OK, let's talk about gender.

[GarlicRound]

Warning: I've just realised I've been up all night and really need to get some sleep - so this is a post-and-run (until the evening). Second warning added: I tend to ramble a bit when tired. Apologies for the length!

Gender. Not the linked concepts of gender identity or grammatical gender, but the cultural expectations and impositions placed by societies on their members according to sex.

Like everyone else, I live in a society so am not free of externally applied or socially internalised gender. I have tried to resist it, personally and politically, since childhood. Since discovering feminism at 17, I've recognised it as a tool of patriarchal oppression.

I really hope people will run with it. Please raise questions, issues and share perspectives. We do this topic from time to time, so I'll kick off with a less-discussed angle: men 😄

A young male may grow up in a warlike society, which expects and requires men to be warriors. He may not feel himself to be warrior material, despite all his training. He may be distressed by violence, reluctant to hurt people, and far better suited to tending the wounded due to his irrepressibly kind disposition.

In a warrior society, violence defines a man. Our chap isn't violent, therefore he is not a man. He's kind and nurturing: qualities expected of a woman. By the logic of his culture, then, he is a woman - a woman with a penis (unless they cut it off to make sure). To make sense of him, they dress him in women's clothes and send him to do women's work, living with the women.

There is an obvious intersection here with gender identity and genderism. He might, if he were aware of the concept, 'identify as a woman' because this is the only explanation his society provides for a peace-loving male. We have evidence of this happening in Native American cultures with 'two-spirits' and archaeological finds of male skeletons with feminine trappings, among others.

It only means the guy 'is a woman' in terms of his people's highly prescriptive sex roles. The warrior stereotype for men still pertains in more flexible societies like ours: men are bigger, stronger than women, and more likely to be violent; in many ways the more physically dominant of men still overrule the gentler types.

It's one of the routes by which gender disadvantages males. There are others. By and large, though, sex stereotypes disadvantage women more widely and profoundly.

He may be distressed by violence, reluctant to hurt people, and far better suited to tending the wounded due to his irrepressibly kind disposition.

’tending the wounded’ was men’s work; amputations, cauterisations, etc.

A 'warrior society' is a fantasy trope, not a thing that could exist for any extended part of anyone's lifetime.

Sure, some societies had armies that ambitious and aggressive rulers used to expand their power, but those societies also had farmers, craftspeople, food technologists, traders, traders, artisans, priests, doctors, artists, musicians. Many of them female. If all they had was warriors they'd die out in a month or two.

A society that chooses to feed physically 'inferior' men more than it feeds women in times of scarcity (which is what the 'two-spirit' notion is about) is making interesting choices about population survival. Citing half-understood concepts from other cultures is problematic.

culturallyboundgender.wordpress.com/2013/03/09/toward-an-end-to-appropriation-of-indigenous-two-spirit-people-in-trans-politics-the-relationship-between-third-gender-roles-and-patriarchy/

OP's scenario is both absurd (at least from the point of view of modern "civilised" people) and undeniably very similar to what's happening with trans people today, and unsurprisingly this has made a lot of people who want to think the trans movement isn't absurd very angry.

Why isn’t the two-spirit stuff condemned as cultural appropriation?

It is. See the link in my post.

Genderism is all about grabbing other people's stuff. And about absurd fantasies.

What this hypothetical idea does show is how much of a luxury belief trans is. The idea to certain men get to opt out of their society’s responsibilities for ensuring survival.

I'm researching my great grandfather's WW1 battalion at length.

I was reading the citation for one of them for the military medal last night. He wasn't a member of the fighting companies - I doubt he was even carrying a gun at the time. He was a stretcher bearer. He was part of Battalion HQ - and rather than fighting he went up to the front trenches and was tending men under heavy artillery and machine gun fire, refusing to leave them. He received a gun shot wound in the thigh whilst doing this.

He's the second so far I've found with a similar award. The other one was going into no mans land and retrieving men on stretchers under fire.

Women are talked about a fair bit as the ones who tended the wounded. We don't tend to cover much about how men got to hospital first and who were the emergency medics though. All your war movies have your heroes and then their angelic healers. The bit in the middle is glossed over and hurried with very little focus on this aspect of war - yet particularly in modern day combat - this is seen as the most important elements which reduces deaths massively and reduces permanent disability (one of the factors in the current Ukraine - Russian war is that the Russian death toll is much higher in part because of poor medical support and emergency care. The Ukrainians meanwhile have been heavily focused on this).

The other overlooked part of WW1 is how many men were in the army but didn't have front line roles. One of my other great grandfather's was in a battalion known as a Labour Corps. The records for these battalions simply were not kept and there's very scant information about the lives of these men in part because of this and in part because they were often older men or men in lesser health / physical shape meaning they were more likely to be poor/illiterate. And frankly who is interested in the men who move goods and equipment to the front and build and maintain railways etc. These men were not issued guns at all - the British army didn't have enough for every single soldier who enlisted, (even front line troops were using very old unsuitable guns at times, particularly earlier in the war) - instead they were issued with a shovel. But it was not uncommon for them to be within the range of fire - doing things like tending for horses, moving rations etc.

This particular great Grandfather was medically evacuated and awarded a pension after being gassed. Many others died. He never fired a shot. I find his story as interesting as that of my great grandfather who was in the trenches, in part precisely because of our lack of knowledge of what happened to these men that's almost completely lost from history only 100 years on.

Amazingly I think I read that men like this actually made up 2/3rd of the army - the logistics of running the war were utterly enormous.

We do get told about conscious objectors, but actually many men didn't go as far as refusing to serve completely - instead being allocated to medical teams and other non combat roles by choice and this is what they ended up doing, still living in appalling conditions and at considerable risk.

One of my great great grandfathers was too old to fight but he signed up for WW1 service anyway. He was a photographer so his job was training men to take ariel photos from planes which became an absolutely crucial job.

Indeed the efficiency and success of Allied logistics was a factor in breaking the moral of the Germans in 1918. They had been told that they had as much as the Allies for supplies and rations, but on making a breakthrough in spring 1918 found that they'd be lied to which absolutely broke their spirit and resolve. Eventually this offensive was to run out of steam as the Germans had extended their supply lines so much they couldn't go any further and maintain momentum and they didn't have the moral to push further.

When the Allies made their counter attack and eventual breakthrough in the Autumn of 1918, they faced similar logistic challenges. My great grandfather covered more than 20miles fighting in 4 days at one point near the end of the war. They had moved vast quantities of rations to keep up with the pace of the offensive and they had to bring up equipment to do things to enable the reserve units to cross rivers quickly behind the advancing troops as the Germans had blown all the bridges as they retreated.

This wasn't done by women and it wasn't done by men carrying guns and intending to kill.

I think our concept and perception of WW1 - and war generally - is somewhat warped into this idea of heroic young men with guns. It's almost the embodiment of these ideas of toxic masculinity and modern day main character syndrome where you have to have a leading role as a man rather than being a crucial part of the back up team with what is perceived as a 'lesser role', when in reality without all their unseen, uncelebrated and often dangerous work, the front line soldiers wouldn't have been able to fight.

It's the idea of individualism and how it's celebrated today rather than understanding the value of teamwork and community which often comes with self fulfillment in its own right that is really a massive issue within 2025 society. We are all about the influencers and 'being someone' rather than a less glamorous but potentially rewarding job.

(/End of being a female WW1 nerd)

Denial of responsibility and main character syndrome...

A young male may grow up in a warlike society, which expects and requires men to be warriors.

That society would still have plenty of men who would be unable to be warriors: men who were born with a severe enough disability, men who got injured and couldn't fight anymore, men who grew too old to not become a liability in combat, and so on. There would be other male roles reserved for all these men, and our young man would only have to be oriented towards one of those roles.

He might, if he were aware of the concept, 'identify as a woman' because this is the only explanation his society provides for a peace-loving male.

Even if we go with your extreme postulate that the only possible role he could fill in his society would be a role usually devoted to women, it still doesn't follow that he would suddenly identify out of his own sex just because he starts fulfilling that role. He grew up as a peace-loving boy accepted by all as a boy; he's always had a male gender identity. Just because he's suddenly shunted to a female role, doesn't mean that his gender identity will flip. He will still be a man, because he's always been a man.

In fact, we have growing evidence of just that, in the existence of an expanding body of kids who were transitioned early in life because they didn't fit gender stereotypes, and who de-transition in adulthood because it turns out that gender identity is not about which gender role one fulfills. These are kids who were affirmed socially in the opposite sex from a very young age. They were treated medically so they didn't fully go through their sex's puberty. They were operated on so their body no longer fully resembles that of a member of their sex. And yet, they still identify as their sex comes adulthood.

So no, our young man would not identify as a woman, in any way or shape. And anyone who transitions nowadays because they prefer some gender trappings of the other sex, is doing themselves a massive disservice.

@RedToothBrush
just adding - yes… one of my uncles was a despised ‘conscies’ - bomb disposal, then dropped at Arnhem as a stretcher bearer and then a POW. His father OTOH was an RSM in WWI- but in the medical corps, got a medal for doing amputations etc in the field under fire.

It pisses me off that we are told about 'warrior societies' in this simplistic black and white way which assumes that ALL men in the society have the same role and ALL women in the society have the same role.

These are the roles that simply don't have the same status of hero so are left out of narratives. It doesn't mean the roles don't exist or they don't have value.

We know that the roles of women in society are lost from history with little evidence for them. Why do we presume that this doesn't happen to male roles too?

History as a rule doesn't preserve 'the mundune' or 'the everyday' but these are often some of the most important roles in a society. Because they are so important and integral they can get overlooked because they are seen as so ordinary and obvious.

Take being a baker in the army (for pretty much any era) for example - no one thinks "ooo I'll write a history about where the baker went and how they had to set up field kitchens to produce the huge quantities of bread needed etc etc". Such things are now fascinating to modern historians.

A warrior society wouldn't be any different to this.

From my own experience and that of other trans people of both sexes I've talked to, an honest study of the psychological effects on trans people of taking cross-sex hormones would reveal, uh, rather unpalatable results about the role of hormones in male and female stereotypical behaviours...

This is an interesting POV. I think there are two things here: 1) the role of hormones in male and female stereotypical behaviours in the general population 2) what happens when someone takes cross-sex hormones

On point 1, it is clear that testosterone is a significant contributor towards aggression and libido. I've heard several parents anecdotally talking about their sons having a bit of a feral (aggressive) behaviour patch at around age 4 and I would expect every female has found themselves pretty appalled at the obvious impact of the sudden and huge shift in libido that happens when boys hit teenage years.

For females, it's well known that there are times in our lives when hormones impact emotions that can sometimes feel difficult to manage e.g. related to periods, the infamous "day 3" after childbirth, perimenopause, menopause. Also, things like "nesting" (e.g. sudden urge to clean the house or similar) before childbirth are hormonally driven.

Obviously not every male or every female experiences the same thing, either biologically or emotionally, but these patterns are well known at a population level.

It does then (annoyingly) make sense that societies often start to associate certain toys and preferences with being male or female i.e. hormones help to partially explain the origin of sex-based stereotypes. For example, giving toys that lean towards "aggression" (e.g. war-based toys, toy cars that mimic powerful IRL ones) to boys and ones that lean towards "nurturing" (e.g. dolls) to girls. Likewise with clothing: practical clothing for daring adventures for boys and delicate, pretty clothing to girls. It also feels like there is an instruction that comes with this: if you're a boy, get out there and "be a man". If you're a girl, stop being so emotional and instead focus on looking pretty and caring for others. Obviously that's utter sexist drivel but it's annoyingly easy to see how hormones are part of why these expectations exist and prevail.

On point 2, at a simple level it's easy to see why giving testosterone to a female will likely increase aggression and libido. It's also easy to see why giving oestrogen to a male will likely increase emotional fluctuations that could potentially be summarised as a feeling of overwhelm. But it's not going to be anywhere near that simple to match the hormones to the stereotypes, in a cause and effect sense, mostly because anyone who identifies as trans has most likely already chosen to adopt stereotypical behaviours/styles that are most commonly associated with the opposite sex before taking any cross-sex hormones.

But ultimately, this all comes down to:

• nobody can change sex
• some people believe we all have a gender identity that is separate from the body, and that this can be "misaligned" with one's sex
• based on that belief (for anyone who holds it), patterns of sex-based stereotypes help to make sense of "gender". For everyone else, it doesn't help one bit and just creates a mess, including pulling vulnerable children and young adults into a potential path of harm and enabling autogynophiles to identify their way into women's sports and spaces
• hormones are part of the mix but are nowhere near the whole picture. Nature v nurture is impossible to fully unpick. Layer on beliefs, like the idea that we all have a gender identity, and it's even more impossible
• sex-based stereotypes will continue to exist and prevail

The examples from WW1 and WW2 Britain are exactly on point. From the 18th-mid 20th century it was about as 'warrior society' as you could get: large armed force, Empire on which the sun never set, many schools with cadet training, a class structure where military rank equated to social status.

Most men in the services still wanted to retire, take their pensions/prize money, buy a little business or a farm, pursue their hobbies and interests and settle down to raise the next generation. No genders.

Or classical Greece? Male citizens who were sufficiently wealthy were expected to be hoplites. Refusal would be likely to bring social stigma and discrimination - but such men weren’t remotely considered to be women. The gender restrictions on women were dominated by control of their fertility - assurance of paternity.

But it's not going to be anywhere near that simple to match the hormones to the stereotypes, in a cause and effect sense, mostly because anyone who identifies as trans has most likely already chosen to adopt stereotypical behaviours/styles that are most commonly associated with the opposite sex before taking any cross-sex hormones.

Obviously, I can't talk for other trans people, but in my case, some of the effects I'm talking about were things I wasn't aware of, didn't expect, and quite frankly could do without.

That said, I agree with everything else in your post, most especially the bits about the harming nature of enforcing sex-based stereotypes. If anything, I would argue that since we're aware that there is some small biological basis for them, we should deliberately fight against them as a society, as in, encourage both children and adults to explore their non-gender-stereotypical characteristics in order to better apprehend the full breadth of their personality and be more able to mindfully choose who and what they want to be. (Am I still a bit resentful that I had to fight to get that radio-controlled car for Christmas at age 9, because "that's not a girl's toy"? Possibly 😆)

The Old Testament books are full of men who for various reasons are not warriors and who are also never considered to be women. Not twisty tricksy spotty-sheep-breeding Jacob, not eunuchs Ezra and Nehemiah, not those pesky male temple prostitutes. Men, all of them, centuries worth of men, not a gender to be seen anywhere.

When I was 8 I was into Ghostbusters.
When I was 10 I was into computer games
When I was 15 it was football (nope didn't fancy them)
When I was 17 it was guitar bands (again didn't fancy)
I worked in an industry for 14 years which was male dominated.
I've also had phases of interest in online gaming and war history (various eras).

Does this make me male???!

My mum obviously seemed to think I should have been.

Excellent post @BonfireLady and thank-you for acknowledging the role of biology in sex differences.

The one thing I'd add is that I don't believe any hormone will mould or change an xy brain in the same way if will an xx brain not just because of nurture but because the underlying hardware is different. We see this with effeminate males or trans women who do femininity in a male, non empathetic manner and visa versa for butch females/transmen who still retain a female essence. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is but as an example when I saw photos of a well known trans couple and their child it was obvious who the nurturing female was in the couple.

I hope that made sense.

We can all agree that hormones affect behaviour.
But in the duality that is 'sex' vs 'gender', do these hormones fall under sex, or under gender? Or a grey area in between?
The hormones themselves are biological, so sex.
The behaviours caused by the hormones are therefore also part of 'sex', not gender; they are biologically-driven behaviours.
But it is these same behaviours which across populations give rise to the stereotypes which we call gender. So gender (stereotypical behaviour) arises from sex.

Perhaps the real dividing line is not between sex and gender, but between those behaviours which are genuinely rooted in hormones and biology and those which are arbitrarily defined.
So having a Friday night pub punch-up or football terrace punch-up is sex-based gender.
Wearing trousers and a tie is arbitrary gender.

Playing with toy soldiers, or Action Man or Power Rangers or whatever the modern incarnation is (imagining them shooting each other and getting blown up and falling down dead) may be sex-based gender?
Playing with cars is arbitrary gender?

But how do we know what is arbitrary and what is sex-based?
Is there robust research to show that on average boys like mechanics or vehicles more than girls, somehow adjusting the research results for sexist upbringings? Is liking mechanics and vehicles on average innately masculine gender behaviour? Or is is just sexist parenting?

There is no 'sex-based gender' because there is no fucking gender. There is sex, and there is makey-uppy, navel-gazing fantasy bolloxology.

No gender.

No warrior societies.

Sex everywhere.

@EuclidianGeometryFan

The behaviours caused by the hormones are therefore also part of 'sex', not gender; they are biologically-driven behaviours.

Eh. I wouldn't go that far. The thing is, we (as adults, at least) can control our behaviours to some extent. So the biological impulse for a behaviour may be there, but that doesn't mean that we have to exhibit that behaviour. And whether we do or not can be heavily influenced by social expectations about gender roles.

If there is no such thing as gender, what do you call the statistic that most violent crime is committed by men? What do you call the behaviour of women seeking to protect themselves from male violence?
Do you call such behaviour sex-based, but just not use the word gender?

Interesting. So in your view the male propensity toward violence is not part of 'sex', so is therefore part of 'gender'?
Because the men could stop themselves being violent if they tried, and if society did not condone or applaud male violence they would not be violent, so it can't be under 'sex'?
(Before you say society does not applaud male violence, look at the popular reaction to John Prescott punching a protester who threw an egg at him.)

it makes more sense to discuss examples from real life matriarchal societies

but get some sleep before you do 😁

Of course I call it sex-based because that it what it is.

Gender is a function of grammar. It was not applied to human beings until the 1990s, when I had already been a feminist for decades, and it has caused nothing but confusion.

Why use an formless and unnecessary word for something that already has a clear and unambiguous centuries-old word?

Sex.