I completely agree with you that the mental/social component should be the most important one in most situations. This is really a linguistic discussion but I think that what you may not realize is that to a lot of sexual sub-cultures, words matter a whole lot. You may not really care whether or not a chick has a dick or not (unless you're going to sleep with her) but for people who have struggled their whole lives with a disconnect between the physical bits and the mental bits, having words to properly describe and distinguish the different components is a huge deal.
I decided to look up Gender in the Miriam-Webster dictionary and here's what they've got: a : sex <the feminine gender> b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex A lot of people presume A, a synonym of Sex. And that's understandable, they don't have any good reason to make a distinction. But people who do have a reason to make a distinction are the reason for B. In casual conversation, it's fine to not really make a distinction. But when you are looking at a situation or talking with people for whom there is a big distinction, that's where the care with language usage comes in. Maybe we should come up with better, new, words to distinguish between the plumbing bits and the behavioral/cultural/psychological bits and leave gender and sex as synonyms but at this point, there aren't any other good words out there (that I know of) and people make a distinction between the two along the rough lines that I've outlined. Cheers, Judah On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Scott Stroz <[email protected]> wrote: > > See, to me, 'sex' and 'gender' are not so much about the plumbing, but > the mental/social component. I won't try to pretend how/why a > biological male would feel more like a female, but I understand it > happens, and its hard to know whether these people are 'male' 'female' > 'man' or 'woman', and I do not claim to have all the answers. > However,I think giving 'sex' and 'gender' different meanings (when > most reasonable people would consider them synonymous) does not > clarify anything..it makes it more confusing. > > Now, I think there are times where the plumbing should be taken in to > account. Athletics for example. If a person is biologically a man (has > a penis, Y chromosome, etc) but identifies himself as female (for > whatever reason). I have no reason identifying him (her) as a woman, > but I think it might be unfair for her (him) to compete in sports > against other women. A gray area, I know. But it has come up a few > times recently. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:338428 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
