Explaining gender vs sex to dd

[PetraDelphiki]

Can anyone help me come up with a good way of explaining gender to dd (11)? Sex is easy but I’m getting her more confused when I try gender!

Honestly i don't understand what people see gender as, surely if you can like whatever you want to like regardless of your sex then gender isn't really a thing?

Do you mean sex role stereotypes? Say that some people think women and men should behave in particular ways, but that that isn't true and it's fine for a man to do X and a woman Y.

I think I've done this reasonably successfully with my 12yo by going down the biology first route - chromosomes, gamete production, body parts. That gets the idea of sex firmly ingrained (to the point that she laughed her head off when I told her some people believe they can change sex and hormones make you grow a uterus, so, job done). I am really confident with the science and she knows biology is my background, which helps.

Gender is more difficult; I called it "a set of ideas about how the sexes are supposed to act, feel and wear. Took it to the extreme - gender says all girls should wear frills, high heels, be sweet and be crap at maths, bpys should be tough, etc - and she got it straightaway with a snort and "well, that's a load of rubbish, isn't it". TBF I have always spent time busting princess myths and encouraging all the ways of being, from make-up to martial arts, and she has a lot of good role models. So perhaps it's easier for me, I don't know.

Maybe we need some kind of resource pack or website to help explain.

We started by me correcting her use of gender when she meant sex and went (mostly downhill) from there!!

I think talking about gender as sex role stereotypes is a good start - she’s already very clear that you can be a girl in trousers with short hair who likes martial arts and computer games and not feel any need to be a boy!

elle while I do completely agree with you gender (and the confusion between it and sex) is something she is going to come across so I really do need to find a way for her to understand what people mean by gender...

This is all in preparation for about 3 years time when she will get the talk at school from gendered intelligence (yes really)...I want her to be properly ready to rebut the girl/boy brain born in the wrong body stuff!!

Maybe we need some kind of resource pack or website to help explain

Great idea

silent yes the biology is the easy bit to explain - dd is very clear that it doesn’t matter what you look like and what operations you have etc you are either xx or xy in every cell in your body (yes I know intersex etc but they are disorders)...

And a resource pack/ website would be fab....

Might be worth you downloading the Transgender Trend resource pack? Only had a quick look and not read it fully myself, but it might be useful to you?

There is a potential source of confusion in that scientists, including biologists, often use gender when they mean sex. They use the words interchangeably but mean sex. Which does make sense in that gender is a social construct, so outside the area of interest of the natural sciences. So you'll find biology papers talking about the gender of fruit flies for example.

I haven't looked at this closely enough to join all the dots but suspect this is where the confusion about being 'assigned a gender at birth' comes from. Medicinal science has used the word gender interchangeably with sex, to mean sex. So, 'sex is observed at birth' has been misconstrued as 'gender assigned'. (I think the word assigned may come from rare intersex cases, where one or other sex is assigned for convenience).

My basic non-academic understanding of gender has always been that it is a social construct and some sort of relationship between what is going on in people's heads and the society they live in. So it involves identifying oneself with a sub-set of behaviours and appearances one prefers. Rather like becoming a goth.

Further potential for confusion abounds in the overlap between gender and sexuality.

Gender is the way people are socialised to behave according to their sex.

Gendered behaviour changes over time according to fashion.

Gendered behaviour is different in different cultures

Gendered behaviour is not fixed, it changes across time and culture.

Sex is fixed.

Females are female all the world round, across all time.

But how they are treated, what they can wear, how free they are depends on the culture of where they live. For example, it was only this year that women in Saudi Arabia were allowed to drive. They are treated differently to males because of their sex.

The genderists can't agree on what gender means so you've got no chance!

The original meaning was sex role/ stereotypes blue boys pink girls that's easy enough.

If you want to try and cover off what she might hear on the net re "internal gender id" etc is trickier as it's bollocks.

Sex is biology.
Gender is the way we are expected to behave based on our sex.

From what I understand of it, the new emphasis on gender is strongly reactionary, a force for social conservatism.

We've had decades of slow progress in the direction of 'your sex does not determine your destiny (inequities of reproduction notwithstanding)', so freedom to behave as you wish, do whatever you want with your life and change your mind and alter your body, should you wish, as you go along.

Now, a reactionary movement seems to be promoting the idea that gendered stereotypes should be destiny. That you must identify your gender early and stick to a narrow form of stereotypical behaviour for the rest of your life. Problematic in many ways but also confounding logic in the sense that social attitudes, so a society's gender stereotypes, are forever changing.

Also to take it down to a easy simplistic level possibly for younger children I’d use the blue/pink programming that is aimed at children as a great example - they see it really quickly particularly once the girls start hating pink! This also blends quite nicely into the blue/ pink colouring of the transgender flag - nice clear message!

#TGLWGH

In the last few months I have been asked to confirm ds’s gender twice - once for registering for school and once for registering at GP’s. Both times I crossed it out and wrote sex, it wasn’t commented on at all (as far as I know). Is gender the standard term now? Or is it just people being bonkers?

Its people being bonkers. The correct term is 'sex'. Everyone has one no matter how they present, feel, or identify.

*Gendered behaviour is different in different cultures

Gendered behaviour is not fixed, it changes across time and culture.*

This is really important. Are there any mnetters more knowledegable in cultural anthropology and similar disciplines who would be willing to draw up a list of examples for us all to use?

Actual roffle!

::::::PSA:::::::

Thanks upstart. Sorry, didn’t want to derail but not important enough to warrant its own thread.

@UpstartCrow - thank you. Actually having a similar conversation with my 11 year old dd. She thought the word sex was comical and is more comfortable with the word gender. Trying to explain they are two different things.

I tell my children that sex is objective (physical, material, real). Gender is subjective (depends of personal views or circumstances, ideas, thoughts or beliefs).

depends on

This is all in preparation for about 3 years time when she will get the talk at school from gendered intelligence (yes really)...I want her to be properly ready to rebut the girl/boy brain born in the wrong body stuff!!

Maybe present her with the facts- all the facts- and then she can decide what her opinion is based on those.

So what are the scientific measurable peer reviewed facts about gender that I should give her?