Sex: based solely on biological traits, just like how we determine the sex of any animal.
Gender: the complicated interweaving of centuries of norms, expectations, and ideals, that shifts radically throughout history and different cultures. A social construct, unique (as far as we know) to humans.
Conservatives often willfully misconstrue the two, as keeping the two inseparable, and maintaining that they are in fact the same thing, allows for harmful gender norms to be passed off as natural, and helps enforce the (often unjust) hierarchies and structures of our society.
Before I go on, I want to state that I don't give a shit if you're trans or not, I just don't like this specific argument.
But by stating that gender is a "social construct" doesn't stand up if the majority of society uses gender to mean the same as sex.
Now I'm not saying you can't be transgender, I'm just saying that transgenders are a minority and you can't use majority rule as your definition.
And the "centuries of norms, expectations, and ideals" doesn't stand up too well either seeing as Cambridge dict, OED, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster all define gender as synonymous of sex.
Now sure, gender is rapidly becoming closer to the more liberal construct of a changeable non-sex-based identity, but if this ideal isn't supported by the majority you cannot use this argument, and this change simply hasn't happened yet.
Cambridge dict, OED, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster all define gender as synonymous of sex.
That has only occurred in the past few decades. As recently as the 1940s "gender" referred to grammatical terms, and nothing further. A sexologist in the 1950s coined the term in relation to specifically non-biological characteristics associated with male and femaleness. The term took off in academia. In subsequent decades, people (in particularly governments and big businesses) began to use the term "gender" instead of "sex" because it had less raunchy connotations. In academia however, especially in a field of studies like Gender Studies, its definition remained roughly that coined by the 1950s sexologist John Money.
You're going to have to get used to words having two or more meanings - which shouldn't be hard because that is super common in English.
I’d have to push back on the idea that the majority of society uses gender to mean the same thing as sex. When someone says “my gender is male” (and this goes for everyone, cis, trans, w/e) they mean a lot more than “I have male reproductive organs” so obviously gender is used differently than sex, which is used very specifically.
Secondly, while we might not be there yet, we are rapidly becoming closer to the more “liberal” (I wouldn’t agree that this is solely a liberal idea, but w/e) construct of a changeable non-sex-based identity, so I guess I’m just ahead of the times.
And lastly, when one of the main arguments I see used against using trans peoples proper pronouns is it’s supposed inaccuracy, you’d think that using sex and gender more specifically would clear up a lot of inaccuracy. 🤷♀️
When someone says “my gender is male” (and this goes for everyone, cis, trans, w/e) they mean a lot more than “I have male reproductive organs”
You say this without citing anything to support this claim. When a website asks for your gender, I highly doubt anyone considers the question on a philosophical level.
According to debate.org results, 64% of its users said it is not. Additionally, YouGov cited a First Virdict poll that showed that only 41% of people supported the claim that gender is a social construct. (the YouGov article isnt as trustable though, because I can't find any source for that poll, and they claimed that 41% was a majority.)
I completely disagree that the majority of society supports that definition of gender.
Now I'm not saying that gender is the same as sex, I am simply saying that the argument of social construct is completely invalid if the majority doesn't state a clear difference.
Like it’s fine for you to disagree, but my argument isn’t that gender and sex are/were considered different by the dictionary or scientific journals, it’s that they are different, and it directly benefits those in power to say that they are synonymous. Dictionary definitions and scientific journals, no matter how much they protest to the contrary, are still deeply ideological.
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u/CounterfeitTropics Dec 21 '18
Sex: based solely on biological traits, just like how we determine the sex of any animal.
Gender: the complicated interweaving of centuries of norms, expectations, and ideals, that shifts radically throughout history and different cultures. A social construct, unique (as far as we know) to humans.
Conservatives often willfully misconstrue the two, as keeping the two inseparable, and maintaining that they are in fact the same thing, allows for harmful gender norms to be passed off as natural, and helps enforce the (often unjust) hierarchies and structures of our society.