[Serious] Please convince me gender is binary

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that what you're referring to up above is commonly called sex...today.  Sex is usually biologically binary, though there are exceptions, as you mentioned.

Gender and sex are related, but not the same thing.  Gender includes the expectations you mentioned (which aren't the same between pretty much any two group of people - if theyre even truly the same between two individual people)_..whereas sex is just "is there a dick down there or not?" (which is the same across the entirety of humanity).

In that sense, the question "do you have a penis" is alot like "are you a dolphin"....whereas "are you a guy or a girl" is going to be very difficult to explain, even if you can quickly answer one or the other, lol.

[Jackie]

[polymath257]

First of all, there is a range of biological possibilities: typically, XY people have penises and XX people have vaginas. But, there are conditions where a person might be, say, XXY. So there is a genetic question for such people.

Second, the development of sex organs is not an automatic thing based on the chromosomes. It is possible to have a condition known as androgen insensitivity that suppresses the development of male sex organs. This leaves the *default* female sex organs. Often such individuals, who have female external sex organs, do not learn of this condition until puberty (or even later). Again, these are people who are XY and *look* female.

Next, there are the developmental cases of hermaphrodites, where both male and female sex organs are present. often, these cases have surgical 'correction' at birth and are assigned a sex by a doctor.

Next, we have the cases where some more subtle aspect of development is affected and the brain develops characteristics common to one sex while the body develops characteristics of the other sex. It is often the case, for example, in trans-gendered people that the brains show the characteristics of the preferred sex.

All of these are biological, whether genetic or developmental.

But there are also all the *social* aspects of sexuality (called gender). Who takes care of the children? Who gets paid more? Who does the housework? What do they wear? Do they wear makeup? Shave their legs? Etc, etc, etc. NONE of these is biological. And people can have e range of preferences when it comes to these activities. There is certainly nothing biological that says an XY person with a penis can't enjoy putting on makeup, for example.

So, yes, there is much, much more than a simple binary division when it comes to sex and gender.

[AFTT47]

For most people, it IS binary. As others have pointed out, most people have an intuitive gender identity that matches their chromosomes and their physical plumbing. Some (rare) people have an intuitive gender identity that is counter to their chromosomes and physical plumbing.

For some reason, some people seem to have a hard time accepting that this condition exists and want to persecute these people. To them I would say: Grow the fuck up!

[Fireball]

Also, homosexual behavior is observed across pretty much all species we have studied. One can't say that being a "butch" male is going to mean that he isn't homosexual, and vice-versa. It's a lot slipperier than that to define.

[tackattack]

[Shell B]

Yeah, I’m not into the pronoun game, but I’m happy to call someone what they want once they know me.

[Nay_Sayer]

If you start or end a question with "Convince me this isn't so" you'll likely never accept any answer presented to you.


For example; Christians are lost souls who follow a false idol and prophet and will end up in the great boiling, convince me otherwise. Bless.

RAmen

[downbeatplumb]

Honestly, I don't really experience gender identity problems myself. Therefore, I am inclined to look at it as binary too, but that's the point. That's only my experience. Lots of people are saying they fall on a spectrum between femininity and masculinity. They sure behave like they do, so I'll take their word for it. There's nothing in my life experience that I could turn to for evidence, so I have to trust that people know how they feel about themselves.

That's how I feel. I can normally empathise with peoples situations but where it comes to gender identity I can't. What this does is make me uniquely ill informed to have an opinion on it so I defer to people with gender issues on this subject.

[Acrobat]

There has been a lot of discussion on it lately, and there's a lot of informed and actual people that struggle with gender. Perhaps I need an education in gender identity, But I only see gender as binary. I'm open to be convinced otherwise. Let me start with a statement, which I'm sure people will jump all over.

I define gender normalcy as that which functions according to its design. Our design is in our DNA as male or female.  Gender identity uses the same words and is thus binary. Is this a true statement? Elucidate me.

PS- I don't think I did the serious tag right, I need an education on that too please

You’re referring to one’s biological gender. Gender identity is separate, and it’s significantly a social construct. Society defines male and female gender identity, such as what activities and aspects go into the female gender identify, like being very emotional, more empathetic, more prone to think with their feelings than rationally, enjoying cooking, wearing makeup, dresses, wanting to take care of kids, being more nurturing, etc....

While male identity, is like wanting to work in construction, be a patriarch, head of the house, aggressiveness, thinking more rationally less emotionally, liking video games, being a handy man, a protector of one’s family, liking beards and beer, and red meat, wanting to be a warrior hero, like sports etc....

If you share some degree of both aspects of the identies, feel you don’t exclusively identify as one or the other, you’re non-binary.

I know some people will be offended with what I associated with some genders over the other. But all you have to do is think if I held flash cards with each aspect, and asked you which gender do you most associate each attribute with, most people would make the same distinctions, that’s gender normalacy.