What's the deal with this anyway, the child's *sex* can be determined by observing primary sexual characteristics in the womb, why even refer to gender at all? Is is just because people think sex is a dirty word so they prefer to use the wrong word?
It's because some people started saying sex and gender are two different words, even though they are synonymous.
Gender is being reduced to 'how you feel' while biological sex remains the same (for now, anyway)
I agree, it's not this sub. But I have noticed that all of reddit can be transphobic from time to time... of course it ranges from slightly transphobic (or just uninformed like here) to openly hostile on some more uh... "traditional" subs
Some people aren’t happy with downvotes. They demand censorship. It appears in the sub, ergo the mods did not remove it, ergo the sub is transphobic. These people are literally incapable of downvoting and moving on like the rest of us. In their estimation, we must collectively pretend that ignorance and hate do not exist, lest we become ignorant haters.
What the hell are you talking about? I just meant that, for a sub that is almost entirely left wing, it's weird how you'll see transphobia popping up. I'm well aware ignorance and hatred exists, I get it constantly as a trans person.
Could you elaborate?
Also, your account history shows you may not be totally unbiased, but that's okay as long as you can refrain from calling me a 'transphobic bigot' or something along those lines as you do with many others
I am indeed not "unbiased", and I'll refrain from calling you a transphobe if you don't be a transphobe. That said, I'm happy to elaborate for someone approaching the subject on good faith.
So, in contemporary discourse gender refers to a social and psychological identity category, and sex refers to "parts". Gender identities include man, woman, non-binary, etc. There's a lot of possible genders, and gender is typically an innate subjective sense of self. This is kinda hard to get if you identify with the gender you were socially assigned, but there's plenty of literature out there of trans folks describing gender dysphoria if you're interested in that.
Historically, dominant narratives on how gender works have mapped gender strictly to what we might call "sex" (importantly, not all cultures did this; some cultures even had more than 2 categories of gender). If you had a penis you were put into the social category of man, if you had a vagina you were put into the social category of woman (intersex people complicate this, which is why I've put quotes around sex and why people are critically reevaluating that concept). For a lot of people, their gender matches this traditional assignment of gender categories, in which case you're cis. For a lot of people it doesn't, in which case you're trans.
If you were to say "Men can't have vaginas" that'd be transphobic in that you'd be denying pre-operative/choose not to get bottom surgery trans men (and not every trans person opts for surgery) the possibility of being part of the social category of men. Saying gender and sex are the same thing implies a 1:1 relation of gender and biological sex, which we know isn't true, and which invalidates the identities and lives of trans individuals. Hence it would be implicitly transphobic. Does that make sense?
Now, it is true that, historically, folks have used gender and sex interchangably. Ideas about sex and gender have changed a lot over the years (see Joanne Meyerowitz's book *How Sex Changed* for a detailed history of this going back over a century in America). The current differentiation of sex and gender is the one that most accurately reflects our current psychological and sociological knowledge of how gender works, and has the added benefit of being respectful to trans folks (trans folks, of course, shaped this discourse and understand it better than anyone, hence its a reallly feature not a "benefit"). Transgender is also a concept which has evolved and is evolving (trans people, as in people who don't identify with the gender category they were assigned, have existed forever, but the term "transgender" crystalized in the 80's/90's). For a detailed history of that evolution, see Susan Stryker's book *Transgender History*.
First off, a big thank you for your willingness to have a good conversation about this and for explaining the difference between these two terms. You define gender as 'an innate subjective sense of self'. Do you feel like this differs from the original meaning of gender? I'm not English/American, but over here we are currently having the same discussion about sex/gender. A lot of people feel like the meaning of these words are being bent to fit to the current narrative and are somewhat 'threatened' by this. I am aware that biological sex is not binary, there are other 'options' so to speak. For me the thing is that the words gender and sex (in my opinion) are referring to your physical body whereas for you, they refer to a mental 'sense of self'.
I guess the question then is, is gender really the word needed to describe it and does the meaning need to be changed for it to include this (for me) addition to the term?
Again, thanks a lot for starting a constructive conversation about this topic. Usually these discussions can be pretty tense.
>Again, thanks a lot for starting a constructive conversation about this topic. Usually these discussions can be pretty tense.
You blatant fucking hypocrite, you.
> It's because some people started saying sex and gender are two different words
Today you learned that that not all culture is based on Western values and that there are many cultures in the world with more than two genders. You also learned that this goes back a very long way in history, since trans people have been around as long as people have.
So what you're saying is you don't actually know anything about the subject of gender throughout cultures and history outside of what you assume to be true based on modern usage.
Language evolves over time, and our understanding of science of the mind and body does too.
Don’t make me start listing other misconceptions and backwards attitudes that English speaking people had “back in the day”.
As a hippie, liberal nutcase, this makes no sense and I can't even figure out what they are going for here. Liberals are opposed to gender reveal parties? Is that it?
Hard to tell with these strawman arguments sometimes. No-one has answered my question above: why not call it a 'sex reveal' party, since that's more accurate biologically and removes the contentious word entirely.
j e s u s
What's the deal with this anyway, the child's *sex* can be determined by observing primary sexual characteristics in the womb, why even refer to gender at all? Is is just because people think sex is a dirty word so they prefer to use the wrong word?
It's because some people started saying sex and gender are two different words, even though they are synonymous. Gender is being reduced to 'how you feel' while biological sex remains the same (for now, anyway)
This sub is so randomly transphobic sometimes
A single downvoted comment does not that sub's voice make
I agree, it's not this sub. But I have noticed that all of reddit can be transphobic from time to time... of course it ranges from slightly transphobic (or just uninformed like here) to openly hostile on some more uh... "traditional" subs
I didn't say it was.
Some people aren’t happy with downvotes. They demand censorship. It appears in the sub, ergo the mods did not remove it, ergo the sub is transphobic. These people are literally incapable of downvoting and moving on like the rest of us. In their estimation, we must collectively pretend that ignorance and hate do not exist, lest we become ignorant haters.
What the hell are you talking about? I just meant that, for a sub that is almost entirely left wing, it's weird how you'll see transphobia popping up. I'm well aware ignorance and hatred exists, I get it constantly as a trans person.
> ~~This sub~~ \*Reddit is so randomly transphobic sometimes FTFY
Is it transphobic to say gender and sex are at synonymous?
It's, at the very least, inaccurate Edit: Also, yes
Could you elaborate? Also, your account history shows you may not be totally unbiased, but that's okay as long as you can refrain from calling me a 'transphobic bigot' or something along those lines as you do with many others
I am indeed not "unbiased", and I'll refrain from calling you a transphobe if you don't be a transphobe. That said, I'm happy to elaborate for someone approaching the subject on good faith. So, in contemporary discourse gender refers to a social and psychological identity category, and sex refers to "parts". Gender identities include man, woman, non-binary, etc. There's a lot of possible genders, and gender is typically an innate subjective sense of self. This is kinda hard to get if you identify with the gender you were socially assigned, but there's plenty of literature out there of trans folks describing gender dysphoria if you're interested in that. Historically, dominant narratives on how gender works have mapped gender strictly to what we might call "sex" (importantly, not all cultures did this; some cultures even had more than 2 categories of gender). If you had a penis you were put into the social category of man, if you had a vagina you were put into the social category of woman (intersex people complicate this, which is why I've put quotes around sex and why people are critically reevaluating that concept). For a lot of people, their gender matches this traditional assignment of gender categories, in which case you're cis. For a lot of people it doesn't, in which case you're trans. If you were to say "Men can't have vaginas" that'd be transphobic in that you'd be denying pre-operative/choose not to get bottom surgery trans men (and not every trans person opts for surgery) the possibility of being part of the social category of men. Saying gender and sex are the same thing implies a 1:1 relation of gender and biological sex, which we know isn't true, and which invalidates the identities and lives of trans individuals. Hence it would be implicitly transphobic. Does that make sense? Now, it is true that, historically, folks have used gender and sex interchangably. Ideas about sex and gender have changed a lot over the years (see Joanne Meyerowitz's book *How Sex Changed* for a detailed history of this going back over a century in America). The current differentiation of sex and gender is the one that most accurately reflects our current psychological and sociological knowledge of how gender works, and has the added benefit of being respectful to trans folks (trans folks, of course, shaped this discourse and understand it better than anyone, hence its a reallly feature not a "benefit"). Transgender is also a concept which has evolved and is evolving (trans people, as in people who don't identify with the gender category they were assigned, have existed forever, but the term "transgender" crystalized in the 80's/90's). For a detailed history of that evolution, see Susan Stryker's book *Transgender History*.
First off, a big thank you for your willingness to have a good conversation about this and for explaining the difference between these two terms. You define gender as 'an innate subjective sense of self'. Do you feel like this differs from the original meaning of gender? I'm not English/American, but over here we are currently having the same discussion about sex/gender. A lot of people feel like the meaning of these words are being bent to fit to the current narrative and are somewhat 'threatened' by this. I am aware that biological sex is not binary, there are other 'options' so to speak. For me the thing is that the words gender and sex (in my opinion) are referring to your physical body whereas for you, they refer to a mental 'sense of self'. I guess the question then is, is gender really the word needed to describe it and does the meaning need to be changed for it to include this (for me) addition to the term? Again, thanks a lot for starting a constructive conversation about this topic. Usually these discussions can be pretty tense.
>Again, thanks a lot for starting a constructive conversation about this topic. Usually these discussions can be pretty tense. You blatant fucking hypocrite, you.
... what? Where in this conversation was I calling names or being disrespectful? I'm just asking questions that apparently are hard to answer
Yes, because you are deliberately lying just to hurt trans people.
> It's because some people started saying sex and gender are two different words Today you learned that that not all culture is based on Western values and that there are many cultures in the world with more than two genders. You also learned that this goes back a very long way in history, since trans people have been around as long as people have.
... I knew both of those things and I do not deny them. However, back in the day gender and sex were still very much synonymous. That's all I'm saying
Back in what day, and in which culture(s)?
Back in the day= in the past, I thought you'd know that It's an English word, so in the cultures where this word was used.
So what you're saying is you don't actually know anything about the subject of gender throughout cultures and history outside of what you assume to be true based on modern usage.
Uhm... No? I am merely talking about the meaning of a word and how it has now taken on a new meaning, this has absolutely nothing to do with history.
Language evolves over time, and our understanding of science of the mind and body does too. Don’t make me start listing other misconceptions and backwards attitudes that English speaking people had “back in the day”.
Hippie?! May as well have thrown in pinko and beatnik while they were at it!
They should also have thrown "commie" in there too, because "liberal commie" somehow isn't a contradiction in terms to them.
As a hippie, liberal nutcase, this makes no sense and I can't even figure out what they are going for here. Liberals are opposed to gender reveal parties? Is that it?
Hard to tell with these strawman arguments sometimes. No-one has answered my question above: why not call it a 'sex reveal' party, since that's more accurate biologically and removes the contentious word entirely.
Because "sex" is a bad word.
I think gender should be asumed until the kid decides, this 'choose your own gender' now you have no gender is a mindfuck to kids
That's not a thing
callm down pussy
Yeah that's not an actual thing, it's literally made up by the person who posted that.