Please explain gender/sex/biological sex differences

[delilabell]

I cannot get my head round these! I feel I can't be a strong feminist if I can't even understand this

gender identity is heterosexual, honosexual, non binary etc
The first two things you said, yes, this one no.
Heterosexual, homosexual and bi sexual are sexual attraction.
Gender identity is how you want to be seen in terms of the gender stereotypes.

@merrymouse

Some people believe that even if you strip away all the stereotypes, there would still be differences in abilities/outlook/personality that are based on sex, this could also be called gender.

I think that is biology not gender.

Yep. Biology would impose some physical differences.

It is, as far as anyone can tell, using many studies of different societies across the globe and all knowable times, sociological mores that impose differences in attitudes and behaviours.

There is an argument that some may well be some that are wholly biology based, but even then it could be argued that they are solidified by a social interpretation, a value assumption, of them.

Biology imposes restrictions on every human being. But as ever, the differences between each individual is greater than the differences between the sexes.

@delilabell

Thank you all so much!! Obvs I was at school tobkearn about sex. It was the use of the term biological sex thar confused me. So sex is how you're born, gender is stereotypes , gender identity is heterosexual, honosexual, non binary etc? So I would say my sex was female brand my gender identity was heterosexual?

Not quite. You're equating "gender identity" to "sexual orientation", two very different things.

Sexual orientation - who you are attracted to / orientated towards. If the people you are attracted to are the same sex as you, you are homosexual (gay / lesbian), to the opposite sex is heterosexual (straight), and to both sexes bisexual (bi because there are only two sexes).

Gender identity is described as an internal sense of yourself as male or female and needn't actually correspond to which sex you actually are. It's bollocks. Made-up guff. A claim made to shore up a statement such as 'But I feel that I am a woman', by someone who is not a woman. They make up a phrase and claim it as a reality and not the fiction it is.

I’m glad that posters are recommending you don’t read Judith Butler, OP, as her work is nonsense garbage.

On the subject of sexual attraction, it's also important to note that the LGBT groups like Stonewall have taken words like bisexuality and shortened them to 'bi'. This is a deliberate move to obfuscate their relationship to sex and move towards gender. 'Trans' used to be transexual but is now either 'trans' or transgender.

gender identity is heterosexual, honosexual, non binary etc?

GI is non binary etc.

Heterosexual, homosexual are sexual orientations.

Non-binary means you don't relate to either the stereotypical representation of male or female. Unlike other people. In order for 'non binary' to exist as a concept it requires others to conform to and identify with sex stereotypes. Ergo it reinforces regressive ideas about the roles of men and women.

Non-binary means you don't relate to either the stereotypical representation of male or female.

However, as per the experience of friends and their children, you might have people whose pronouns are they and describe themselves as 'NB, female presenting' or 'NB male presenting' (there may be more including those who go for what I'd otherwise style as androgynous).

The [X] presenting may or may not be in line with their sex.

Science is messy and complicated

This is what people say when they don’t want to make a reasoned argument.

stick to a few slogans, such as “Sex is real.”

I don’t think that is a common slogan.

Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists or psychologists currently working on the subjects of sex or gender.

Who are these people? If there had been ground breaking discoveries in the field of human reproduction surely they would be household names.

Mostly, of course, you can and should absolutely ignore what actual trans people have to say about their own experience. “Nothing about us without us”

That is a great rallying cry, but it doesn’t change the definitions of scientific concepts, the material consequences of sex, acknowledge the harm done by imposing gender on others, or any conflict of rights.

MishyJDI

Actually, intersex people prove the existence of sex rather than disprove it.

Actual biologists and psychologists? What makes you so certain that none of us here are actual biologists or psychologists?

Or maybe multi disciplinarians and are, like me, both!!

@merrymouse

Science is messy and complicated

This is what people say when they don’t want to make a reasoned argument.

stick to a few slogans, such as “Sex is real.”

I don’t think that is a common slogan.

Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists or psychologists currently working on the subjects of sex or gender.

Who are these people? If there had been ground breaking discoveries in the field of human reproduction surely they would be household names.

Mostly, of course, you can and should absolutely ignore what actual trans people have to say about their own experience. “Nothing about us without us”

That is a great rallying cry, but it doesn’t change the definitions of scientific concepts, the material consequences of sex, acknowledge the harm done by imposing gender on others, or any conflict of rights.

Also, this little section, Mostly, of course, you can and should absolutely ignore what actual trans people have to say about their own experience. “Nothing about us without us” really makes me laugh.

Actual females are telling trans women that it is not possible for them to experience life as a female because they are male, yet our experience is somehow bigoted and irrelevant.

Actually, intersex people prove the existence of sex rather than disprove it

Agreed - as anybody who'd had the courtesy to read Claire Graham's work would know.

mrkhvoice.com/

womansplaceuk.org/2019/10/21/biological-sex-is-not-a-spectrum-there-are-only-two-sexes-in-humans-with-claire-graham/

So sex is how you're born, gender is stereotypes , gender identity is heterosexual, honosexual, non binary etc?

No, you've got sexual attraction in there.

Sex is biology. Your sex is determined by a collection of characteristics; your chromosomes (XX for female and XY for male), your sexual organs, and the gametes produces by your sex class. Females produce large, static gametes (eggs or ova) and female mammals gestate the young in their uterus.

Gender is a collection of behaviours we are expected to perform, based on our sex. Gender isnt real. If gender was real then the rules would be the same for all time and in different cultures - men would always be expected to wear their hair short, women would always be expected to like pink and wear skirts.

Sexual orientation is who you want to have sex with, based on sex. The three combinations are
heterosexual (opposite sex attracted)
homosexual (same sex attracted)
and bisexual.

Gender is an arbitrary set of rules, gender identity cannot exist as it is based on rules that don't exist. Its a social construct.

Some people believe that even if you strip away all the stereotypes, there would still be differences in abilities/outlook/personality that are based on sex, this could also be called gender.

Some abilities are affected by your body, and some of these physical attributes are affected by your sex — eg strength, reach, running speed. The average man is stronger, taller, faster than the average woman. If you’re a small, slight person you’d probably be less interested in, say, weightlifting than a bigger person.

The main thing is that most signs of ‘gender’ — such as being sporty or liking pink — are actually just personality traits.

I love motorbikes, live in jeans and have no interest in fashion or make-up. I also have a huge collection of earrings, love dancing and have no interest in sports. Neither of those lists have anything to do with my sex. They’re about personality.

Everyone has a personality, but ‘gender identity’ is a recent invention based on reviving old outdated stereotypes.

Non-binary means you don't relate to either the stereotypical representation of male or female.

Most of my female friends don't relate to the stereotypical representation of female. We’re not non-binary or transmen, just ordinary women who aren’t interested in stereotypes.

Everyone I know is non-binary in terms of their gender (if we must talk about gender).

And everyone I know is binary in terms of their sex.

I’d also argue I could remove the words “I know” from the above two sentences.

When archeologists discover a skeleton, they can sex it. Without difficulty. From the bones, from the DNA, every cell of that human was either one sex or the other. Those with disorders of sexual development are still either one sex or the other and many such disorders only occur in one specific sex. The assessments made are replicable in any country, in any period of time. Different scientists can repeat those checks and get the exact same answer.

The archeologists will have no clue at all about the gender of the skeleton, because they cannot ask the person that was how they choose to view themselves and respond to cultural sex based stereotypes of their time. They can make some assumptions based on what was known of the time, place and culture of the period the skeleton was alive during, but have been wrong; for example the surprise when coming up with female skeletons with grave goods, tools and symbols of respect that do not accord with sex based stereotypical assumptions.

Gender varies in time, place, culture: liking pink for example is not an indicator of being of the female sex, it was a culturally coding colour for boys until relatively recently in history. Gender roles vary wildly across the globe and across culture.

You can have a sex reveal party for your unborn baby; you cannot have a gender reveal since that's something the baby will express to you in their own time and it will vary, change and grow throughout that child's lifetime in response to their experiences and preferences and choices of expression and identification. From conception onwards until centuries after that human dies, it's sex will be easily and consistently ascertainable.

Nothing that is done in terms of gender expression or outward change or medication changes the biological sex of any mammal.

I didn't express myself very well about the possible non sex based aspects of gender. I was thinking in particular whether there is a real difference in the cognitive ability between men and women. Given how rigidly gender stereotypes are enforced pretty much world wide it is not possible to determine if men for example are better at spacial awareness or whether they have just been trained better.

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

Non-binary means you don't relate to either the stereotypical representation of male or female.

Most of my female friends don't relate to the stereotypical representation of female. We’re not non-binary or transmen, just ordinary women who aren’t interested in stereotypes.

Quite

Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists

I am a biologist

Don’t, whatever you do, talk to actual biologists or psychologists currently working on the subjects of sex or gender.

I am a psychologist working on the subject of gender.

Gender is socially constructed ideas subjugating women by socialising women and girls to be kind and considerate, especially of men’s feelings over our own needs, while socialising men and boys to believe themselves entitled to women’s kindness and consideration, even when that is to the detriment of women’s own needs.

People who fall for gender ideology conflate sex, primary sex characteristics and secondary sex characteristics.

Sex is chromasomal(Y chromasome present=male, absent =female ). If all goes to plan you are one of 2 karyotypes(Xx or XY).There are about 15 other karyotypes (X, XXY etc)but all are either male or female depending on the Y.

Primary sex characteristics are genitals and gonads, things set in action before birth, there is no overlap between the primary sex characteristics of the sexes, unless a person has one of a few well understood disorders of sexual development or intersex conditions. There are male dsds and female dsds. This does lead to a tiny cohort of males developing female genetalia, and occasionally even some internal structure (womb), but never the ability to produce the gametes (eggs/sperm) of the opposite sex. These people really can claim to have been assigned a sex at birth

There is no known overlap between dsds and being transgender.

You are either on the male reproductive path or the female. We are a sexually dimorphic species. We are dimorphic BECAUSE of our separate reproductive roles. Were we more similar, we would still be 2 desperate sexes.

Secondary sex characteristics are post birth changes and usually post puberty that are hormonally mediated such as fat distribution, breasts, voice depth, brow bone prominence, pelvic size, facial features, muscle percentage and type.

Many secondary sex chacteristics overlap, some massively, some barely at all so for any given secondary sex characteristic a male may be more 'feminine' than a given female and vis versa. Oestrogen and testosterone do affect the brain somewhat so the male and female behavioural profiles are overlapping but different on average. Out of this, the concept of gender was born. This is how a good woman should look, act, behave. Feminists tried to separate the concept to prevent biologically determined roles being forced on them. Women can behave in a masculine ways etc. It has been taken, twisted and is now being used to deny biology. Men still reject 'feminine' males.

Given how rigidly gender stereotypes are enforced pretty much world wide it is not possible to determine if men for example are better at spacial awareness or whether they have just been trained better.

But if the difference is innate, that would be biology, (nature) not gender (nurture).

@MishyJDI what are you blathering on about?