OMG, IF WE JUST LET PEOPLE PICK THEIR OWN GENDER, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, AND IT WON'T AFFECT ANYONE IN ANY WAY!
@RickiTarr True. But small-minded people think otherwise.
"There are just two genders, male and female. This is obvious." Well, actually, no. Nature is much more complex than your simple black and white model. And this design is intended. It maximizes survival of a species that depends on sexual reproduction.
If humans had just two genders, we would be unique amongst all mammals. We don't. Neither do lions. Have you ever watched two male lions having sex? No? Quite a few male lions prefer sex with other males. Didn't know that did you? You know, ignorance makes you look stupid and makes you do stupid things that end up hurting you, personally.
Learn something, read books, stop listening to propaganda, pull your head out of your ass, I mean, the Bible, written by ignorant shepherds 3,000 years ago. See how the world really works and enjoy it.
@shuttersparks @RickiTarr I don't understand your point. You say that humans do not have only two genders. Then You say that lions as well do not only have two genders. Then you explain that lions have homosexual sex, which by the way no I have never watched.
Maybe you lost it somewhere along the way, but where is the explanation that humans and lions don't have only two genders? As of now you explained homosexuality is common in nature, but I really don't see the connection between the two things.
@shuttersparks @RickiTarr thank you for the article, interesting.
I'll premise that I'm completely fine with people operating themselves to change sex or asking people to refer to them as male/female or whatever.
What I do not understand is why we need multiple genders to justify all these and two are not enough.
> some children have masculinized brains paired with feminine bodies.
I'm not sure how you define somebody's brain as masculine or feminine, I'm not really sure you can discern them.
I reckon edge cases happen as those mentioned in the article, but I still do not understand the need or justification for 58 genders rather than 2.
> What about people who identify as men, but who are extremely feminine?
Boy who is extremely feminine. Does he want me to refer to her as a girl? A girl.
> we also know that the majority of transgender adults were aware of a mismatch between who they felt they were and who society told them they were by age five.
Cool, help them out and give aid to those children.
@shuttersparks @rastinza @RickiTarr All of that's true (for mammals, at least), but it's not relevant to gender identity, which is neurological and not dictated by physical traits such as genitals -- that's sex, not gender.
Our careless use of these terms as synonyms in human contexts is a huge source of confusion and conflict.
Thank you @wesdym I know very little about all these gender identity.
In the article above they say there are 58 identified genders; do you know why that is and why are there not only 2 genders?
I can get the point that someone born as a male may identify as a woman and may wish to change sex and vice versa.
I'm a bit confused about the other 56 however.
@rastinza @shuttersparks @RickiTarr Anyone who assigns a number is doing so arbitrarily, and might have a good reason to. But there is no definitive number, and in theory it could be infinite. Any number must rely on some kind of definition, which itself must be arbitrary. It's like asking how many ethnicities there are.
External gender (social, etc.) is most commonly on scale between poles we call male and female, for convenience, but internally it may be more complex or amorphous.
@wesdym @shuttersparks @RickiTarr so, if I understand correctly, it's a way to classify the behaviour and interactions of a certain people?
Isn't this like assigning a disease to someone?
I don't know, ethnicities are not that useful of a classification; only good when giving a quick sketch of somebody.
Isn't this going to create more division and more ways to discriminate people?
Overall, what I really don't understand is: what is the point of having this whole new class of people and not just stick to male/female? Who needs this classification? Which are its uses?
@rastinza @shuttersparks @RickiTarr Indeed. The fact that many animals (mostly higher mammals) enjoy gay sex proves nothing about gender.
Mostly because sex and gender are not the same thing. As far as we know, sex and gender are usually the same for all animals other than humans. (We honestly don't know, but currently have no contrary evidence.)
But gender is neurological, and not defined -- nor constrained -- by physiological traits such as genitals.
@wesdym @rastinza @RickiTarr I must disagree (if I understand your correctly). Exactly right that sex and gender are not the same thing. That's the whole point and why we use two different words.
Gay sex is your first order proof of this and the primary example of why there are not just two genders.
Sex is the hardware between your legs, basically two kinds. Gender is what you are attracted to, and like to do with your hardware, and how you feel about your sexuality. The latter can vary over a huge range.
So, male and female hardware (ignoring intersex):
I'm a cis-male attracted to females. (gender 1)
A former girlfriend is a cis-female, attracted only to males. (gender 2)
My wife was attracted to both males and females. (gender 3)
Former co-workers were attracted only to men. (gender 4)
A former co-worker long, long ago, 50 years ago, was trans, born male but chose to live as a female. (gender 5)
and on it goes...
@shuttersparks @wesdym @RickiTarr
wait wait, what does being homosexual or bisexual have to do with gender identity?
I know plenty of gays and lesbians, I wouldn't say they have another gender. I'm male and I had sex with other males, I'm still male.
What does sexual orientation have to do with the gender? I thought the gender was just how one person saw himself in some way regarding to their gender.
@rastinza You're correct. Sexuality is unrelated to gender, except for some external definitional purposes. (Gender-based patterns of attraction.)
@rastinza @wesdym @RickiTarr This is exactly what we're talking about. Your sex is male. Your gender is "gay", or whatever term you want to use. In my case my sex is male and my gender is "cis" or "straight". My wife's sex was female and her gender was "bi" or whatever the current term is.
Sex and sexual orientation are not the same thing. Sexual orientation and gender not always the same thing but in practice usually are.
@shuttersparks You seem to think that 'gender' means 'pattern of attraction'. It does not.
@wesdym Yes, I expressed it that simplified way in my brief comment but I wasn't writing a textbook. Gender is the personal sense of oneself, as you said.
But more people than you and I are reading these comments. I'm writing to them, some of whom do not yet understand any of this. For them, "attraction" is the only thing that matters.
@shuttersparks Gender is an individual's innate sense of self independent of others, their genders (actual or perceived), or any patterns of attraction towards any others (including none). One's own sense of gender is assessed in comparison to the social gradient of gender innate to mammals (male - female), itself mirroring biological sexual polarity in mammals.
@rastinza @RickiTarr Sorry for the delay. Work interferes with social media. Hahaha.
True, I gave a brief series of comments, knowing that most people in my circle already know about these things. I wasn't writing a tutorial.
I would hope that most people these days understand the basic concepts of human sexuality. It's not simple, it's extremely complex. Science is still a long way from understanding all the complexities. It will be a long time yet, if ever, that we understand all of it.
At the fundamental level there's male and female, and one might assume the two are automatically attracted to one another. But this is not the case. We know this from observation for thousands of years. Then there's intersex, which I'll ignore here.
There's genetics. Female and male are XX and XY, right? But no, there are many other variations in chromosomes.
Then there are complexities of brain development that we don't understand. The chemistry in the womb affects the fetus in ways we don't understand that result in effects after birth.
One of my grandkids is trans. She's an adult now. She was born with female hardware between her legs but from age 3 or before she knew she was male. Her brain is masculine but her hardware is female and this created all kinds of problems because her siblings, all male, didn't understand.
Here's a concise article that touches on the important parts: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/gender-science/201701/three-gender-myths-almost-everyone-believes-shouldn-t
When it comes to answering the question of "why", the shortest answer is "because it works". As living creatures, our most important function is reproduction -- passing our genes on to the next generation for further adaptation. From Nature's point of view, this is our ONLY function. All the other stuff, like our big brains, is decoration and came about because it enables us to reproduce better.
Nature / evolution / adaptation is very effective at keeping what works and eliminating what doesn't work. You can depend on this. Nature has had 150 million years to tinker with mammals and find what works and what doesn't. We are mammals, lions are mammals. So, while 2 sexes plus intersex, and 56 identified genders may seem very odd, it works. It works so well that billions of humans are infesting the planet to the point of destruction.
This is all you need to know about why. Science will be investigating the chemistry of why for decades if not much longer, but that won't change what is.
Do you still buy these myths about gender? Maybe it's time for an update.
Psychology Today