Do you agree that there's more than 2 genders?

@MsSwan Male and female are sexes, not genders.

@BohemianBoo I guess I need to be schooled. 🤷

@MsSwan That's life.

@MsSwan no, you are correct. This person is speaking complete nonsense. He’s trying to make everyone believe that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are nothing to do with biology. They are genders apparently which is socially constructed. But he can’t define what any of these terms are without using circular logic. He’s an ideologue.

@TheGreatestEver123 A man is a person who identifies with many of the tropes that society assigns to males at birth. A woman is a person who identifies with many of the tropes that society assigns to females at birth.
There ya go, defined without circular logic.

@BohemianBoo but society doesn’t assign the tropes. They are mostly patterns of behaviour underpinned by biological sex. And even if it did, how many tropes? If a girl wears boys clothing, does that make her a boy? If a boy plays with dolls, is he really a girl?

@TheGreatestEver123 [quote]but society doesn’t assign the tropes. They are mostly patterns of behaviour underpinned by biological sex. [/quote]

The moment a child is born, society assigns them tons of tropes that have nothing to do with biology. Why are girls dressed in pink, but boys dressed in blue? That has nothing to do with biology, that's pure culture. Also, many of these tropes have changed with time. Girls and boys both used to wear dresses. Today, it's become a girl thing.

[quote] If a girl wears boys clothing, does that make her a boy? If a boy plays with dolls, is he really a girl?[/quote]

Gender is culture, and like most cultural identities, we rely on self-identity. So no, playing with dolls doesn't automatically make someone a girl, but identifying as a girl does.

@BohemianBoo OK, so you admit your definition of a man and a woman is false. It’s nothing to do with these tropes, it’s based on how they identify. So what is a man / woman then?

@TheGreatestEver123 It's not false because it relies on self-identity. Self-identity is how most cultural markers work. What is a goth? Someone who identifies with goth culture, right? But how do we know if someone is goth? Is it anyone who wears black? Well, we generally go by how people identify. If someone identifies as a goth, they're a goth. It's the same thing with gender. When it comes to knowing who is a woman, we rely on self-identity. When it comes to what is a woman, as in what is woman culture, it's the collection of tropes that society assigns to females at birth.

@BohemianBoo ok, so what if we assigned the females tropes to a biological male at birth. Would he be a girl from day one?

@TheGreatestEver123 If the male identified that way, then yes.

@BohemianBoo so this is very confusing because it means there is no word anymore for a biological male or a biological female. It’s as if you believe that gender has nothing to do with biological sex, but we know it has. We know that males and females differ in personality, temperament, sexually and that these differences are noticed especially at the extremes. You seem to believe that the tropes are imposed upon people but we know that’s not true.

@TheGreatestEver123 [quote]so this is very confusing because it means there is no word anymore for a biological male or a biological female. [/quote]

My dude, you just used the words you're claiming don't exist anymore. Male, female, and intersex are biological categories. Man, woman, and non-binary are cultural categories.

@BohemianBoo what if someone identifies as a woman but doesn’t follow any of the tropes? Are they still a woman?

Is there no such thing as a feminine man or a masculine woman?

@TheGreatestEver123 What if a guy was born in California and he identified as being from Mississippi, what would you think of that guy? Identity is cultural not biological.

@Peaceandnamaste false equivalence. Totally stupid. We are talking about immutable biology, not moving house. Clown.

@TheGreatestEver123 [quote]what if someone identifies as a woman but doesn’t follow any of the tropes? Are they still a woman?[/quote]
Yes. All that matters is what they identify as. Categories are all about utility, and going by self-identification gives us the most utility. If someone identifies as a goth, I'm not going to be policing them to make sure they embody enough of the tropes to make sure they're really goth.

And really, the vast majority of trans people look like the gender they identify as. If I have to point Kim Petras out of a crowd, I'm not going to say "the male over there who looks exactly like a woman." It just makes more sense and gives us more utility to identify trans people the way they identify.

[quote]Is there no such thing as a feminine man or a masculine woman?[/quote]

Sure. Femboys and muscle mommies. 😁

@BohemianBoo I think you are right in a way because our use or these words (eg pronouns) socially is somewhat superficial.

If I see someone who looks like a woman I will use she/her pronouns but it is based on my expectation of what a natural biological female looks like (breasts, figure etc). I would not do the same for a biological male who was not passable aesthetically though.

Where I think you are wrong is we do use gender expression as a way of affirming our understanding of binary biological sex (rather than it being separate) and many of the tropes are perfectly natural for us for biological and evolutionary reasons (eg women have long hair because males will see this as a sign of fertility from an evolutionary perspective). Trans people are playing the same game by appearing to look like the other sex (although they are not).

I also don’t quite understand your argument that ‘trans people look like the gender they identify as’ because you claim that gender is a matter of self-identity even if they don’t follow the tropes. If this is your claim, what do you mean by ‘looking like a gender’?

@TheGreatestEver123 [quote]Where I think you are wrong is we do use gender expression as a way of affirming our understanding of binary biological sex (rather than it being separate) and many of the tropes are perfectly natural for us for biological and evolutionary reasons (eg women have long hair because males will see this as a sign of fertility from an evolutionary perspective).[/quote]

So this is another reason why gender is more of a culture than a reflection of biology. All of these tropes have changed throughout history and often differ between regions.
It used to be the norm for men to have long hair in parts of the western world too. And things that are considered sexually attractive have changed so much. A common theory is that men find wide hips attractive because it means they can bare children. But for a long time, narrow hips were considered more sexy on a woman. The truth is, beauty is entirely subjective and beauty trends change just like fashion trends.

[quote]I also don’t quite understand your argument that ‘trans people look like the gender they identify as’ because you claim that gender is a matter of self-identity even if they don’t follow the tropes. If this is your claim, what do you mean by ‘looking like a gender’?[/quote]

People, whether cis or trans, usually look like the gender they identify as. Remember, gender is a culture, and cultures often have specific looks. The Japanese harajuku culture has a look.

However, for utility's sake, I think gender should be about self-identity. That way society doesn't end up forming some weird arbitrary standard of like how feminine you need to be to pass as a woman. I don't like the idea of an older woman who no longer looks feminine being told that she's not a woman anymore.

In short, categories are subjective and are all about what has the most social utility. It's like that for literally every category. When it comes to gender, going by self-identity just has the most utility. 9 times out of 10, people will look like the gender they identify as, anyway. And going by self-identity keeps society from holding people to arbitrary standards.

@BohemianBoo I think there is a flaw in your logic though.

If someone’s gender is whatever they identify as regardless of their appearance or whatever tropes they follow, how can you believe that someone can ‘look like’ their gender?

To believe someone can ‘look like’ a particular gender requires you to have an image in your mind of what the gender looks like, and this will include biological aspects (breasts, genitalia, body hair, skeletal structure). If being a woman is a social construct, why would trans women (m2f) get physical surgery to appear to look like biological females such as breast implants? Breasts are a distinctive feature of biological females, which apparently has nothing to do with gender or a woman.

I believe people can look like a gender because I believe in two biological sexes and they look aesthetically different. Of course we have social constructs and traditions which help us more easily identify each other, but even without any of these, there would be easily identifiable males and females. I would say the males ‘look like’ men and the females ‘look like’ women.

@TheGreatestEver123 [quote]If someone’s gender is whatever they identify as regardless of their appearance or whatever tropes they follow, how can you believe that someone can ‘look like’ their gender?[/quote]

Because I acknowledge that genders are cultures, and most cultures have specific looks. Like the way goth has a look.
However, categories are about utility, and what gives us the most utility is going by self-identify when it comes to cultural identities.

[quote]o believe someone can ‘look like’ a particular gender requires you to have an image in your mind of what the gender looks like, and this will include biological aspects (breasts, genitalia, body hair, skeletal structure). [/quote]

There is a biological element to gender in that what defines genders are who society assigns them to. "Woman" is a culture, but what defines the culture are the tropes that society assigns to females. So yeah, some parts of the woman look are based on the female sex. However, the majority are pretty arbitrary and have nothing to do with biology, such as wearing dresses, having long hair, and the use of the color pink.

Also, it's not like if a cis woman gets her womb removed, she's no longer a woman. Even if trans people weren't a thing, we still wouldn't use biology to define gender. We wouldn't say there are degrees of womaness based on the body parts you have. Or, at least, we shouldn't.

@BohemianBoo but why would the tropes of ‘woman’ be based on the female sex? If ‘woman’ is a culture, what has being a woman got to do with being female?

@TheGreatestEver123 Because the culture is defined by the random-ass collection of tropes that society assigns to females at birth. So of course parts of the culture will involve biological elements.

@BohemianBoo but if we didn’t have the tropes at all (ie if we were basically like cavemen) there would still be biological males and biological females, we would easily tell them apart and we would call the juveniles ‘boys and girls’ and the adults ‘men and women’. That’s always been the dictionary definition of these terms.

@TheGreatestEver123 Actually, the term "girl" used to refer to all children, males and females.
That's how arbitrary gender is.

We would still have males, females, and intersex people without gender. But those are sex categories. Sex and gender are different.