"There are only two genders, change my mind".

[Childrenofthestones]

Not my words but Steven Crowder's (like him or loathe him). in this interesting experiment on a campus.

Just because some cases of a are b, doesn't mean all cases of a are b.

Do agree with it debbie?

Yes but that also doesn't exclude some cases of A being C, especially if you cant give a better argument of what A and B are than "it just is"

Logic requires that if we cant define A and B then we cant know if C exists or not, but many here seem to think that logic doesn't apply, and they can eliminate C based on incomplete data or by ignoring any evidence that may lead to evidence of its existence.

If a = infertile people
& b = abnormalities in sex chromosomes
& c = other causes of infertility

Then that works doesn't it?

There are 7.5b or so genders. Unless you are taking 'gender' to mean the same as sex. Which would make it correct that there were 2 ( and the existance of intersex people does not mean there are more than 2 sexes in humans)

Reproductive state/health and reproductive classification are two different things.

A persons reproductive state/health is determined by many factors such as age, congenital and developmental requirements, whether they have any injury and/or disease.

Their classification is determined by the functionality of that reproductive system i.e. Whether they potentially could produce sperm or ova.

It matters not one jot if a persons reproductive system does produce sperm or ova, only that it could (if it were in good enough state of health). Infertility is a description of health not classification.

In extreme cases of disordered sex development the health of the reproductive system is so degraded as to make classification extremely difficult, however people suffering these conditions are not a new/third sex, they are technically uncategorisable and mercifully a tiny, tiny percentage of the human race. This has no bearing on their humanity and should not impact the way they they are treated by society (although clearly it sometimes does).

Conflating health and classification does a disservice to those suffering from reproductive ill health and potentially compounds the psychological issues they have to face.

There are seven billion + people with a personality and preferences which they would be left to discover and decide for themselves but that doesn't change the fact that humans are sexually diomorphic.

Some excellent and clear explanations here. Even a biology ignoramus like me can follow.

I tend to think there are about 7bn genders (personalities). And two sexes.

I don't think you can define gender as just personality, otherwise we wouldn't need the word 'gender'. I mean, everyone has their own individual personality which will be influenced both by inherited characteristis and environmental effects. But gender means 'kind' and has its origin in grammar. So I would dispute that there are infinite genders as that renders the concept of 'gender' meaningless.

The word 'gender' as most people probably know is in grammar used to identify the way nouns behaved and is typically of two or three types, masculine and feminine, or masculine, feminine and neuter. These genders derived from the animate nouns that defined them - 'woman' has a feminine meaning and in most languages, nouns that behave like 'woman' are feminine. However inanimate objects that don't have a sex also have a grammatical gender.

That's why gender came to be used informally first as a synonym for biological sex and then over the last few decades as something slightly different from biological sex, the societal and cultural state of being male or female.

So it's a very new slippy-slidey definition that would allow a word originally intended for taxonomic purposes to become a word that means whatever you want it to mean.

So I would dispute that there are infinite genders as that renders the concept of 'gender' meaningless.

Gender is essentially meaningless though. It is personality plus which stereotypes you adhere to (or don't ahere to). Nothing more. Which it why it is batshit to be creating laws based on 'gender'

I suppose what I meant was that the word 'gender' used to have a comprehensible meaning which was easily explained but now it is being used to mean something very slippery and undefinable.

I genuinely wish people would stop using 'gender' fullstop. Its people using gender when they meant sex that got us into tis ridiculous mess in the first place. I have no issue with 'gender' being about masculinity or femininity. But for this to happen, certain people need to stop pretending we segregate loos, changing rooms and the likes by how macsuline or feminine a person is

To me, gender means stereotypes + personality. There seems to be no other definition around really.

*That makes any sense and does not muddle up sex/'gender'

Binary is not a natural phenomenon. Its a constructed model simplifying complex systems and data sets into approximations to two possible values. The underlying data is never identical and nature doesn't use numbers which represent discrete values. Nature is full colour glorious reality.

So if you accept sex and gender to both be social constructs then they can indeed be binary, but the scientific evidence if critically analysed does not support that view. Dealing with chromosomes as an example simply because they are scientific fact as opposed to identity which is a squishy amorphous undefined idea not easily quantified (how we can then make that binary i have no idea)

We have people here saying that atypical chromosome combinations are disorders of the binary xx and xy. What their arguments do not seem to take into account is they are applying their binary model to the data set in order to prove the binary model is true. This is not very sound science but its not really a surprising result. The binary sex system has existed for 1000's of years before we discovered chromosomes, it is not unexpected that when we discovered that there were more things that define sex than genitals, that society forced its well established model onto the new data and consequently made the approximations that are key to forming binary systems and labeled all those variations as disorders of the established model, which is entirely unfair on those who they represent.

If today we were to throw away all historical baggage and come up with a model of sex and gender based on the scientific knowledge of humans we have today, i'm pretty sure we would come up with far more sex and gender descriptions than two. The chromosomal combinations would force it for one, before even getting into identity and ones sense of self.

Indeed there are many cultures of humanity which do not recognise the binary sex and gender system and those cultures have the language to describe the extra variations.

Our historical western christian society which was going out into the world conquering new territories and needing populations to fill those continents were not accepting of non procreating behaviours and as such suppressed homosexuality and gender variance in our society and often those we conquered too, something we are still struggling with to this very day.

So no sex and gender are not binary, but the model we hold onto with vicious doggedness is, and at the detriment to some of those forced to live within it.

Sex is not a social construct.
Gender is a social construct.

Throwing out the concept of biological sex wont make intersex peoples lives more comfortable, and its making life extremely unpleasant for 99% of the population.
Its making it harder for women to talk about abuse for one thing.

Care to put together a scientifically backed justification to your claim which doesn't modify the data set with the model your trying to prove to be correct.

To me, gender means stereotypes + personality. There seems to be no other definition around really.

Yes, the "overall gender" a person has depends on the buy-in they have to gender stereotypes covering the whole myriad of aspects of their lives. The buy-ins can be different, say for clothing, for other aspects of presentation, for DIY, for sport, for, well, everything. For a person, the buy-ins, varying across this myriad of aspects, come from the personality.

This to me makes a unique gender for every individual. Which makes gender a flawed basis for laws.

Do animals have genders?

No they don't, because it's a social construct which they are unaware of.

They have 2 sexes. You've got male chickens and female chickens. Nothing in between. You might get some disorders or anomalies butt here isn't a third sex category for chickens. You might get a hen that is aggressive and dominant but it's still a hen. You might get or a cockerel that likes to sit on eggs but it's still a cock.

Same for humans. 2 sexes.

Gender is a social construct and nothing more. There's either no gender or there are as many genders as there are people in the world.

The other thing with gender is that relies on the individual in question being present and conscious to declare it. Without them being present and able to tell other people what it is, no one will know. Unlike sex which is 99% of the time self evident even if the person is unconscious or has been dead for 1,000 years.

When they dig up ancient skeletons they say what sex it was based on biology. Gender is only in the mind and if that mind is not present to declare it, it ceases to exist.

Debbie6666 Human males (XY) belong to the class that do not bestow mitrochondrial DNA on their offspring via their gametes.
Females (XX) belong to the class that do.

^Debbie6666 Human males (XY) belong to the class that do not bestow mitrochondrial DNA on their offspring via their gametes.
Females (XX) belong to the class that do.^

So where does that leave infertile people?

I think I see what Debbie6666 is arguing. They're saying that because sex is not absolutely and completely binary in absolutely every human being, then, taking into account the vanishingly small number of individuals where sex determination is not straightforward, it might be possible to formulate a different definition of sex. And as such, the definition we have is constructed according to how we have decided our world is.

The problem with this approach is it's meaningless sophistry in terms of a useable definition that would be useful to human society and just about all science apart from the most recondite specialised parts.

@Debbie6666 Can you link to the many cultures in humanity that do not recognise the binary sex system? (Please don't include the countries whose economies rely on contrived variations for sex tourism)

Addressed upthread Debbie

Intersex people dont 'break the binary model'. Neither do infertile people such as pre pubescent girls or post menopausal women, or men who have had their testicles removed because of cancer, or men who have had a vasectomy.

Definitions are exclusionary. That does not make them harmful.

nauticant Hallelujah, But re your last sentence. That is only the case because its the system we have derived to fit our binary model. Maybe without the binary model there would be less/no discrimination needing those laws for instance as there wouldn't be the same historical divisions. Just saying and trying to challenge the thread premise.

7 Days All arguments still rely on a model that only works if you use the model under test to force the data.

DJBaggySmalls. I know that all those things do not stop people being who they are but your test for sex that you posted which relied on reproduction and fertility does. Any test of what makes a sex which is a binary result only succeeds when there is a leap of assumption and generalisation to force the subjects into the model. It so ingrained in society you cant even see your making it.

So if you accept sex and gender to both be social constructs
Debbie - no-one accepts that sex is a social construct. Here's a way to think about it.
Some things, can be physically observed, for example - you can put sperm cells or ova on a slide and observe them with a microscope. That means that they are not a social construct, they are a biological reality, not requiring a human action, thought or opinion to actually exist. Human sex, our chromosomes and our conception and reproduction all fall into this category.

However, social constructs are not similarly fact based and observable because their existence depends on interactions between individuals - ie - they are the behaviours and strategies that facilitate living together as a group which are not fixed and are subject to revolution and change over time. They are abstractions such as politics, tradition, religion, economics, etc. Gender falls into this category.

We know which children are girls and which are boys, and they are not fertile. Do you not understand the concept of belonging to a class?

The binary sex system has existed for 1000's of years before we discovered chromosomes, it is not unexpected that when we discovered that there were more things that define sex than genitals, that society forced its well established model onto the new data and consequently made the approximations that are key to forming binary systems and labeled all those variations as disorders of the established model, which is entirely unfair on those who they represent.

Do you really think so? If you're a 16 year old girl wondering why the hell you haven't started your period yet, or a bloke who has discovered the reason he and his wife have failed to conceive is because of his low sperm account, would it really be helpful to be told ''this is all part of the human experience, there's nothing the matter here, biological sex is a spectrum''?

We call things a disorder to acknowledge that people living with these conditions usually have difficulties not experienced by the rest of the population.