[Serious] Please convince me gender is binary

[DLJ]

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.
...

I’ll have a go at elucidating you.

What is gender/sex? Is it chromosomal, hormonal, gonadal?

It needs a little bit of a break down of terminology and dividing “gender” into four parts (there might be more):
- Biological sex
- Gender identity
- Gender expression
- Attraction (to).

Biological sex (gonadal) forms at an early stage of pregnancy; gender identity (hormonal) develops at a later stage. And these may or may not align.

However, they both have a direct impact on the ability of a sexually dimorphic organism’s ability to reproduce.

Plotting occurrences on a graph we will discover a bimodal distribution (not binary) with the vast majority being male or female for both sex and identity but with outliers and crossover between the two main data clusters.



In contrast, gender expression (how one chooses to dress etc.) and to which sex/gender one is attracted have less to do with reproduction/continuity and more to do with selection and thus can be viewed as a spectrum (including attraction to neither and/or both).

Hope that helps.

[no one]

01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001

[bennyboy]

Never said it was a "virtue or enforceable standard."  I said it's a reality of our species that we are divided into male and female.

No.  It is a reality that vast majority of our members have either xx or Xy sex chromosomes.

Male or females have multiple meanings almost all of which were developed before anyone has ever heard of xx of xy chromosomes.

Really? I always thought male meant "has a penis" and female meant "has a vagina." What are these multiple meanings?

If a pre-op transgender person identifies as a woman, then in what way is that person identifying as a woman?  What is female about this person?  Not the DNA.  Not the primary sexual characteristic of having a vagina.  No, it's THEIR perception of what it means to be a woman-- certain personality traits, certain fashion preferences, and so on.  If this person says, "I AM a woman, I just had the misfortune to be trapped in a man's body," then what does this mean?  Is there some female spirit which their male body has been imbued with?  Or is it simply that they recognize in their feelings, behaviors, preferences and so on features which are normally found among female members of the species?

I'm curious how actual women feel about being stereotyped by men identifying as them.  Do you not, on some level, say, "In defining yourself, you're defining women in an offensively limiting way"?

What is "gender expression?" If gender is a fluid concept, then what are you expressing if you scream when you see a spider, fan yourself dramatically a lot, watch Beaches way more than a healthy person should, and think Musicals are anything but fucking torture? You're imposing your view of what a woman is supposed to be in your effort to resist the imposition of others on what YOU are supposed to be.

Just like a man-- stereotyping a woman and then co-opting that stereotype for yourself! Check your aggression, bro!

---

01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001

hahahaha

Do I get a cookie for knowing what this actually says?

[no one]

No cookies. Only tacos.

[Shell B]

01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001

That sentence is binary.

[bennyboy]

No cookies. Only tacos.

01010100 01100001 01100011 01101111 01110011 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00101100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01101111 00100001

---

btw thanks to this thread, I've learned the word "hypospadias". Fascinating stuff, but I know the grannies in this forum wouldn't want pictures.

But google it, it's really fascinating.

[AFTT47]

01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001

That sentence is binary.

Actually, it's probably BCD (Binary Coded Decimal). It's a series of 8-bit binary numbers, each representing a decimal value which probably represents an ASCII character.

Not particularly clever, just designed to impress someone who isn't computer-savvy.

[polymath257]

That sentence is binary.

Actually, it's probably BCD (Binary Coded Decimal). It's a series of 8-bit binary numbers, each representing a decimal value which probably represents an ASCII character.

Not particularly clever, just designed to impress someone who isn't computer-savvy.

No, it is binary and *not* BCD. Convert to hex and compare to an ascii table (don't use decimals at all).

ASCII is a lost art.

[bennyboy]

Actually, it's probably BCD (Binary Coded Decimal). It's a series of 8-bit binary numbers, each representing a decimal value which probably represents an ASCII character.

Not particularly clever, just designed to impress someone who isn't computer-savvy.

No, it is binary and *not* BCD. Convert to hex and compare to an ascii table (don't use decimals at all).

ASCII is a lost art.

And a real clever art it was-- the ability to use register shifts to see if you have a capital letter, for example.  Quite smartly done, overall!

[Anomalocaris]

Really?  I always thought male meant "has a penis" and female meant "has a vagina."  What are these multiple meanings?

So you think, steeped in the stereotype of our society as you are.   The notion that gender is something fundamentally simply physical and not a compound trait that reflect an aggregate of several different physical and behavioral variables is certain not universal.

In some societies, it is the actual fulfilling of reproductive roles that define male and female.   So a Impotent man or a barren woman would not be considered to be male or female regardless of their possession of gender organs.   In others, male or femaleness are considered heavily social behavior dependent.   Those who frequently act a manner normally stereotyped as befitting the other gender would not be considered to be fully of the gender determined by their reproductive organs.