I’m from the Netherlands. We’ve always had fairly laid back attitudes towards gender. When I grew up, I didn’t have hyperfeminine cheerleaders and hypermasculine bodybuilders in my class. Lots of girls wore pants and other ‘non-feminine’ clothing, and/or had short hair.
Of course, there was a division in male/female, which 99% of the time, didn’t matter. But things like showers and changing rooms were clearly separated between boys and girls.
I notice that this post is a bit frustrating to me, because it feels regressive.
But if society can go from 3 rainbow colors to 7 we can probably add at least a few genders as well. As soon as new categories become common knowledge people will shape themselves to match them
I grew up with two clear genders and infinite variation within those genders, and a general attitude against putting people in ‘boxes’. It allows for individuality. I don’t want to lose that variation and individuality and have it replaced by five or seven ‘genders’ which all have their own prescribed behavior, clothing, restroom and politics.
I’m totally in favor of self-expression. If you’re male and you want be emotionally sensitive, wear dresses and make-up and be quite flamboyant—that’s fine. It’s pretty close to Jack Sparrow! But that doesn’t mean you’ve got to invent all kinds of special labels for it, and be ‘confused’ about your ‘identity’, or find a tribe to imitate.
Jack Sparrow is clearly recognized as a man by me, you, and everyone we know. Maybe where you grew up all men were limited in their gender expression to be somewhere between Jack Sparrow and John Rambo, in which case you really wouldn’t need more than two genders. But that doesn’t begin to cover the range of gender expression we see, not in some abstract thought experiment or rare medical edge case but in our very own community.
I bought a new house last year, and it has an old empty workshop attached. I’d like to ‘revive’ it, but I’ve got little “workshop-experience”.
In preparation, I bought some books on woodworking and pottery. The woodworking books are very traditionally masculine. Men! Chest hair! Beer! BBQ!
But the book on pottery is quite feminine. Bright photos, soft colors, everything is demonstrated by a female Instagram influencer.
That doesn’t matter in the slightest to me. I don’t think my interest in pottery has any relationship to my gender. I don’t feel less manly for it. I like making physical objects with my own hands and that’s a human trait, not a gendered trait.
You describe “female-attired trans women who write great Rust code” as worthy of being its own separate gender. Why? Why can’t (trans) women who write great code just be… women? Is it impossible to simultaneously be defined as a woman and to be able to write great code? That feels sexist and backwards to me.
IMHO, behaviours, skills and hobbies don’t define your gender. Your genitals do.
People born with male genitals are male—even if they like to wear dresses and do ballet. People born with female genitals are female—even if they wear pants and write great code. Trans women often want to be recognized as female—even if they are “demisexual” (people who want a strong emotional connection before they can feel sexual attraction) and write great Rust code. And trans men often want to be recognized as male—despite [stereotypical female activity].
Last but not least—aren’t sexuality and gender completely detached? Why should a gay man be any less of a man?
Wait, trans women are just women but people born with male genitals are male? Are you proposing to use the words “man/woman” differently from “male/female”? I honestly don’t understand what your position is.
It’s literally a semantical discussion. There is no true right or wrong here. If you want to use the word “male” to describe those born with male genitals only, excluding trans men—that’s a valid definition. A lot of trans men want to be seen as male, and including them is a valid definition as well. IMHO, the latter definition is kinder.
Voted strong disagreement because genitals define sex and the definition of gender is very central to the issue.
I can agree that differences in skills and hobbies don’t flip genders. And it is quite so that we try to center the genders around the sexes. But what is between your legs also does not flip your gender. Gender is a lot about how you integrate socially and it does not need to be dependant on single issues.
So it is not the case that all individuals of the sex female have no hope of ever being the gender man.
Some bees work in a way where if the queen bee dies, some/one of the remaining workers will turn into queens. And while there is a queen in the hive alive no such transitions occurs. In that kind of arrangement there are males that can only be gender drone and females that can either be workers or queens. A particularly bossy worker does not constitute a queen. And queens and workers do different things but that is not what makes them queens or workers. If a queen would start to carry a leaf it would not make her into a worker.
How are the “two clear genders” supposed to work when there are people who (i) have XX chromosomes but look, to all appearances, male when naked (ii) have XY chromosomes but look, to all appearances, female when naked (iii) have a mixture of bodily features some of which are usually only found in males while others are usually only found in females, s.t. their overall appearance defies categorization?
What proportion of the population do these cover? If exceptions are exceptional, it does not matter, except to them, how or whether they are classified.
Ugh, yes, we are talking about a very small fraction of people. But this small (or a slightly larger but still small) fraction is the entire topic of this thread, AFAICT. If it doesn’t matter, then nothing said in this thread matters. Also, people are allowed to care about other people.
The thread is not just about these exceptions, but about everyone else changing everything they say about “male” and “female” to deal with the supposed puzzle of the existing notions being fuzzy around the edges. All notions are fuzzy around the edges. Making more boxes does not solve the problem, so far as there is one, of there being boxes.
I don’t know where are you getting “everyone else changing everything they say about male and female” from. AFAIU, the OP is talking about dealing with the “edge cases” by inventing a bunch of new categories for them. Which might or might not be a good idea, but it doesn’t seem to contradict the fact most people are cis and therefore unambiguously male/female.
I’m from the Netherlands. We’ve always had fairly laid back attitudes towards gender. When I grew up, I didn’t have hyperfeminine cheerleaders and hypermasculine bodybuilders in my class. Lots of girls wore pants and other ‘non-feminine’ clothing, and/or had short hair.
Of course, there was a division in male/female, which 99% of the time, didn’t matter. But things like showers and changing rooms were clearly separated between boys and girls.
I notice that this post is a bit frustrating to me, because it feels regressive.
I grew up with two clear genders and infinite variation within those genders, and a general attitude against putting people in ‘boxes’. It allows for individuality. I don’t want to lose that variation and individuality and have it replaced by five or seven ‘genders’ which all have their own prescribed behavior, clothing, restroom and politics.
I’m totally in favor of self-expression. If you’re male and you want be emotionally sensitive, wear dresses and make-up and be quite flamboyant—that’s fine. It’s pretty close to Jack Sparrow! But that doesn’t mean you’ve got to invent all kinds of special labels for it, and be ‘confused’ about your ‘identity’, or find a tribe to imitate.
Jack Sparrow is clearly recognized as a man by me, you, and everyone we know. Maybe where you grew up all men were limited in their gender expression to be somewhere between Jack Sparrow and John Rambo, in which case you really wouldn’t need more than two genders. But that doesn’t begin to cover the range of gender expression we see, not in some abstract thought experiment or rare medical edge case but in our very own community.
I bought a new house last year, and it has an old empty workshop attached. I’d like to ‘revive’ it, but I’ve got little “workshop-experience”.
In preparation, I bought some books on woodworking and pottery. The woodworking books are very traditionally masculine. Men! Chest hair! Beer! BBQ!
But the book on pottery is quite feminine. Bright photos, soft colors, everything is demonstrated by a female Instagram influencer.
That doesn’t matter in the slightest to me. I don’t think my interest in pottery has any relationship to my gender. I don’t feel less manly for it. I like making physical objects with my own hands and that’s a human trait, not a gendered trait.
You describe “female-attired trans women who write great Rust code” as worthy of being its own separate gender. Why? Why can’t (trans) women who write great code just be… women? Is it impossible to simultaneously be defined as a woman and to be able to write great code? That feels sexist and backwards to me.
IMHO, behaviours, skills and hobbies don’t define your gender. Your genitals do.
People born with male genitals are male—even if they like to wear dresses and do ballet.
People born with female genitals are female—even if they wear pants and write great code.
Trans women often want to be recognized as female—even if they are “demisexual” (people who want a strong emotional connection before they can feel sexual attraction) and write great Rust code.
And trans men often want to be recognized as male—despite [stereotypical female activity].
Last but not least—aren’t sexuality and gender completely detached? Why should a gay man be any less of a man?
Wait, trans women are just women but people born with male genitals are male? Are you proposing to use the words “man/woman” differently from “male/female”? I honestly don’t understand what your position is.
It’s literally a semantical discussion. There is no true right or wrong here. If you want to use the word “male” to describe those born with male genitals only, excluding trans men—that’s a valid definition. A lot of trans men want to be seen as male, and including them is a valid definition as well. IMHO, the latter definition is kinder.
Voted strong disagreement because genitals define sex and the definition of gender is very central to the issue.
I can agree that differences in skills and hobbies don’t flip genders. And it is quite so that we try to center the genders around the sexes. But what is between your legs also does not flip your gender. Gender is a lot about how you integrate socially and it does not need to be dependant on single issues.
So it is not the case that all individuals of the sex female have no hope of ever being the gender man.
Some bees work in a way where if the queen bee dies, some/one of the remaining workers will turn into queens. And while there is a queen in the hive alive no such transitions occurs. In that kind of arrangement there are males that can only be gender drone and females that can either be workers or queens. A particularly bossy worker does not constitute a queen. And queens and workers do different things but that is not what makes them queens or workers. If a queen would start to carry a leaf it would not make her into a worker.
How are the “two clear genders” supposed to work when there are people who (i) have XX chromosomes but look, to all appearances, male when naked (ii) have XY chromosomes but look, to all appearances, female when naked (iii) have a mixture of bodily features some of which are usually only found in males while others are usually only found in females, s.t. their overall appearance defies categorization?
What proportion of the population do these cover? If exceptions are exceptional, it does not matter, except to them, how or whether they are classified.
Ugh, yes, we are talking about a very small fraction of people. But this small (or a slightly larger but still small) fraction is the entire topic of this thread, AFAICT. If it doesn’t matter, then nothing said in this thread matters. Also, people are allowed to care about other people.
The thread is not just about these exceptions, but about everyone else changing everything they say about “male” and “female” to deal with the supposed puzzle of the existing notions being fuzzy around the edges. All notions are fuzzy around the edges. Making more boxes does not solve the problem, so far as there is one, of there being boxes.
I don’t know where are you getting “everyone else changing everything they say about male and female” from. AFAIU, the OP is talking about dealing with the “edge cases” by inventing a bunch of new categories for them. Which might or might not be a good idea, but it doesn’t seem to contradict the fact most people are cis and therefore unambiguously male/female.