Your question is an empirical one as you've phrased it, and I suppose the term, like any, is used in a variety of ways by different people in different contexts. If I insist upon using it to reference biological sex and refuse to modify it upon request, what have we learned other than that my usage differs from those more open to change?

Consider a supernatural creature like a ghost or a deity, not even having a biological body, how can we say there is a biological sex? Yet, we still use "he" and not "it" because the gender is nonetheless performed. I could make up a story about two clouds and call one bob and the other jane and refer with "he" to bob and "her" to jane and nobody would be complaining about how clouds lack a biological sex. So using gendered pronouns for that which clearly has no biological sex is not controversial, only using gendered pronouns which contradict the biological sex is controversial. I can all a boat or country a "she" and etc.

Gendered pronouns always indicate gender but do not always indicate sex. If gendered pronouns were "biological sex pronouns" then this whole conversation about "which pronouns are appropriate" wouldn't make any sense, the answer would be obvious.

(Disclaimer for perspective first: I'm nonbinary/pangender/genderfluid/genderqueer/something I don't really care what, and don't give a crap about my own pronouns.)

I think empirically, most people historically and continuing down through today probably intend to refer to sex, both with their use of pronouns and their use of the terms "man" and "woman". If shown e.g. a series of images of a person with feminine gender presentation undressing to reveal that they have a masculine body underneath their clothing etc, I expect that most people, both historically and probably still today, would think "that's a woman" at the first picture and use female pronouns to refer to the person in the picture (something often used in support of "man" and "woman" referring to gender the social construct, not sex), but then "oh, no I was wrong, that's a man" at the last picture and use male pronouns to refer to the person in the picture (which of course runs counter to that preceding parenthetical). That suggests to me that people are aiming to describe sex, and merely using gender presentation as a proxy for sex.

And I think that needlessly fighting to change the use of language from that historical course has caused little other than harm for the trans (and nonbinary) community. (But that fighting back against that in turn only causes more harm, so I don't really know what to do besides just speak however least bothers one's present audience).

I myself very much appreciate a question that is well and carefully asked. But you maybe in your care in asking have unasked it. Off the table are both what the pronouns have meant and what they should mean.

And this is what you're asking specifically:

whether there is any evidence that English pronouns are supposed to refer specifically to a person's sex or gender (or both) — McMootch

Evidence is a matter of history. There is plenty of that and the verdict is both, and both because as you note, separating sex and gender is new.

Apparently there are genderless languages, Finnish, for example. I do not know Finnish, so I wouldn't know how that works (I think there are Finnish speakers here, @ssu?). But I well imagine that the discernment of such matters not made with pronouns is the more rigorously made elsewhere in their usages. No doubt they have a way of verbally distinguishing cows from bulls without having to look.

But our world now embraces the possibility that Jill's husband is Mary and Bill's wife is George. And that can lead to problems.

I suppose the exact answer to your question is that gender and sex have been since time immemorial the same thing. Whether there is a benefit to separating them now is more than I can judge, but it seems to me the language cannot yet really handle it.

Difficult (or impossible) as it may be, I'm interested in determining whether there is any evidence that English pronouns are supposed to refer specifically to a person's sex or gender (or both). — McMootch

1. The question presupposes that there is a distinction between sex (biological) and gender (social/performative). If you don't affirm the distinction fair enough, but debating it is not the intent of this post. — McMootch

No, the question only presupposes that we use scribbles to refer to things, not what those scribbles should or should not refer to.

It seems to me that you have to first determine what the relationship between sex and gender are to be able to determine whether or not it is meaningful to use some scribble to refer to one or the other, or both.

Off the table are both what the pronouns have meant and what they should mean.

Not sure what you mean by off the table? I'm curious about how people think the pronouns have been used historically because I think this can make it easier to think about how they could be used in the future.

I suppose the exact answer to your question is that gender and sex have been since time immemorial the same thing

I assume this is true

Whether there is a benefit to separating them now is more than I can judge

I think the benefit is a better understanding of reality. Men do things women do and women do things men do so much so that these days we wonder if there's any difference between them. Understanding gender as performative I think is a necessary step to adapting to and better understanding how our reality is changing

but it seems to me the language cannot yet really handle it.

I think you're right. But again that's why I pose the question of how the language has worked thus far, so that it's easier to think about what kind of adaptation could make it equipped to handle the distinction.

No, the question only presupposes that we use scribbles to refer to things, not what those scribbles should or should not refer to.

You're right, I should have been more clear- what I meant was, in asking the question, I'm presupposing the distinction. In other words, what I mean is: supposing the distinction sound, what do they refer to?

It seems to me that you have to first determine what the relationship between sex and gender are to be able to determine whether or not it is meaningful to use some scribble to refer to one or the other, or both.

I'm presupposing that the relationship is one of biology and performance. I think the question only really makes sense in light of this presupposition. That's why I said at the beginning if one doesn't affirm the distinction then the question is meaningless, because the answer would be "the pronouns refer to sex and gender both, which are the same thing." I think they have indeed been used to refer to both traditionally, because I think traditionally we've considered them to be the same. But these days folks are arguing that they're different, and then insisting upon certain uses in a way that, I think, doesn't really make clear how they're conceiving of the relationship between sex and gender and the pronouns. For example, "he" can refer either to a male body or a male performance, so if a trans person says "call me 'he'..." and they mean "...because I identify as/perform male, even though my body is female," then they seem to presuppose that the gender pronouns do (or should) refer to gender and not sex, and I find this contentious. Not saying I disagree, I don't disagree or agree, I just find it contentious, and haven't really heard any compelling arguments for either side of it. Usually in place of such an argument, which would be essentially ontological, what you get is an ethical argument for trans rights, as though the question somehow threatens these rights.

I think empirically, most people historically and continuing down through today probably intend to refer to sex, both with their use of pronouns and their use of the terms "man" and "woman". If shown e.g. a series of images of a person with feminine gender presentation undressing to reveal that they have a masculine body underneath their clothing etc, I expect that most people, both historically and probably still today, would think "that's a woman" at the first picture and use female pronouns to refer to the person in the picture (something often used in support of "man" and "woman" referring to gender the social construct, not sex), but then "oh, no I was wrong, that's a man" at the last picture and use male pronouns to refer to the person in the picture (which of course runs counter to that preceding parenthetical). That suggests to me that people are aiming to describe sex, and merely using gender presentation as a proxy for sex.

And I think that needlessly fighting to change the use of language from that historical course has caused little other than harm for the trans (and nonbinary) community. (But that fighting back against that in turn only causes more harm, so I don't really know what to do besides just speak however least bothers one's present audience).

^^ this.

I think you hit the nail on the head on all accounts. I think a lot of people don't know what to do other than just speaking in a way that least bothers one's present audience, and ultimately this is the issue I mean to address, because this can lead to people using language in a way they don't understand, or worse, don't believe in (and this I think is what spurs damaging arguments, because here people quickly become indignant). In the example above, where a trans person wishes to be addressed according to their performance and not their body, I don't know that this is fair - obviously it's not fair to a trans person that their language can't accommodate their identity, and this is indeed where the issue begins. Nonetheless, speaking in a way that overrides a society's perception and use of language is not a solution. A solution in theory would be a compromise between individuals whose language isn't equipped to express their identity and a society who finds this language meaningful. It's a difference I think between the killing of a language and the evolution of a language. I don't know what this solution is of course, I just know we haven't found it, and again, I think finding it should start with ontological conversation rather than ethical debate (though of course there's always a bit of the one going on in the other).

least bothers one's present audience, — McMootch

Sometimes they need to be bothered, especially if their comfort is based in error. Example: the Christian Bible is filled with references to males, not so much and mostly not-at-all the same way as females. But modern translators don't like this apparent discrimination, and to "correct" it make the Bible say in, e.g., English in the 20th century AD what it never, ever, said in the original. PC can indeed make the market a kinder and gentler place. But PC can also be a stupid mistake, the makers of such mistakes not always willing to admit the error of their ways.

Sometimes they need to be bothered, especially if their comfort is based in error.

Definitely, and I think what's happening these days is folks on either side of these gender discussions are both uncomfortable, but it's really not clear whose comfort is based in error. Or rather, whose is more based in error; I think they're both imperfect. That is, the view that 'how I feel should dictate how you address me,' and the view that 'how you appear to me should dictate how I address you,' are both problematic (not that they're incorrect period - they both have a point - but that they both seem to only tell part of the story).

I think the source of this problem is the existence of gendered language to begin with.

Imagine for a moment that we spoke some alternate English where it was not possible to speak about a person without implying either that they are fat or that they are skinny; this alt-English is "weighted" the same way that ours is "gendered".

In the world of this alt-English, you have a person who has a fat body, but they really really dislike that fact, and are trying very hard to be skinny, and it hurts them every time someone refers to them with the language variants for fat people. They feel like "do you have to remind me that I'm fat every damn time you talk about me?"

But to the people talking about them... well, there isn't a way to talk about them without calling them either fat or skinny (in this alt-English), so they look at someone and see whether they look fat or skinny, and use the respective variants of language as appropriate. Being asked to call someone who looks fat "skinny" feels like being asked to deny empirical reality, to lie to someone for the sake of their feelings.

I expect that most of the latter group of people would have no problem changing their language to refer to the person as skinny instead of fat if they actually got skinny. So any fat people who are able to get skinny can just avoid the problem: everyone will just see them as skinny and address them with skinny terminology.

But meanwhile, you have the group of fat people who want to be skinny, who feel like fatness is not an essential part of themselves, that it's even contrary to themselves, who hate having to live life in their fat bodies and dream of some day being able to walk around as a skinny person, and in the meantime, just wish people would stop constantly addressing them as a fat person.

It's the fault of this alt-English that the only options are to address someone as a fat person or as a skinny person. This alt-English doesn't have a way to address or speak about people without referring to their weight.

We who speak real English hopefully recognize how ridiculous alt-English is, but the genderedness of our own real English is every bit as ridiculous, and causes exactly the same kinds of problems.

During my lifetime I have seen a transition in American English from using the male singular 3rd person pronouns (he, him, his), when referring to a previous noun of unspecified gender (like “person”, or “doctor”, or “child”, etc), to using the genderless third person plural pronouns (they, them, their) when referring to the same objects.

For example, in the olden days we might have read this sentence: “A soul should resist all the urges of passion; his reason must govern them.” Now, the context does not exclude the possibility that a female soul is included in this analysis, indeed the author may have wished to include the souls of men AND women, but because the default gender was grammatically (and conceptually, as I suppose, since men were the chief authors of yore and wrote for a predominantly male audience) male, the masculine pronoun “his” was written...

Fast forward to our day: that same sentence would probably be written, “A soul should resist all the urges of passion; their reason must govern them.” “their”, here, is meant to refer to the previous “soul”; but “them” is supposed to refer to “urges”, whereas, since the pronouns have changed number, from singular to plural, an ambiguity arises, since now “them” is possibly singular in force, referring to the previous “their”!

Let me give you another example that shows this ambiguity, one I read this year in an editorial: “After Trump leaves office, the nation needs a true inquiry into his handling of the virus, and how to be sure that no future president has the ability to make so many Americans suffer for their incompetence and callousness.” Now, it is obvious from the context whose incompetence and callousness is spoken of: that of some future president. But because a future president might be female, the author of this statement chose to write “their” in place of “his”; and in so doing, created an awkward ambiguity, since “their” here most naturally refers to “Americans”.

Apparently there are genderless languages, Finnish, for example. I do not know Finnish, so I wouldn't know how that works (I think there are Finnish speakers here, ssu?). But I well imagine that the discernment of such matters not made with pronouns is the more rigorously made elsewhere in their usages. — tim wood

Naturally for us it works well, as there actually aren't so many occasions when the "hän", referring to both he or she, would lead to problems or misunderstandings. And it works easier than saying "he or she". Yet before nobody cared much about the issue and only now the sjw types are enthusiastic how "progressive" the language is.

You're right, I should have been more clear- what I meant was, in asking the question, I'm presupposing the distinction. In other words, what I mean is: supposing the distinction sound, what do they refer to? — McMootch

If the distinction were sound then there would be no reason to ask your question. Your question stems from the fact that the distinction between gender and sex isn't clear.

But these days folks are arguing that they're different, and then insisting upon certain uses in a way that, I think, doesn't really make clear how they're conceiving of the relationship between sex and gender and the pronouns. — McMootch

People can insist that people use certain terms all they want, but in a society with free speech, they can't dictate what words others should or shouldn't use.

If what they claim isn't clear, then what could they be insisting?

Is this a moral/political issue, or a metaphysical/epistemological issue? What does a person mean when they claim to feel like, or be, a man or woman? Is it a mental problem? Is it possible that we have souls that are male and female that get put in the wrong bodies, or what? The fact that there seem to be so many people willing to just accept what others insist that they do without asking these questions is a great example of how political propaganda has an effect on weak minds.

If what they claim isn't clear, then what could they be insisting?

Is this a moral/political issue, or a metaphysical/epistemological issue? What does a person mean when they claim to feel like, or be, a man or woman? Is it a mental problem? Is it possible that we have souls that are male and female that get put in the wrong bodies, or what? The fact that there seem to be so many people willing to just accept what others insist that they do without asking these questions is a great example of how political propaganda has an effect on weak minds. — Harry Hindu

Good point, the distinction is definitely over-used and under-defined. Perhaps correcting that is the place to start in clearing up the tensions of these issues, rather than trying to determine the meaning of the pronouns.

I think it's become a moral/political issue only because it's a metaphysical/epistemological issue that hasn't ever really been solved.

In my head it goes like this:

Gender is performative, a matter of behaviors and traits that find themselves somewhere on the masculine/feminine spectrum, which has nothing to do with one's body (sex).

But, for so long it was thought that certain behaviors ought to exist only in certain bodies, and that when they don't it's strange or wrong, so that there are still many people who feel strange about seeing certain behaviors coming from certain bodies. Therefore, when a person feels inclined toward behaviors that some consider strange or wrong for their body, they're put in a difficult situation (many people see them as strange). As a reaction to this, some of these people are prescribing as a solution a language that refers to their behaviors, not their body.

Now, if everyone could instantly disassociate behaviors from bodies (gender from sex) this would not be necessary, because it would be understood that whether you're called a "he" or "she" or a "boy" or a "girl" has nothing to do with your personality. (This, by the way, would be my answer to the metaphysical question of sex/gender. So in a sense, yes there are male and female souls (and souls in between), in that humans have psychological pre-dispositions (biologically and culturally influenced) causing them to exhibit behaviors that are mostly what we would call "masculine," mostly what we call "feminine," or anywhere in between.) But because this disassociation is awkward and takes time, people are revolting against the thing that seems most immediately to hold it together (gendered language).

To use the example from Pfhorrest,

But meanwhile, you have the group of fat people who want to be skinny, who feel like fatness is not an essential part of themselves, that it's even contrary to themselves, who hate having to live life in their fat bodies and dream of some day being able to walk around as a skinny person, and in the meantime, just wish people would stop constantly addressing them as a fat person.

.

But here's the problem. If gender and sex are distinct and not connected, then how can one say they're in the wrong body? One's body has nothing to do with one's gender; if it did why ask to be addressed by your gender in spite of your body? If you say, "I feel my gender is x, therefore my body should be x too," aren't you affirming the idea that gender and sex are supposed to be connected? In the example above, the person who feels fatness is not an essential part of themselves feels that a particular material thing (body type) should be connected to a particular immaterial thing (personality), and the fact that it doesn't is an indication that something is wrong. But were they to adhere to the argument that divides the bodily and the performative, shouldn't their gripe be, not with their body, but with this very feeling, and with anyone who speaks in a way that affirms and reinforces this feeling in society?

I think that a part of the problem is the failure (by everyone) to distinguish gender the social construct, like you're referring to, from feelings about one's body.

To use myself as an example, I don't particularly care how people gender me, the performativity is completely irrelevant to me, I behave how I decide is best to behave regardless of the gender associations of it. But I would very much like if my body was significantly different than it was, and if it weren't for cost and risk and irreversibility etc, if it was as easy as buying new clothes, I would "wear" a body much more like the opposite sex than what I have now, in a heartbeat.

I've been trying to propose that we use different terminology to refer to that property, which I call "bearing", than we use to refer to gender. Orthogonal to cisgender and transgender, people could simultaneously be cisphoric ("bearing to the same side") or transphoric ("bearing to the opposite side").

I think it's become a moral/political issue only because it's a metaphysical/epistemological issue that hasn't ever really been solved. — McMootch

Yes, and there are many that don't want to solve the metaphysical aspect because they want to keep it a moral/political issue so that they can use it as a weapon against their moral/political opponents.

Gender is performative, a matter of behaviors and traits that find themselves somewhere on the masculine/feminine spectrum, which has nothing to do with one's body (sex). — McMootch

All this does is re-enforce the idea that there are only two genders (masculine and feminine). When a trans-person claims to be one or the other, they too are re-enforcing the two gender idea. Not only that, but they re-enforce those biases that women wear dresses and men wear pants by claiming to be one or the other by simply dressing a certain way. If they claim to be a woman because they dress like one, then that just re-enforces the idea that to be a woman, you need to wear a dress. They continue to put people in one of two boxes based on how they dress or behave.

Human sexes have a wide range of behaviors that overlap. These behaviors, then, shouldn't be defined as masculine or feminine. They are simply human behaviors, and have nothing to do with sex/gender. There are behaviors and physiology that we can point to that are masculine or feminine, like giving birth and being able to stand an urinate without getting urine all over your legs and pants.

So in a sense, yes there are male and female souls (and souls in between), in that humans have psychological pre-dispositions (biologically and culturally influenced) causing them to exhibit behaviors that are mostly what we would call "masculine," mostly what we call "feminine," or anywhere in between.) But because this disassociation is awkward and takes time, people are revolting against the thing that seems most immediately to hold it together (gendered language). — McMootch

I don't believe in the idea of souls. For me, it's more of an issue of how they were raised. Parents have a tendency of projecting their expectations onto their children. For instance, telling your daughter that she thinks like a man, or dressing your boy in dresses. As children, they adopt these behaviors as norms, so when they become adults they become confused because the expectations of society is different than their parents'.

They claim that gender is a social-construction, but a social construction is a shared idea - meaning that members of some society mutually agree that these ideas are good and useful. But if a person claims to be something else, then they are not agreeing with the rest of society. Therefore, their disposition doesn't qualify as a gender. Either gender is a social construction, a feeling, or the same thing as sex.

Interesting. So would you say that wanting to be different physically is not necessarily tied to gender? I'm definitely inclined to suspect this, since I myself am cisgendered and would also change things about my body in a heartbeat if I could. So that would mean there's:

- sex
- gender
- feelings about one's body

and none of them are necessarily connected.

Ok, so I posited in my last post that one's gender and one's sex should have nothing to do with each other, and that it wouldn't make sense to prefer a pronoun based on the feeling that one's gender does not align with one's body. In other words,

sex ≠ gender; therefore,
if gender = pronoun,
sex ≠ pronoun.

And if gender is also distinct from body-preference (i.e., preference toward this or that gender performance and not connected to preference toward this or that body), then it wouldn't make sense to prefer a pronoun based on the feeling that one is in the "wrong" body. Or,

body-preference ≠ gender; therefore,
if gender = pronoun,
body-preference ≠ pronoun.

So, if preferring pronouns based on one's sex or one's body-preference doesn't make sense, all that remains is the idea that pronoun preference ought to be based in gender performance. That is, I suspect this is the best possible line of argument in favor of pronoun preference, which would go something like "my performance/behaviors tend toward 'x', therefore I identify as 'x', so please address me as 'x', even if my body be 'y'."

And here I am back to wondering if this is a strong enough argument to alter our use of language, lol. Again, not saying it isn't, just that it's contentious. Not quite weak enough to say it's wrong and deny a person's contrary-to-sex preferred pronoun; but not quite strong enough to want to go as far as calling some biological men women, and some biological women men.

Your "bearing" terminology honestly sounds viable, definitely the most sensible suggestion I've heard on the topic to date. I'd be interested in hearing it fleshed out a little more.

Also I want to point out (not to you Pfhorrest but just in general) that generally speaking I have no aversion to using new or strange or different words, so long as I can more or less agree that they're meaningful, and that I suspect this is true of many people (maybe I'm an optimist), and I think it's really short-sighted and unhelpful to assume that everyone who resists different use of language does so xenophobically.

I'm curious about how people think the pronouns have been used historically because I think this can make it easier to think about how they could be used in the future. — McMo[u][/u]otch

Once upon a time, English (Old English or Anglo-Saxon) used masculine, feminine, and neuter gendered pronouns. Over time, English shed much of its complexity and became Middle English, an evolution of Old English with the addition of many French words (but not French grammar). In the renaissance period (1550 and forward, very roughly) English writers began creating a more complex vocabulary based on Latin and Greek roots. The more complex vocabulary fit into the still simplified grammar.

Early in this long process, masculine "he" became the default neuter pronoun, along with "it". You'd have to delve into Old English to find out more. (That is quite doable, but it would be enormously helpful if you were very interested in learning Old English.)

From what I read as a long since former English major, the use of "he, she, and it" has been stable since at least 1200.

It's one thing to add new terms to a language; that happens all the time. Changing the way a language handles gender, though, is a much much more loaded process, and is likely to be contested. Further, discussions are likely to be taken up between the Biology Department and English (or French, German, Spanish, etc.) Departments.

However much acceptance transgendered persons receive, there is very little biological evidence that there is such a thing. There are 2 sexes. Only 2, and they are fixed at conception.

Other departments in academia get involved. Psychology, Sociology, and Medicine, for instance. The idea that one can change one's gender in fact, not just in practice, is another highly contested idea.

My research is providing me with inconsistent answers. Some sources say that the term "gender" was until very recently only used in reference to grammatical gender (nouns being masculine, feminine, or other), which obviously has nothing to do with human biological sex. For example Henry Watson Fowler (author of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage) says "Gender ... is a grammatical term only. To talk of persons ... of the masculine or feminine g[ender], meaning of the male or female sex, is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."

The term "gender role" is said to have been coined by John Money in An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism as "appraised in relation to the following: general mannerisms, deportment and demeanor, play preferences and recreational interests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted conversation and casual comment; content of dreams, daydreams, and fantasies; replies to oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of erotic practices and, finally, the person's own replies to direct inquiry."

However, the Oxford English Dictionary provides the following examples of the term "gender" being used throughout history:

1474 in C. L. Kingsford Stonor Lett. & Papers (1919) I. 142 (MED) His heyres of the masculine gender of his body lawfully begoten.
a1500 (▸a1460) Towneley Plays (1994) I. xxx. 408 Has thou oght writen there Of the femynyn gendere?
1580 W. Fulke Retentiue 92 For there is but one Lord..both of men and of Angels, which doth not onely exclude all other Lordes of the masculine gender, but much more all Ladyes.
1632 S. Marmion Hollands Leaguer iii. iv. sig. g4v Here's a woman: The soule of Hercules has got into her. She has a spirit, is more masculine, Then the first gender.
1656 Earl of Monmouth tr. T. Boccalini Ragguagli di Parnasso 135 Strength..was a vertue attributed to the masculine gender.
1719 J. Harris Astron. Dialogues 141 I think the Poets make her change her Sex, and turn He-Thing, as if she could not be as useful when of our Gender, as of yours.
1723 Lady M. W. Montagu Let. 7 Dec. (1966) II. 33 Of the fair Sex..my only Consolation for being of that Gender has been the assurance it gave me of never being marry'd to any one amongst them.
1818 T. H. Bayly Parl. Lett. 32 The women adore you, and call you defender, And friend to the rights of the feminine gender.

Your question is an empirical one as you've phrased it, and I suppose the term, like any, is used in a variety of ways by different people in different contexts. If I insist upon using it to reference biological sex and refuse to modify it upon request, what have we learned other than that my usage differs from those more open to change? — Hanover

"From the very day that she was designed she was almost doomed" - Paul Louden-Brown, White Star Line Archivist

I guess the Titanic had a vagina then?

There are 2 sexes. Only 2, and they are fixed at conception. — Bitter Crank

XX male syndrome
XY gonadal dysgenesis

How do you define sex? Is it determined by their genotype or by their phenotype?

I guess the Titanic had a vagina then? — Michael

It surprises you that the Titanic had a vagina?

So would you say that wanting to be different physically is not necessarily tied to gender? — McMootch

Not necessarily, no, but probably strongly correlated, much like sex and gender.

So that would mean there's:

- sex
- gender
- feelings about one's body

and none of them are necessarily connected. — McMootch

Correct, though I want to be clear that my "bearing" concept is specifically feelings about one's bodily sex, not just feelings about one's body in general. Basically, it's the feelings of what are today called "gender dysphoria" and "gender euphoria"; that's where my term "bearing" comes from, as the root "phor" means "to bear" (as in, to head in a direction, or to continue or carry on). It also makes a nice nagivational metaphor with "orientation": your bearing is the direction you're heading, and your orientation is the direction you're facing.

Your "bearing" terminology honestly sounds viable, definitely the most sensible suggestion I've heard on the topic to date. I'd be interested in hearing it fleshed out a little more. — McMootch

Thanks! My first thread on this forum was actually all about it, here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6768/disambiguating-the-concept-of-gender/

IMHO, it's genotype, XX and XY. Granted, abnormal conditions can arise. These are rare cases--like 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 30,000 for XX male syndrome (>200 were reported in 2010). 1 in 100,000 is the frequency for for XY gonadal dysgenesis. <100 were diagnosed in 2018. Indeed, the disorders referenced concerns errors located in the expression of genes on the XX and Xy chromosomes. Other sexes or genders are not suggested in these abnormalities.

As far as I know, the typical person claiming to be transgender does not display any symptoms of the two syndromes which you mentioned. As far as I know, there are no physical markers for the vast majority of people claiming to be transgender.

Lacking a physical marker does nothing to undermine the claims. People feel the way they feel. There aren't any physical markers for homosexuality either--none that hold up to close scrutiny. anyway.

IMHO, it's genotype, XX and XY. Granted, abnormal conditions can arise. These are rare cases--like 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 30,000 for XX male syndrome (>200 were reported in 2010). 1 in 100,000 is the frequency for for XY gonadal dysgenesis. <100 were diagnosed in 2018. Indeed, the disorders referenced concerns errors located in the expression of genes on the XX and Xy chromosomes. Other sexes or genders are not suggested in these abnormalities. — Bitter Crank

If to be male is to have genotype XY and to be female is to have genotype XX and if there are people who have neither genotype XY or genotype XX (and there are: see XYY syndrome and Triple X syndrome as examples) then either these people have no sex or there are more than two sexes.

Regarding XX male syndrome and XY gonadal dysgenesis, are you suggesting that people with such disorders should be raised as the sex that corresponds to their genotype, e.g. those with XX male syndrome and so phenotypically male characteristics should be raised as a female, competing in women's sports, using women's bathrooms, etc.?

As far as I know, the typical person claiming to be transgender does not display any symptoms of the two syndromes which you mentioned. As far as I know, there are no physical markers for the vast majority of people claiming to be transgender. — Bitter Crank

That's because transgenderism isn't concerned with genotypes. People who are transgender do not claim to have sex chromosomes that they don't have. If sex is determined by one's genotype then this shows a distinction between sex and gender.

That's because transgenderism isn't concerned with genotypes. — Michael

Then why do many transpeople have sex changes?

People who are transgender do not claim to have sex chromosomes that they don't have. — Michael

Then what are they claiming? That is the question.

The term "gender identity" is said to have been coined by Robert Stoller in his 1964 paper The Hermaphroditic Identity of Hermaphrodites.

It is rarely questioned that there are only two biologic sexes, male and female, with two resultant genders, masculine and feminine. The evidence for biologic or psychologic bisexuality does not contradict this division but only demonstrates that within the two sexes there are degrees of maleness and femaleness (sex) and masculinity and femininity (gender). Thus there is ascribed to any person at birth an absolute position as a member of one sex or the other, with the result that one develops a sense of belonging only to one gender.

Before him was John Money who is said to have coined the term "gender role" in his 1955 paper An Examination of Some Basic Sexual Concepts: The Evidence of Human Hermaphroditism.

Gender role is appraised in relation to the following: general mannerisms, deportment and demeanor, play preferences and recreational interests; spontaneous topics of talk in unprompted conversation and casual comment; content of dreams, daydreams, and fantasies; replies to oblique inquiries and projective tests; evidence of erotic practices and, finally, the person's own replies to direct inquiry.

Being a man or a woman is understood by many to be psychological/behavioural, not genetic. If I were to somehow have my mind transplanted into someone else's body, die and become a ghost, or turn myself into a pickle, I'd still identify as a man despite not having XY sex chromosomes.

Being a man or a woman is understood by many to be psychological/behavioural, not genetic. If I were to somehow have my mind transplanted into someone else's body, die and become a ghost, or turn myself into a pickle, I'd still identify as a man despite not having XY sex chromosomes. — Michael

Taking the first half 'psychological'... If you had never met any other people, would you still identity as a man, and if so, how would you know what the word meant?

Taking the first half 'psychological'... If you had never met any other people, would you still identity as a man, and if so, how would you know what the word meant? — Isaac

I wouldn't. One's psychology is often shaped by others. As explained by WHO, "gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time."