Vaginas and penises are a start.

Gender as a biological state vs Gender as a learned social role. We have no choice of biological state but we can choose social roles. There are different senses to the word `Gender` but it can have the same referent.

I have an anecdote from a f2m transexual I used to work with. He kept an eye on the number of times he was interrupted in conversation as a function of the pitch of his voice - which was being decreased by the hormones. Pitch went down, so did the interruptions.

I had to collect a bunch of data from students and staff at the university, I collected from him and asked if I could record a little * in the gender column of the spreadsheet to signify that they were currently going through gender reassignment therapy. They said 'yes, of course, there are probably lots of biological differences between me and a typical male relevant to the study - and that should be controlled for'. Not that I could've seen any trend from a single data point. So for the purposes of the analysis, I included him as a him, then excluded him, then included him as a her to see if there were any differences - there weren't any, no effect sizes large compared to the noise.

How much gender matters depends a lot on the questions you ask. And if you're tactful and respectful, your requests don't go into the expected prejudice box that reactionary ideology paints as already existent and unavoidable.

One can change their gender, but not their sex. The person who goes to extreme lengths to change their body do so for a number of reasons, but one's sex is locked in and won't ever change. In light of this, the modern contention has been the growing emphasis on gender rather than sex in determining the degree of maleness or femaleness in a person. Doing so creates its own set of problems, but at the same time, I take no issue with calling a transgender person by their preferred pronouns, say, but they are still biologically a man, woman, or intersex.

Vaginas and penises are a start. — Noble Dust

There is a tribe in South America where all children are girls. In the early teens, when puberty strikes, around half of all children start to grow penises.

There are ultimately very few differences between the sexes and in most areas there is more variation within a gender than there are differences between genders.

In the West there are a small but significant number of children born of indeterminate sex, and many have suffered the indignities of surgery that have assigned them in the direction counter to their eventual innate feelings upon reaching puberty.

Sexual orientation in terms of attraction preference seems to be natural, and beyond the sensible choice of individuals. Homosexuality seems to be perfectly natural. And many people seem to exist on a spectrum of attraction in scale and towards both sexes in different degrees.

Some species are capable of changing sex during their lives, whilst others can have characteristics of two genders.

Given these observations I do not think it possible to argue for gender indelibility on naturalistic grounds.

The idea that the possession of a vagina or a cock must mean you have to comply with what is a socially defined status in not arguable on naturalistic or scientific grounds.

A man can go through extreme measures to look more feminine, including surgery, but he's still a guy. He still has an XY chromosome. — Purple Pond

Vaginas and penises are a start. — Noble Dust

So what of someone with XY gonadal dysgenesis? They have XY chromosomes but female genitalia (albeit with streak gonads rather than ovaries or testes).

Man? Woman? Both? Neither?

Then there's XX male syndrome, where the person has XX chromosomes but male genitalia.

And a number of other sex chromosome disorders.

Do these children still have wombs when this happens? do they have wombs and then they disappear? or do they not have wombs even thought they are determined as female at birth, and it turns out they were always male, the process just took longer to develop? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

It's 5α-Reductase deficiency:

Although the external genitalia can sometimes be completely female, the vagina consists of only the lower two-thirds of a normal vagina, creating a blind-ending vaginal pouch. Because of normal action of Müllerian inhibiting factor produced by the testes in utero, individuals with 5-ARD lack a uterus and Fallopian tubes. Thus, they would not physically be able to carry a pregnancy in any event. Even with treatments such as surrogate motherhood, female infertility is caused by the lack of any ova to implant in a surrogate mother.

So what of someone with XY gonadal dysgenesis? They have XY chromosomes but female genitalia (albeit with streak gonads rather than ovaries or testes).

Man? Woman? Both? Neither? — Michael

The person you described would be sexually ambiguous.

What of a person who was XY and had a normal penis? Man? Woman? Both? Neither?

How common are these? — Mr Phil O'Sophy

1:20,000 males.

I didn't say that.

What should be called into question is the notion that "man" and "woman" refer to some dichotomous 'essence' that people have. I'm not an essentialist, and would instead follow Wittgenstein's line of thinking when he asks "what is a game?" The words "man" and "woman" have a use in our language, and although traditionally they may have been used with reference to external genitalia (at birth), and then later perhaps sex chromosomes, times have changed and with it their use (and so meaning). These days they're often used to refer to a self-selected identity, which although admittedly makes for gender to be an abstract rather than concrete thing, is ultimately harmless and nonsensical to argue against.

Language traditionalists only really have a point if the new use entails unsuccessful communication (for example if I choose to use the word "dog" to refer to cats without informing you), but I don't think that holds at all in this case.

Traditionally, they also related to ones social role. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Sure, which is a point in favour of the transgender person who identifies with the female social role despite having male genitalia or the male social role despite having female genitalia.

I thought the argument of trans was that they were born that way and it wasn't a choice? To say its a self-selected identity undermines that argument. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

By "self-selected" I didn't mean to suggest that it's chosen on a whim, or by weighing up some pros and cons. I meant that it isn't determined by physiology but by personal psychology.

Language traditionalists only really have a point if the new use entails unsuccessful communication (for example if I choose to use the word "dog" to refer to cats without informing you), but I don't think that holds at all in this case. — Michael

What is a male dog?

There is no real sex change — Purple Pond

The title says gender. Which one do you want to debate?

One can change their gender — Buxtebuddha

Person's gender can change but no one can change their gender out of their free will.

I wasn't suggesting that you said it was chosen on a whim. To say self-selected, however you want to dress it, is to say that it is determined by a choice. A selection infers there was a number of things to choose from, and the one which was 'self-selected' was the one which was ultimately chosen. Ergo, by using such language you are suggesting it is related to free will, and not determined. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Then you're misunderstanding me, because that's not what I meant. What I'm saying is that their gender isn't determined by their genitals or their chromosomes or by whoever wrote their birth certificate. It's determined by their individual self/personality.

Not if you say that the social roles derived from capability and general interest which are determined a great deal (although not completely) by biology. — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Could you give an example, because this really isn't clear.

What is a male dog? — Hanover

We're talking about gender, not sex, and I don't think animals have genders. Your leading question is a red herring.

The points here are clear: There is biological identification and personal identification of sexuality, each with its own purpose, yet then there is political battling over who gets use of the word "woman" or "man." Calling an XY biological man a woman because he feels womanly is politically correct, but it does, of course, blur the distinction between an XY woman and an XX one.

Does gender have to be an entirely social structure? I know people like to think the biological sex has nothing to do with personality and there's no psychological side to it, but if we choose the definitions to words by their usage, I think gender could be described as non-physical sex. As a dog owner I can confirm that male and female dogs have different personalities.

I think you have to hold otherwise, as the common view is that transexuals are born that way. Since some animal species do have male/female specific traits and roles, you'd have to assume some wouldn't keep to those roles and would vary.

Being female, generally leads to more openness, less aggression, being more agreeable, etc ( — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Really?

Person's gender can change but no one can change their gender out of their free will. — BlueBanana

What?

As a dog owner I can confirm that male and female dogs have different personalities — BlueBanana

I can also confirm this. I think you can say the same about wild dogs as well (so the claim they are socially constructed here doesn't hold). — Mr Phil O'Sophy

Nobody is saying that personalities are socially constructed, so I don't understand why this is being brought up.

What I'm talking about is gender. The World Health Organization defines gender as "refer[ring] to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places".

It's not really the sort of thing that makes sense to apply to animals. Animals just have whatever sexual organs they have and the associated behaviours.

What I'm talking about is gender.The World Health Organization defines gender as "refer[ring] to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. — Michael

Yeah and that's what I'm thinking might be incorrect. The human behaviours that are typical to specific gender but do not have a sociocultural but rather a biological basis should, in my opinion, be classified under gender, not sex. By that definition, animals other than humans do have a gender.

What? — Buxtebuddha

It's similar to personality. You can't make the decision to be someone else than you are = you can't change your gender.

What makes a man a male and a woman a female? [...] I'm not trying to be bigoted or transphobic but I just don't understand why we call a man who merely looks and acts like a woman a female. — Purple Pond

It's become customary to make a firm distinction between gender and biological sex. According to that usage, gender is a cultural construct that is not fully determined by biological sex.

We should also distinguish sexual orientation from both terms. A person's biological sex and sexual orientation are in principle independent of each other, and neither term fully determines the person's gender.

It's sometimes said that a particular transgender biological male "self-identifies as female", or that a particular transgender biological female "self-identifies as male". Ordinarily what's indicated by the phrase "self-identifies as _____" is the gender, not the biological sex. In some cases gender and sex coincide, for instance when a biological male self-identifies as male.

There's a relevant difference -- a difference pertaining to gender and biological sex -- between a biological male who self-identifies as female and a biological female who self-identifies as female. The difference is also relevant to the sexual orientation of others: Some people are sexually attracted to biological females who self-identify as female but not to biological males who self-identify as female; some people are sexually attracted to biological males who self-identify as female but not to biological females who self-identify as female.

Accordingly, we might distinguish between gender in a narrow sense, perhaps restricted to something like the gender a person self-identifies as; and gender in a broad sense, which includes a conception of the biological sex and sexual orientation of the person, in addition to the "narrow" gender with which the person self-identifies. This is a clunky way of speaking, but I'm not aware of a more convenient vocabulary in use to make this important distinction.


Perhaps it's not the conceptual distinction between gender and sex that perplexes you, but rather the attitude, increasingly widespread in our time, that each speaker is somehow morally obliged to adhere to the gender terminology preferred by each other person when referring to others.

Each of us is a free speaker. The fact that one uses particular terms to speak about oneself, and requests or demands that others follow suit, does not in itself oblige the others to follow suit. Some of us may prefer to use terms like "she" and "he", "male" and "female", to indicate biological sex instead of gender, despite conflicting habits and preferences in other circles. I would argue that this is a reasonable principle of usage, and should not in itself be considered a symptom of bigotry. Such a choice is in the first place a matter of taste and personal preference, though it has much broader moral implications, from questions of manners to questions of political and cultural activism.

We're talking about gender, not sex, and I don't think animals have genders. Your leading question is a red herring. — Michael

This seems a reasonable line of response to 's question about the gender of nonhuman animals like dogs. I suppose it's splitting hairs, but I might prefer to say that our conception of their gender is limited to a conception of their sex and sexual orientation, in other words, so far as we know they have gender in the "broad sense" but not in the "narrow sense" indicated above.

I suppose the expectation that motivates this sort of view is that dogs don't have conceptual capacities sophisticated enough to "self-identify" in the relevant way or to recognize a distinction between sex and gender in themselves or in other dogs.

It's similar to personality. You can't make the decision to be someone else than you are = you can't change your gender. — BlueBanana

You're still completing missing the distinction between sex and gender. Whatevs.

Wouldn't you agree that sex is biological and gender is sociocultural?

Just because we can't put in words the "essence" of a male or female doesn't mean there aren't specific characteristics that the constitute them. — Purple Pond

But the fact that we find it difficult to express the essence of many things, sex and gender included, can also mean that there are not specific, essential features of these things. Rather they may be labels applied to sets whose elements have a family resemblance that is not necessarily transitive to each other.

Because of this, these labels are inherently vague. There will always be ambiguities and exceptions to the general "rule of thumb" - as you said, there are some women who cannot give birth. There are also men who lack a penis. What is the defining feature? Is it the biological organs? Is it the behavior? Is it the genetic chromosomes? Is it the appearance?

I think it is important to also remember that many of these labels are historical. What defines "womanhood" comes from the previous usage of the word. Sometimes these labels are very useful - for instance, I think the labels "male" and "female" are useful in medicine, psychology and sociology. The ethical question seems to be whether the inevitable marginalization of the ambiguity and exception is justified by the utility of these labels. I'm not sure what the answer is, if there is a satisfactory answer. Sometimes I think this issue will never be resolved because there is no way to resolve it. Hence why people who choose to support one side of the issue tend to shout a lot.