[moxco]

The concept of gender as separate from sex is generally the currently accepted model, you act as though it’s just some crackpot conspiracy. It also exists to help us examine gender roles, societal expectations of gender, etc – it does more than just explain the existence of trans people, although that’s also useful.

Literally what other use does "gender" (as defined as not a synonym for sex, nor sex stereotyping) have other than being able to explain how transwomen are actually women? Please give an example.

Besides, the existence of trans people challenges our outdated concepts of gender; we shouldn't stick to old models just because we’re more familiar with them, we have a duty to re-examine and update where necessary.

Can you give me an example of an outdated concept of gender?

Firstly, Joe Bloggs on the street is not going to be an expert in psychology, biology or gender roles in society, so his definition on gender isn’t going to help us. Appealing to how the vast majority of the population defines gender as proof of how gender should be defined is unhelpful; this isn’t a topic that can be settled just by popular opinion.

Second, if Joe Bloggs’ idea of gender is based only on biology then that would indicate that our society does conflate gender with sex.

See, you say that gender is separate from biology, and then say that gender exists regardless of most people conflating it with sex. If it's not biological, and its not sociological (because a vast majority of society treats gender as a synonym for sex) then what is it?

Yes, the doctor is simply making a factual observation, I wasn’t arguing that this wasn’t the case; but what happens after is that gender is assigned based on that doctor’s observation, and many decisions about a child’s life are made based on that. This isn’t any fault of the doctors’, this is just how societal expectations work. For most people, this is fine; but for the minority who go on to experience a mismatch between assigned and experienced gender, it can cause problems.

When is "gender assigned"? Who assigns gender? Can you explain this process? Is what you call "assigning gender" really just projecting sexual expectations onto a child?

I’m not someone with strong opinions about this topic, and I’m not arguing for anything like ignoring a child’s sex or gender until they grow up or anything like that at all. I am just pointing out how conflating sex with gender can cause problems.

How can people conflate sex and gender when they have no concept of (what you call) gender?

If something comes along to challenge our existing understanding of something then it is right to study and to adjust our understanding based on the new information; that is not reactionary, it is sensible adaptation.


The concept of gender as separate from sex does not imply what you say it does, it merely recognizes that our society typically assigns certain behaviors to different genders and there are expectations of conformity. It is not sexist to recognize those expectations.

No, our society assigns certain behaviours to different sexes. People who have sexist expectations of women see women as a sex and not an identity.

Now, many trans people work to conform to those expectations; I’d argue that this is largely due to societal pressure, the need to be accepted by the Joe Bloggs of the world who will judge them by their conformity. It is not sexist for someone to want to conform to those expectations; however we can acknowledge that the expectations themselves may have sexist roots.

And, as I explained in my last post on the topic, the “biological reality” is far from clear-cut – pretty much all of the biological identifiers for sex (including genitals) can deviate from the “biological reality”.

Yes, people should be free to live outside of sexist cultural pressures, I’m not arguing against this and you’ll find a lot of LGBTI+ people would also agree with you. But that does also include the freedom to identify as the appropriate gender.

So we're back to gender isn't sex and gender also isn't gender roles. Then what is it?

Gender identity is not a categorization system in the way you describe it as, where people are arbitrarily assigned an identity based on how they act; it comes from the individuals’ decisions and how they choose to identify based on an internal understanding of their gender. No one is going around saying “this guy has watched too many chick-flicks and is therefore being reassigned”.

I suppose that makes a majority of society (myself included) agender since most of us have no internal understanding of gender.

Gender identity is determined by the brain – most people simply don’t notice because their identity matches their physical anatomy, and thus they conform to societal expectations. They never have to go through the gauntlet that trans people do; maybe they have some traits that don’t conform to traditional masculine or feminine roles, but nothing too far out of the ordinary.

But I thought it was wrong to conflate gender with anatomy.

You are being bigoted in two ways: first by using an outdated definition of gender to decide who qualifies to be a man or woman, and then by refusing to respect the gender identity of a person who has chosen to transition.

If someone wants to be identified by a certain gender, it is not difficult to respect that – using the right name, the right pronouns, etc is not difficult, and it doesn’t hurt anyone. To intentionally ignore that and use a person’s birth sex as justification to do so despite the advances in our understanding of gender identity is bigoted.

Of course you’re not trying to force any particular behaviors onto her, you’re just … asserting that her identity isn’t valid and that she is and will always be a man, no matter what?

It may just be a word to you, but it has deep connotations – especially to a trans person who is seeking acceptance in a society that often disrespects, marginalizes or attacks them.

What makes a woman a woman is that she is female. If you are not female you cannot be a woman. A woman is not something you can dress up as. It is not something you can identify into. If it were then there would have to be some sort of criteria for what makes one a woman.

So what does it mean to you to be a woman? If you think someone can simply identify as a woman then I want to know what defining qualities women have that someone can identify with or as. In fact you can pretty much ignore most of the the rest of my post because I'm pretty sure this is the root of our disagreement.

Also I did say earlier that I am perfectly fine using someones preferred name/pronouns but that is simply a matter of courtesy and not because I've drunk the transgender kool-aid.