That’s a difficult question because there isn’t a definitive answer. Gender and sex are often used interchangeably but they aren’t the same thing. Sex is biological and there are only two sexes. Gender is more of a social construct, a range of characteristics that define you as masculine or feminine…. or something else. The concept of the word has evolved somewhat because the human race has changed and gender identity doesn’t neatly fit into two categories anymore. In my mind, there are really 3 genders…. masculine, feminine, and non-binary. Non-binary is kind of an umbrella term that encompasses everyone who doesn’t fit the traditional masculine/feminine mold and have characteristics of both. Some people attempt to break this down further but it gets confusing (to me anyway). Then you have agender, which is the absence of any gender identity at all. I know this is controversial to some people and I’ll probably get hateful comments for it but denial doesn’t make it go away. Fearing change doesn’t prevent it from happening.
No. Some cultures traditionally only consider two genders (e. g. most cultures close to Christianity and Islam), while other cultures consider more, and some others don't have a notion of gender.
Since you're writing on this forum, in English, I assume that you are familiar with some of these cultures that consider gender to be binary (i. e. only two gender options). You probably also known that some people define their gender in a way that doesn't fit in the traditions of their culture. E. g. non-binary people use a gender definition that is less traditional, and works better with their own gender.
It's not accurate to say there are only two sexes, biologically. Biology doesn't really care that much about sexing individuals. You are thinking about roles in the reproductive function (hosting egg, and fertilizing it), which indeed are two. But not every human can reproduce. Classifying people into two reproductive roles kinda works for some reasons (e. g. if you want to have children, you know) but not everybody fits in that classification either.
I added some more stuff about this in the answers to this question: What’s the difference between Sex and Gender?
No. That wouldn't make sense. Of course there is more realistically and in biologically there is 3? so don't know where you got 2 from?
Intersex been a mixture of both making the 3rd the in-between With a current degree of speaking of actually up to more than that since Intersex can be XXY, XYY and etc, each extra chromosome can be looked at as a different sex since biologically it is very different we just chose to categorise them more to there outwards appearance for social reasoning.
So anyway i say to this biological fact right here physically, if that don't lead you to understand there can be In-between gender aswell and you really only think it's black and white as there is only 2. Then your just ignoring what this clearly shows.
Nvm i haven't even talked about how the actual psychology works behind it, i've just given an example of how it would work in a physical form so of course it can work in a psychological form. But i can tell you there is plenty good reasoning in the psychological works of it too.
One can choose to remain in his fantasy that everything is black and white though, and the creatures aren't super complex.
No. There are only 2 sexes. Biologically only 2. (Male and Female). Unless a person is born intersex, but thats only around 2% of the entire population.
Gender is a social construct, I call it how I see it. If I think you are a woman ill use she pronouns, if I think you are a man I will use he pronouns. Feel free to correct me, but don't expect me to give a shit. Or at least care enough to keep up with your pronouns or whatever gender you identify as.
I hate how obessed modern society is with lables. I treat people based off how they act, not by what they identify as.
Opinion
147Opinion
The more you try to define biological genders or what a man/woman really are the less it makes sense and less meaningful they become. They might make some sense in or society which is why we use them as part of our identity however the moment you get into biology our common understanding of genders simply break down since that is not at all how biology works. In fact, biology rarely do anything based on binary yes or no choice (such as male or female) so this is hardly a surprise.
Saying its a spectrum is more correct and it also translates better into reality where you can use it to explain many oddities that a simple male/female definition could not but this is also fundamentally wrong. Biology dont give a fuck about "male" or "female" and is just doing its own thing. We can arbitrarily claim one part is male or female as it smashes them together but in reality its really nothing that defined and just a product of random mutation.
Perhaps my favorite biological fact regarding "genders" is that the male chromosome is unstable and the reason it is shorter than the female chromosome is because it is slowly falling apart and will disappear entirely within time. Of course this is still a long ways away, 10 million years perhaps or even longer. Point is that Biology dont give a fuck about "males" or "females".
It has produced "biological sexes" before "males and females" where a thing and it will do so after both of them, as we see it, disappears. As such while it is interesting and important on a biological level and a psychological level to argue about the complicated details of gender it is a conversation that quite frankly makes no sense to us normal people and carries no real value to our lives. As such we can pretend that we have two genders or, if we are so inclined, that we have a spectrum that we fall within even if both are wrong.
The most uncomplicated question in the world just 5 years ago. Yes, of course. You can change your appearance, you cannot change what you are. You can lie to people and tell them you are something you are not, but that won't change what you are. You can force other people to indulge your lie by coercing them into using words that don't actually apply to you, but that will not change what you are.
Sadly, the fall out and the casualties from this multi-gender fad is going to be tragic. A woman who takes testosterone, will never be able to reverse what it does to them. And men, less so, but still cannot fully recover from estrogen therapy.
I know a parent who is going through this, because his kid got this tranny shit in his head by his online "friends". The man is in a living hell and it's not funny. The whole family is suffering mightily because of what this kid is doing.
Sadly, for this guy and for many, this fad will pass and his son will be permanently altered in such a way that he will not be able to live comfortably as a man or a woman.
Gender was sex until people decided to change the definition (which anyone can do) so let's suppose that gender and sex are different.
I've heard countless times that the reason people want to be classified by a different gender is because they feel like they don't relate to the "typical gender roles" of men or women, which is irrelevant because one does not need to be the typical member of a gender to be part of that gender. For example, I can act like a parrot and "feel" like a parrot (whatever that means) but regardless of that, I am a human. I am not being stopped from behaving how I choose to behave.
Regardless of that, the reason the classification of biological sex is used is because it has utility. As far as I'm concerned, gender identity has no utility and unless I'm incorrect, it does not need to be a question asked by application processes.
The only purposes it serves are to burden OTHER people with the task of remembering these pronouns, to give unnecessary power to attention seekers and to allow people to be at peace with lying to themselves about their biology; none of which are beneficial.
Interesting question. There are 2 parts to my answer.
Yes, I think there are 2 genders. At the end of the day, there are men and women, boys and girls, male and female. Anything beyond that is our own interpretations.
While I believe this, I also believe that every person has a right to their own identity and that should be respected, as long as it is not harmful to anyone else. If you were born Joe and you would like me to refer to you as Johanna and she/her, I’ve got no problem with that.
Saying this is going to be controversial.
And basically what I believe is this.
there's only man and woman.
Male and female.
If your sex organs are of either or the other then you are one or the other.
Occasionally people are born with both and that makes them intersexed. In most cases the parents opt to assign a gender for the baby, but very few leave them for their child to decide when they are old enough.
If someone has surgery to change the gender they were born with they would be classified as a transgender.
Two genders and a whole lot of moods and oddities. Just because you dont fit all of the stereotypes perfectly doesn't mean you can invent new genders and be taken seriously. Until "orcish chieftain" is a gender, there are only two. If orcish chieftain, which would be my choice of identity, is considered gender, it no longer has any connection to sex. I think we are on a trajectory to exactly that at this point. Unless the crazies give up, the word gender will lose all meaning beyond "whatever you feel like, what inspires you, what you would like to be if you could".
Or a conservative revival takes over and we land back in the realm of reality. I don't mind either way, honestly.
There are two biological sexes, male and female. There are physical exceptions similar to a handicap, eg DNA showing your neither fully male neither fully female. These exceptions are not too widespread and should be treated as medical issues to help with.
People can express their gender as they wish, they don’t hurt me with that and if they’re happy with that, who am I to comment. My issue is with gender reassignment surgery, people should not cut off healthy body parts. This fits for me in the category or self harm and deserves all the psychological/psychiatric it can get.
This topic is flawed.
There are no 'right or wrong' answers, yet people believe there are. So they continue to fight, and fight, and fight. But at the end of the day, who cares what another person thinks, believes, or says. Just move on with your opinion, and ignore the other people if it bothers you to that degree.
There's no reason for this to turn into an argument. Just move on and ignore it. Let people do what they desire. You don't have to like it, but NOBODY has a right to say someone can't do something when it is not hurting anyone else (This goes for both sides of the argument).
Simple answer: No.
As this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender states, most societies have binary genders: male/female, but there are other genders as well, depending on the society.
From my high school biology class, all humans have combinations of X and Y chromosomes, XX for female, XY for male, but there are some people who have an extra X or Y chromosome as well.
There are two genders and seventy-two different types of gay.
When you order a shirt online there are two different ways to size it. One would be male and the other female. Data for disease is categorized as male or female not anything else. To believe that there can be more than two genders is to not believe in science. If you want to be something you aren't go ahead and be that, but do not try to confuse everyone else.
Yes there's 2 genders. Not all gender roles or behaviors can clearly be sorted in either of those 2. So they can end up somewhere in between. People are currently trying to give this in between sports new names and assign genders to them. Which is bullshit. there's just man and woman. There's also neutral but that's not a 3rd gender. That's just not a gender.
Then there's intersex, which is a term for rare deformities of the primary sex Organs. That also isn't a 3rd gender. That's either man, woman or both or a mixture.
I don't think it's a scientific question anymore unless we can say that there exist more than two such classifications for each of the dimorphic species. It's like an artistic question. Like, am I a dragon? I can feel like one and I can pretend I can fly. "Whooosh! Rarrrgh!" [set fire on village]. There are actually people who legitimately seem to think they are; they're an even smaller minority than transgenders but they exist and they truly seem to think they are dragons or horses or whatnot. But at the end of the day, they're human to me, just like anyone born with a penis is a male. I'll call such a person "she" if I know them and that's what they prefer, and I might play along with an otherkin saying, "Oh no, there's a dragon in the room!" I want to make them happy. But I can't pretend that hard to not notice some obvious things.
Hm. On the one hand, science says yes. On the other hand, some pasty faced internet crybabies with purple hair and an exaggerated sense of their own self importance say no. Who to believe?
I'm going with science.
There are two genders. There are more than two ways for those genders to be expressed in a human being. We have male, female. We have intersex and XXY mutations. But as a gender, there's two.
There is a wide variety in the ways those genders can be expressed. Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson and Peter Dinklage are both men. You couldn't find two more vastly different specimen though.
Just because you're a man who likes pink unicorns, doesn't mean you're a woman, and you can wake up one day feeling like you want to wear a dress that day, it doesn't mean you're 25% woman or something. You are human. You have one gender. It can be expressed in a variety of ways.
Here endeth the lesson.
There are two sexes. Gender is a spectrum that aligns with the two sexes.
Sexes: Male and female
Genders:
You can be masculine - leaning more towards characteristics associated with the male sex
Or feminine - leaning more towards characteristics associated with the female sex
If you can align right in the middle of the spectrum, that is where you'd get the term non-binary, but most people who use that term just share characteristics of both sides and want to feel that they are somehow different from everyone else...
This is nothing but a word game and it all depends on what definition you want to assign to the term gender. For centuries, the word term gender referred to your reproductive organs at BIRTH. If you have a penis, you belong to the male gender. A vagina, you belong to the female gender. Simple.
Nowadays, there's are people who want to change that definition and have the word "gender" be self designating and use another term to denote which reproductive organs you're born with. It's about trying to change the meaning of the word to accommodate the new terms for what certain people want to be recognized as.
Technically there are 3. Cause there are intersex people who are born with either both or one and part of male and female genetailia.
However, there are other physical differences between men and women separate from the genitals and many people who claim to be transgender have been found having these traits which are more common to the opposite sex.
I think the issue here is a behavioral one. Stereotypical behaviors associated with the sexes are being challenged. It's not an easy topic to deal with since a lot of our society is based on sexual stereotypes.
Take for example the life of drosophila melanogaster, the 'fruit fly'. There are probably about 5 or 6 different genders based in the distribution of chromosome pairs. There are very masculine flies that go for very feminine flies and there are more androgynous flies that go for other androgynous flies in the middle of the spectrum, typically these mating pairs are sterile. There is a reason for these flies in nature. There is a reason for the spectrum of human sexuality and it's natural for some of the population to be infertilite.
Yes, there are only two sexes and therefore two genders. It's not a popular opinion now but I don't care.
Two, though one could argue four if you include gender-atypical as a separate gender. Gender and sex mean the same thing, so there is the majority that fits this mould and the roughly 10% who are atypical in that they have a male/female typical body and a female/male typical brain.
I just wish we could be less shitty to people who don’t fit the mould and there would be a lot less issues around this divisive topic to begin wirh.
For humans there is only two. Biological as we know it there can be four combinations. But being born without sex and having both sets are basically abnormalties that society doesn't need to take into account. If the few that it applies to get to pick it's no big deal. But this crazy idea that gender is a choice and not biology needs to stop. It doesn't help anyone.
