distribution. If they weren't present, concerns as to the validity of the curve would arise. If you take, for example, the trait "agreeableness", and test everyone for it, then begin isolating factors, one particular grouping arises. Agreeableness was found to be significantly different between the groups of biological sex, even though it is a "gender construct." There isn't such a thing as not belonging to a curve. If there are enough outliers, the curve needs to change to match. No matter how high a man's agreeableness, or how low a woman's, they still (on average) belong to different curves. Note how on the graph there are men higher than women, and women lower than men. Just because they are an outlier, it does not dictate a different or much less unique curve.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Not that significantly different really. The study itself says "All of the mean differences we found (and all of the differences that have been found in the past – e. g., Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001) are small to moderate. This means that the distributions of traits for men and women are largely overlapping."
In other words, you can't actually sort people into two distinct categories that correspond to gender based on the results from a study like this. To make a binary category distinction useful/accurate, you need to make the categories such that they aren't largely overlapping.
We aren't different species. Similar differences have been found between men and apes - largely overlapping in IQ, but are still schotastically dominant in that area. Large differences are not what determine different sample populations. The question is in regard to the P-value, a question of the statistical difference between potential populations. Men and women largely overlap in size as well, but men are schotastically dominant in height. In other words, men and women are clearly different, regardless of the immense overlap.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Your mention of species is a good example. Species are not nearly so distinct as our categories make them out to be, especially in regards to species that are on the same evolutionary "branch" but later/earlier in time. We just arbitrarily choose characteristics to class a group of animals into one species or another.
Also, my point here is that by this measure, it is NOT POSSIBLE to distinctly categorize people into male or female as far as gender goes. What happens to the women who fall closer to the masculine average than the feminine one? Do we classify them as men even if they disagree? What about the overlapping area? Are those people both male and female at once? How do you suggest using this measure to actually categorize people?
First off, I spoke of outliers being expected in any curve. No, a masculine woman is still female. Even if she says she isn't. I'm not suggesting we use this to determine, but that the patterns are clearly stochastically distinctive, and that they form two distinct curves. Monkeys and human are only different arbitrarily? Very well. Then I think I am done with this conversation. Humans and monkeys are the same? Alright, I'm done.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch What then, do you suggest that we use to define gender? If you can't find a measure that can actually be used to divide gender into a binary, then why insist that it's binary? People who grew up in poverty vs in wealth will likely have statistically significant differences on some psychological measure, but that doesn't mean that poor/rich is a strict binary.
Dude, do you not understand how speciation works? Yes, there are objective differences between monkeys and humans. But there are objective differences between one human and another human. There's objective differences between green and red. As far as speciation is concerned, the ancestors of humans are at some point considered a different species. Exactly where rhat boundary is drawn IS arbitrary, just like drawing the boundary between two different colors.
I do, and always have, used biological sex to determine gender. The research suggests that the two biological sexes have statistically different curves on differing attributes, stretching even to those who consider themselves of the other gender.
Though there is little research on the subject (obviously) the presence of the Y chromosome is inherently binary. Too few intersex individuals have been present to be studied, so it's hard to continue to apply. I would apply Occam's Razor to that situation.
Secondly, while wealth and color are both gradients, sex is more like whether or not you are a legal owner of US property. Wealth is correlated with those who are, as agreeableness is with those who do not have a Y chromosome. Not entirely predicted, but statistically different.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch That's not how you defined it though. As far as I understand it, you defined it as "a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex". Meaning that if someone has the habits, beliefs, and actions stereotypically associated with the female sex, then they are of female gender, even if they are biologically male.
Also, defining sex as synonymous with gender is simply not a useful definition, and not the one that I am talking about when I describe gender as non-binary. When I use the term "gender", I am using it to specifically talk about something OTHER than sex. In particular, the social categories that correspond to behaviors/attributes we deem "masculine" or "feminine". If you are using "gender" as synonymous with "sex", then we shouldn't be having this conversation because we are talking about different things.
Why is sex different from wealth? Simply because you can choose some arbitrary attribute to divide people into binary categories? If we choose a specific amount of money/resources that someone has to have to be considered "wealthy", and consider all others "poor", we've made binary categories. Point is, the defining feature is still just as arbitrary, and the factor causing people to fall into categories with apparently statistically significant differences is realistically just as much of a spectrum (slightly less perhaps, though it depends on how even wealth distribution is in the population being measured).
First off, I never said gender was precisely synonymous with sex. I do believe that it is the social representation of your biological gender. A disagreeable woman is just that, a disagreeable woman. Just because men are overall less agreeable does not mean that anyone that's disagreeable is male. Just as not everyone that is tall is male.
The difference with wealth is that we aren't drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. There is a difference between a gradient and an exact category. Wealth is a gradient. Sex is an exact category. The difference is just like the difference between fewer and less. You can have less wealth. You cannot have less Y chromosomes. You can have fewer chromosomes.
You have, or you have not. People don't have varying degrees of Y chromosomes. As for masculinity, there is such thing as a masculine woman, but her gender remains female, albeit perhaps a disagreeable one. Masculinity is a gradient, but gender is not equivalent to masculinity or femininity. Gender dives deeper, even to the point of base instincts. Personality and gender are not equivalent. The reason I brought up the traits is for the sole purpose of demonstrating two curves.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch "I do, and always have, used biological sex to determine gender" Explain. What do you suggest the determining factor should be to categorize someone as one gender or another? If it's sex, as your quote seems to imply, then sex defines gender. If it's something else, say what that is.
You are choosing an arbitrary factor. The fact that chromosomes aren't the only thing that scientists use to determine sex clearly demonstrates that your choice of chromosomes is arbitrary- even the experts don't use it as the sole characteristic that defines sex. Also, even if we chose property ownership, as you suggest, I would think we'd see just a spectrum just the same in terms of the effects it has on people's psychology (again, depending on wealth stratification etc). You can't just pick a factor, and say that the fact that it's present for some people but not others creates useful binary categories. You may manage to create two distinct groups, but those two distinct groups aren't necessarily important, and don't necessarily reflect two categories that actually act differently or are treated differently in the real world.
Look, I'm sure that we could argue for months and not result in a change in either of our minds. It has been a pleasure exchanging logics with you, but I find that continuing in this line of logical discussion pointless and overall depressing. Agree to disagree?
Two with the exception of people born with chromosomal/hormonal conditions that affects their biological sexual characteristics, such as people with Klinefelter Syndrome.
I have to agree with you Rangers. There's no way around it.
2
0 Reply
Anonymous
(30-35)
+1 y
Isn't it interesting that gender reassignment surgeries only offer male or female? Why does nobody choose to be a eunuch? Or a hermaphrodite (why not both?)
Why do non-binary sites state that your specific gender lies on a spectrum between *gasp* male and female?
I'm not an expert on this topic, and I'm not trans either so I'll just go with what science says. Which is that gender isn't the same thing as biological sex, and insisting there are only two genders doesn't reflect reality.
Socially: 2. Biologically: 2. Because even if you have male & female organs only one will be capable of reproduction. And you will look like one of the normal genders outwardly.
What Girls & Guys Said
Opinion
121Opinion
I guess people can identify however they want. I think once it gets a little ridiculous or doesn't even relate to gender anymore then it doesn't count but let people do what they want
I'm okay with people doing what they want unless it's destructive to themselves or others. In this case, it's self destructive, that's why so many doctors won't perform so called "gender confirmation" surgery.
Not every change of gender requires surgery.
Hormones aren't good for their physical or mental health, either. About 42% of people with gender dysphoria attempt suicide and that number stays the same after hormones or surgery and they report that they don't feel better afterwards, so it's clearly not helping them. 98% of people with gender dysphoria completely grow out of it and lead normal lives after support, therapy, medication, or just some time. There are only two genders and it doesn't matter how they look, their chromosomes can't be changed. For those reasons, many doctors won't perform surgery and many insurance companies won't cover hormones.
Masculine, Feminine, Common, and Neuter.
Though English makes less use of these, in other other languages, the use of different genders is very common for nouns.
en.wikipedia.org/.../List_of_languages_by_type_of_grammatical_genders
Fricking butthurt millennials have to create genders so that they can feel special and discriminated against. What you people really have is a mental disorder from eating Tide pods, voting for Bernie Sanders, and thinking that adults give a shit about what you think. Go back to your blogs and Fortnight and earn another medal for participating and leave running things to the adults
I finally think I understand. It totally makes perfect sense. I am now Woke AF! Sex is male female. Gender is a social construct, society constructed what gender is. We made it up. There are infinite genders, just make one up and believe. Its playing "Make Believe "
They are all playing make believe, and it's fine really, I used do it. I used to it when I was a kid. Hell I was Aquaman
Aquaman is still male.
Not a gender bro.
Lol. Yeah that's fair so am I no confusion here
there are 2. you can either assign male, female or both to every behavior and preference. every person has a different set of behavioral patterns and preferences. no man has only male and no woman has only female. we mix and mash and just because we mix and mash we don't magically become something new. we're individual but still nothing more but a composition of male and female characteristics or such that can be assigned to both.
How many dummies posted this?
Stop obsessing over the gender thing. It makes you seem dopey.
Focus instead on getting your penis pleasured. It is going to waste.
Well it is a relevant topic since laws are being passed.
Can a person with a penis born male be allowed in a girls changing room, businesses are boycotting Georgia over their bathroom laws, male born athletes are dominating girls in women's sports, a male born person is fighting women in MMA, people's jobs are being threatened if they don't go along with the numerous gengers movement.
Do not act like this is trivial.
What are we going to teach in biology?
What about the medical field?
Does factual science biology exist or not?
How dare you try and silence debate and discussion.
@Miristheiss "How dare you try and silence debate and discussion."
I did the opposite, you ridiculous dunderhead.
I'll post it if I want to
You already posted it. Who stopped you? The dunderheadedness is strong with this one.
Why are you concerned with what others are talking about go get that cute butt stuffed with some dick, its going to sag soon
@NewUser19 I will take your advice about the stuffed thing but my butt will not be sagging anytime soon. I have good genetics. All of my ancestors had really hot butts way into their older years.
They must have really small asses
@supercutebutt please sit on my face and lap. I'll will take you to dinner. Your choice.
I would rather they never get sex
@JohnnySigma85 Dude nobody even knows what this fruit looks like,
@newuser19 so?
@NewUser19 U calling my butt a piece of fruit? Why, because I have a peach for my pic?
I like to eat fruit. Especially peaches. I can eat a peach for hours😏
@WolfyGirl2077 I agree with Wolfy :)
Well I'm being ignored. Guess I'll go back to my corner now.
@JohnnySigma85 Do you have a stylish dunce cap you can wear while sitting in that corner?
It's a pussy hat.
Look if you wanted my worm in your peach all you had to say was please
In my language sex and gender are the same. thing, so there are more that 2 just for English speakers?
I believe there are 2 plus genetic exceptions which are difficult to put into 1 category.
I have no idea when sex and gender became separate either
There are 2 genders. Period. Dosn't matter what language you use. It won't change a biological fact. How did it ever come down to people thinking there was a secret society of lizard people, that the earth is flat, that a man can be a woman. or there are more than 2 genders?
Where tf did we fail?
Only two. Male, female. Sometimes people count trans as a third, but they forget that transgender people identify as either male or female, so there's still only two.
Biologically there are only two genders. Spiritually, who knows how many there are? Many Native American tribes had a unique way of looking at this. A woman who exhibited male tendencies was considered to have two spirits residing within her. It was not uncommon for such women to become warriors. Men who exhibited female tendencies were also considered to have two spirits and quite often became teachers.
Psychopaths, sociopaths, rectangles, triangles, octagon, dragon, sleep. Gamers. Half breed, vampire. And i will give out transgender because of how advanced the surgeons have come!
Male, and female! Only two i know of. (Or were born/brought up around)
Give proper examples of how someone can be a particular gender that were/is not from an era they were born in and the world gets a little bit complicated/more complicated than what it already is. The world struggles with two genders as it is already!
Already been put through loops of how someone were not the gender they said/born with.
Here! 👋, wander what it would feel like if people actually started treating others more like humans, and less like assholes whom think they know everything! Thank you for the thumbs down though, feels great to have someone know more, or feel they know more than what they do!
Property huh?
@LunaS
It seems like some people can't take a joke :P
99.9% of time there is only 2 in the rare cases you can be born with both sex organs but that is rare and fixed and solved by doctors at a young age, but that doesn't mean there's more then 2 genders so means something went young. so how can anyone say there's more then 2 genders? if you truly feel that way go educate yourself of sex ed 101.
Anyone that says 2 obviously never heard of a hermaphrodite. I know a girl that outwardly she was a female but she also had male reproductive organs (what are the implications of sexual orientation) I digress, everyone also seems to forget as we developed in the womb we all start out as female until we are given a Y chromosome.
All we want is to be ourselves without fear of persecution, I don’t care about the minutiae.
Imagine how complicated it gets if we ever found an alien civilization, intergalactic relationships or sentient robots and robosexuals
People don't look around enough up to what you have seen
That's a pathology not a different gender.
We don't all start out as female. At the very beginning of fertilization, the zygote is either XY or XX. Anything else is an anomaly. The genitals start off in a way that is neither male nor female.
@Xyline789 You can’t discredit anomalies, it’s not necessarily a rare occurrence. This is the heart of the debate. Sure you may not agree with it but there are more than a fair share of people saying I exist this does happen. It happens in nature, with amphibians when there’s an abundance or shortage of male or females they adapt and change sex who’s to say humanity isn’t the same. There’s no precedent bc for the first time in humanity we have close to 8 billion people on the planet
How many colors are there? At the level of biological, psychological, and social complexity that humans are at, very very very little is actually binary. Not even sex is properly 100% binary, why would gender be?
But how is human sexuality comparable to colours?
@JaklenHyde because we lump colors into finite categories cause it's useful and kind of accurately describes the pattern, but if you're gonna be precice about it then color is a spectrum with an effectively infinite number of points on it.
Interesting.
There are gradients of chromosomes, then?
@Nobody-gives-a-finch A. Chromosomes aren't the only thing that defines sex. B. Sex isn't synonymous with gender. C. There are chromosomal combinations possible in humans other than XX or XY.
But there is a binary factor in the presence or lack thereof of the Y chromosome.
Secondly, I would like a direct definition of gender. If it is a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex, then there is are two regularly defined normality curves depicting scales of such things. Attributes are in gradients, that is true, but groupings of these attributes have only ever followed one curve. Outliers do not indicate false premises.
If you define gender as something other than what I have described, please enlighten me.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Sure? By and large, humans pattern into two groups in terms of sex. But that pattern is not perfectly binary, because outliers do exist. It's like I said, we lump things into finite categories because it's useful, and because often it accurately describes the actual patterns that appear. BUT those finite categories ARE NOT perfect representations of the actual pattern, and pretending that they are is simply inaccurate.
As for how I define gender, I'd probably define it as social/cultural/psychological categories that people fall into, which are generally correlated with sex. So yes, gender tends to align with sex, which is largely but not perfectly binary. However, not only is sex not actually perfectly binary, but gender doesn't match up perfectly with sex, and is a rather more complicated category and thus even more prone to patterning like a spectrum rather than as truly distinct categories.
First off, would you agree that two categories are created by the question of the presence of a Y chromosome?
Secondly, with such a broad definition, doesn't gender also cover Sci-Fi lovers vs Mystery lovers, or those who like chocolate ice cream from vanilla? These are also social aspects of identity.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Sure. That would be a binary way of dividing up the pattern we see. However, that way of dividing up the pattern isn't the method we use to class people as "male" or "female" sex-wise. Are you suggesting that it should be?
And yeah, gender is vague and nobody really has a great definition of it. That is part of the problem of trying to nail down precise gender categories. Nevertheless, gender is a thing that does seem to exist, socially certainly, innately maybe. But whether it's some inherent part of our brains or just some vague socially constructed category, it doesn't seem to be as neatly distributed as sex.
How can you claim something exists when you can't even define what it is you are looking for?
@Nobody-gives-a-finch definitions are by nature inexact, especially when they define a category like gender. Words are naturally used flexibly, mapping to general patterns, not to a set of very specific traits. Gender is used A LOT of different ways. The way I'm using it is to draw a distinction between sex, a set of biological factors that divide people into general categories, and the way that people are socially categorized into different groups that are somewhat mapped onto sex, which I call gender. The issue is that like most social groups, how gender is classified is kind of vague, or at least based on so many variables that no individual can identify each and every variable perfectly on the spot. The fact that the definition reflects that doesn't make the definition inaccurate.
How would you define gender, by the way?
"a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex, then there is are two regularly defined normality curves depicting scales of such things. Attributes are in gradients, that is true, but groupings of these attributes have only ever followed one curve. Outliers do not indicate false premises."
I believe I said that earlier. While there are many attributes that are not directly correlated with what we would regularly reference, there is most definitely two distinct groupings (performed by a two-way ANOVA test) of nearly every characteristic worth testing at all.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch So then what does it mean to be a woman, as far as gender goes? As I would understand your definition, it would be generally having/fitting the habits, beliefs, and actions associated with the female sex? Honestly, that's not really too far off from my definition, I just tried to distance my definition from sex somewhat because that's how gender is understood in the community where I live.
And can you cite that test? Also, what does happen when someone doesn't fall into either of the two distinct groupings? What gender would you classify them as?
The existence of outliers does, I think, indicate false premises if the premise is a strict binary. A general binary is reasonable- again, the whole way we make categories is describing general patterns, meaning that while the categories aren't perfectly defined, they're still useful and still describing a real pattern. But it still happens that things crop up which can make us either create a new category or redefine the existing ones (like when Pluto was reclassified as not a planet because they discovered a shitload of other space rocks the same size and decided they didn't want to classify all those as planets too, so they changed the definitions being used so that the categories made more useful distinctions).
www.researchgate.net/.../Overlapping-distributions-of-Agreeableness-for-men-and-women-Vertical-axis-indicates_fig10_51594567
This is one.
Outliers are expected in any normal distribution. If they weren't present, concerns as to the validity of the curve would arise.
If you take, for example, the trait "agreeableness", and test everyone for it, then begin isolating factors, one particular grouping arises. Agreeableness was found to be significantly different between the groups of biological sex, even though it is a "gender construct."
There isn't such a thing as not belonging to a curve. If there are enough outliers, the curve needs to change to match. No matter how high a man's agreeableness, or how low a woman's, they still (on average) belong to different curves. Note how on the graph there are men higher than women, and women lower than men. Just because they are an outlier, it does not dictate a different or much less unique curve.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Not that significantly different really. The study itself says "All of the mean differences we found (and all of the differences that have been found in the past – e. g., Feingold, 1994; Costa et al., 2001) are small to moderate. This means that the distributions of traits for men and women are largely overlapping."
In other words, you can't actually sort people into two distinct categories that correspond to gender based on the results from a study like this. To make a binary category distinction useful/accurate, you need to make the categories such that they aren't largely overlapping.
We aren't different species. Similar differences have been found between men and apes - largely overlapping in IQ, but are still schotastically dominant in that area.
Large differences are not what determine different sample populations. The question is in regard to the P-value, a question of the statistical difference between potential populations.
Men and women largely overlap in size as well, but men are schotastically dominant in height. In other words, men and women are clearly different, regardless of the immense overlap.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch Your mention of species is a good example. Species are not nearly so distinct as our categories make them out to be, especially in regards to species that are on the same evolutionary "branch" but later/earlier in time. We just arbitrarily choose characteristics to class a group of animals into one species or another.
Also, my point here is that by this measure, it is NOT POSSIBLE to distinctly categorize people into male or female as far as gender goes. What happens to the women who fall closer to the masculine average than the feminine one? Do we classify them as men even if they disagree? What about the overlapping area? Are those people both male and female at once? How do you suggest using this measure to actually categorize people?
First off, I spoke of outliers being expected in any curve. No, a masculine woman is still female. Even if she says she isn't.
I'm not suggesting we use this to determine, but that the patterns are clearly stochastically distinctive, and that they form two distinct curves.
Monkeys and human are only different arbitrarily? Very well. Then I think I am done with this conversation.
Humans and monkeys are the same? Alright, I'm done.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch What then, do you suggest that we use to define gender? If you can't find a measure that can actually be used to divide gender into a binary, then why insist that it's binary? People who grew up in poverty vs in wealth will likely have statistically significant differences on some psychological measure, but that doesn't mean that poor/rich is a strict binary.
Dude, do you not understand how speciation works? Yes, there are objective differences between monkeys and humans. But there are objective differences between one human and another human. There's objective differences between green and red. As far as speciation is concerned, the ancestors of humans are at some point considered a different species. Exactly where rhat boundary is drawn IS arbitrary, just like drawing the boundary between two different colors.
I do, and always have, used biological sex to determine gender. The research suggests that the two biological sexes have statistically different curves on differing attributes, stretching even to those who consider themselves of the other gender.
Though there is little research on the subject (obviously) the presence of the Y chromosome is inherently binary. Too few intersex individuals have been present to be studied, so it's hard to continue to apply. I would apply Occam's Razor to that situation.
Secondly, while wealth and color are both gradients, sex is more like whether or not you are a legal owner of US property. Wealth is correlated with those who are, as agreeableness is with those who do not have a Y chromosome. Not entirely predicted, but statistically different.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch That's not how you defined it though. As far as I understand it, you defined it as "a series of habits, beliefs, and actions associated stereo-typically with a biological sex". Meaning that if someone has the habits, beliefs, and actions stereotypically associated with the female sex, then they are of female gender, even if they are biologically male.
Also, defining sex as synonymous with gender is simply not a useful definition, and not the one that I am talking about when I describe gender as non-binary. When I use the term "gender", I am using it to specifically talk about something OTHER than sex. In particular, the social categories that correspond to behaviors/attributes we deem "masculine" or "feminine". If you are using "gender" as synonymous with "sex", then we shouldn't be having this conversation because we are talking about different things.
Why is sex different from wealth? Simply because you can choose some arbitrary attribute to divide people into binary categories? If we choose a specific amount of money/resources that someone has to have to be considered "wealthy", and consider all others "poor", we've made binary categories. Point is, the defining feature is still just as arbitrary, and the factor causing people to fall into categories with apparently statistically significant differences is realistically just as much of a spectrum (slightly less perhaps, though it depends on how even wealth distribution is in the population being measured).
First off, I never said gender was precisely synonymous with sex. I do believe that it is the social representation of your biological gender. A disagreeable woman is just that, a disagreeable woman. Just because men are overall less agreeable does not mean that anyone that's disagreeable is male. Just as not everyone that is tall is male.
The difference with wealth is that we aren't drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. There is a difference between a gradient and an exact category. Wealth is a gradient. Sex is an exact category.
The difference is just like the difference between fewer and less. You can have less wealth. You cannot have less Y chromosomes. You can have fewer chromosomes.
You have, or you have not. People don't have varying degrees of Y chromosomes. As for masculinity, there is such thing as a masculine woman, but her gender remains female, albeit perhaps a disagreeable one. Masculinity is a gradient, but gender is not equivalent to masculinity or femininity. Gender dives deeper, even to the point of base instincts. Personality and gender are not equivalent. The reason I brought up the traits is for the sole purpose of demonstrating two curves.
@Nobody-gives-a-finch "I do, and always have, used biological sex to determine gender" Explain. What do you suggest the determining factor should be to categorize someone as one gender or another? If it's sex, as your quote seems to imply, then sex defines gender. If it's something else, say what that is.
You are choosing an arbitrary factor. The fact that chromosomes aren't the only thing that scientists use to determine sex clearly demonstrates that your choice of chromosomes is arbitrary- even the experts don't use it as the sole characteristic that defines sex. Also, even if we chose property ownership, as you suggest, I would think we'd see just a spectrum just the same in terms of the effects it has on people's psychology (again, depending on wealth stratification etc). You can't just pick a factor, and say that the fact that it's present for some people but not others creates useful binary categories. You may manage to create two distinct groups, but those two distinct groups aren't necessarily important, and don't necessarily reflect two categories that actually act differently or are treated differently in the real world.
That's what the study was for.
Look, I'm sure that we could argue for months and not result in a change in either of our minds. It has been a pleasure exchanging logics with you, but I find that continuing in this line of logical discussion pointless and overall depressing.
Agree to disagree?
Two with the exception of people born with chromosomal/hormonal conditions that affects their biological sexual characteristics, such as people with Klinefelter Syndrome.
I have to agree with you Rangers. There's no way around it.
Isn't it interesting that gender reassignment surgeries only offer male or female? Why does nobody choose to be a eunuch? Or a hermaphrodite (why not both?)
Why do non-binary sites state that your specific gender lies on a spectrum between *gasp* male and female?
There are like 50 genders that are social constructs but only 2 biological.
50 genders? what makes you say that?
I'm not an expert on this topic, and I'm not trans either so I'll just go with what science says. Which is that gender isn't the same thing as biological sex, and insisting there are only two genders doesn't reflect reality.
Socially: 2.
Biologically: 2. Because even if you have male & female organs only one will be capable of reproduction. And you will look like one of the normal genders outwardly.