"So you can't change sex but you can change gender"

[3timeslucky]

This was a comment from my daughter (11) this morning when I was asking her what they were covering in school in RSE (Relationships & Sexuality Education) and explaining that I'd like her to tell me if they mention anything to do with being trans.

I get what she meant - that you can't change sex but you can change how you present yourself (so a boy could start wearing dresses and make-up for example). But is she right that that is changing your gender? What does changing gender mean? Is there a better way of describing it given the terms sex and gender are used so interchangeably by significant numbers of people? I personally wouldn't say "change gender"; I'd say "can present in any way you/they like".

Thanks in advance.

No, I don't think you can change your gender either. You can present as more or less feminine or masculine but you are what you are. I don't believe that gender is a feeling.

You can pretend to be the opposite sex. If convincing enough many people may mistake you for a member of the opposite sex (buck angel etc).

You may wear whatever you like / act according to whatever sex stereotypes you like. The important thing is that a masculine presenting female is no less female than a feminine presenting one.

Gender is a series of oppressive expectations applied based on sex.

I'd say she's right if everyone would stop conflating sex and gender, especially when it comes to sex based rights. Though I prefer your description .

A useful illustration of how gender can change but sex doesn't is Pips Bunce.

Not having a go at your DD - I think I'd have gone barmy if I'd had to learn this at school - but the idea is that sex and gender are two separate things. So, AIUI, you don't change your gender, you realise what your 'true' gender is. It might be the same as your sex, or the opposite, or a combination of the two, or neither.

More recently, gender now seems to include things that have nothing to do with sex - you may feel partly alien, for example(!)

Google for 'list of genders' to see more, but I'd strongly advise having the to hand before you do.

So, AIUI, you don't change your gender, you realise what your 'true' gender is.

The 'gender fluid' types blow a hole in that theory.

This is a language sleight of hand trick to confuse people into accepting what looks like openness and inclusivity when it is actually regressive bollocks.

Gender expectations box people in. Fuck "changing" gender, I want the whole list abolished.

Your sex is objective. It cannot change.

Gender is subjective. It is what other people make of you.

So they can change your gender.

Errol apols - I think I was unclear. Just to confirm, I completely disagree with all the gender stuff. I was trying to explain my understanding of the 'theory' behind it.

Imo:

Sex is biological fact - XX/XY. You can't change it.

Gender = social construct, performative behaviour. Stereotypically-feminine behaviour is different depending on your culture, your age to some extent, your social class.

Gender is a binary spectrum, with extreme masculinity on one end and extreme femininity on the other. In the crudest terms, for explanatory purposes: Masculinity in my culture is associated with physical strength, taciturnity (usually), dominance, hairiness, muscularity, plain dark boring clothes, authority, short hair, no makeup. Femininity is about the opposite - submissiveness, softly spoken, looks pretty, long hair, makeup.

I don't know if anyone has a really fixed gender identity. Maybe they do. Personally, I probably move up and down the spectrum throughout the day, each day. Fighting in a martial arts class is not a feminine behaviour. Neither is scratching my arse while watching the telly. My husband listening closely to me banging on about my feelings and making empathetic comments is not particularly masculine of him. This is because femininity and masculinity are silly stereotypes and not at all an essential part of our biology or born in to us at all. Sometimes gender stereotypes actively conflict with the "corresponding" biology - giving birth, for example, is one of the most intensely female things a person can do, but it's not at all feminine.

Tldr: gender is all bollocks.

OP - I think your daughter is correct. She can change her gender any time by shaving her head, wearing clumpy boots and openly farting. That's how shallow and meaningless gender is. But she will always be female.

Gender is subjective, but I'm not sure as it's either entirely created or externally received. We don't have a gender, but we can conform to one.

Cwg1 - no, you were clear enough, you were describing the 'theory'. Except, as the concept of 'gender fluid' exposes, it can't be the theory, it's merely a theory.

BTW, well done OP for having this conversation with your DD.

You can't change sex, but you can change your gender presentation (accepting that Gender is just a set of restrictive stereotypes which can vary from culture to culture and which are imposed on people depending on which biological sex they happen to be). And you can change the appearance of your body to mimic the opposite sex. But you cannot change sex, no. Your daughter is correct IMO

World Health Organisation Definitions:

www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/knowledge/glossary/en/

Only society can "change gender". Because gender is a collection of socially constructed expectations and prejudices of, preconceptions about and demands on any given individual on the basis of their sex that change only when our society changes.

I like to describe this phenomenon to my kids as a straitjacket that society tries to fit all of us into. Every society and time period patches together different straitjackets, but they all have one.

For instance, the East German straitjacket forced upon mothers included a patch that said "works full time", whereas the West German one had one that said "stays at home". They shared lots of other patches, like "cleans house", "cooks" or "responsible for the children" but not those two.

Anthropology gives us lots of different examples, too, and suggests it might be much easier to understand this if we don't say gender but sex role stereotypes for instance.

Children are being taught that the sex role stereotypes they choose to emulate are entirely up to them so long as they do conform to the gendered behaviors society has assigned to the male and female respectively?
The thing that bothers me the most about this fixation on children's behavior is the constant questioning they experience if they deviate in any way, including being taught that some children were born in the wrong body. That is the first step to social contagion on the way to medical professionals creating iatronic illness.

I had to look that up...I think it's this?

Iatrogenic: Due to the activity of a physician or therapy. For example, an iatrogenic illness is an illness that is caused by a medication or physician.

Sex is fixed and can't change

Gender is fluffy, floaty and can change with perception.

All good...right? However there seems to be a big shift to make sex and gender mean the same thing, favouring the gender definition.

It's wrong, my biology is fixed, I'm a female mammal, that's never going to change.

I'd ask her if they gave her a list of things that designate each gender. And if they haven't, she (or you) should ask for one. And then go through them and demolish them one by one.

Because otherwise it's really, really enforcing unspoken stereotypes and not something schools should be doing.

I would say yes you can change your gender, but that gender is purely a social construct anyway and that the aim should be a world without gender ;)

Quite frankly, I consider it a victory that your child understands a difference between sex and gender. #babysteps

The good news is that this has not been raised in her school. I don't think it will be but don't know for sure. I know for certain it will come up in secondary.

I'm trying to have pre-emptive conversations and establish facts and I have already stated that there is incorrect information out there (so if someone says you can change your sex or that girls can have a penis then she knows that is BS). I feel I need to keep going and keep building on that, particularly around what gender means (I'm not sure she gets "social construct" which is the term I tend to use). Your replies have been helpful. The strait jacket visual is a good one for a child so I may start with that. Thank you all.