[Serious] Please convince me gender is binary

[bennyboy]

Yes, Benny.  That's exactly what I mean.  What did you learn from exploring the link I gave you, that you asked for..and recieved?

That PC people are allowed to write wikipedia articles?

I've explained why I say gender is binary-- because all gender-based traits, characteristics and behaviors distill down that way.  Don't believe me?  What traits, characteristics or behaviors define a 3rd-gender person?

I can look around and say that men are usually physically stronger than women, and therefore describe physical strength as a male quality.  Yes, some men are weak, and some women are very strong, but over the species, strength is a defining feature of males rather than females.

I can say the same thing about emotionality-- women tend to be more emotionally sensitive than men, and therefore define certain sensitivities as female.  Yes, some women are insensitive, and some men are very sensitive, but over the species, certain kinds of sensitivity are defining features of females rather than males.

Now, your turn.  Take any existent property of a person, and demonstrate that it is a defining feature of "3rd gender."  I think you'll find only one-- the choice of identity.

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The problem-- and I think maybe we can find some agreement here-- is that trying to conflate all the complexities of a person down into a word is difficult.  I've, for example, said that I do not identify as agnostic even though I don't have any particular active belief in a specific god.  The response has inevitably been an insistence on a biaxial system with belief and knowledge separated.  I find "You're atheist because you lack a specific belief in any god" not to represent my position, or my sentiments, very well.

But as soon as we stop trying to distill it down into a word, all that disappears.  I can say, "Given any specific description of religious gods, I'm confident I will be atheist for each; but I still believe there may be philosophical principles or universal properties that if I came face to face with them, I might very well call them god.  However, since I haven't encountered those principles or properties directly, I prefer to identify as agnostic."  I've said that, and still been told "Then you're an atheist!  Look at this diagram!"

This is our semantic choice: have strongly-typed words with clear-cut meanings, because that's what we want.  Or have weakly-typed words and more verbiose descriptions of nuanced positions, with the understanding that the cost is that categorical words no longer really have the ability to categorize.