[RD] What is gender ?

[warpus]

Why should they oppress people by trying to force them to conform to some outdated preconceived notions? If it's absolutely necessary, can't they provide a field where people can write their gender, whatever it is?

Asking people what their sex or gender is is oppression? Is that supposed to be a joke? It's a common thing that's asked on webforms, which is why I'm asking. If society is not all on the same page as to how to ask and answer such questions, then we need to figure out how to get on that same page.

Why do you need to ask?

From my POV, because the user has made that a requirement for the project and a field that needs to be populated in the database, usually for reporting purposes, but I suspect depending on the situation for other reasons as well. Say you're an architect, and your client says that there need to be 5 rooms on the first floor. You don't ask why, you design a first floor with 5 rooms with the specified parameters.

It seems to me that if gender is so undefined, you can't really ask it on a webform. Giving the user a text field to fill out means you won't be able to report against the field, which is why this sort of question is always a dropdown, with predefined values.

But like I said, the Canadian government seems to often ask for your sex, but the responses on their dropdowns indicate that they are actually asking for your gender. Which is also confusing. If they mean to ask for gender, why not ask for that?

 

[Hehehe]

Binary means binary, not "binary with some exceptions that we decide not to count". Sex does certainly break down into two major clusters, but it is not binary.

Oh yes, we should redefine sex and genders for those 1/4500 people

Asking people what their sex or gender is is oppression? Is that supposed to be a joke? It's a common thing that's asked on webforms, which is why I'm asking. If society is not all on the same page as to how to ask and answer such questions, then we need to figure out how to get on that same page.

From my POV, because the user has made that a requirement for the project and a field that needs to be populated in the database, usually for reporting purposes, but I suspect depending on the situation for other reasons as well. Say you're an architect, and your client says that there need to be 5 rooms on the first floor. You don't ask why, you design a first floor with 5 rooms with the specified parameters.

It seems to me that if gender is so undefined, you can't really ask it on a webform. Giving the user a text field to fill out means you won't be able to report against the field, which is why this sort of question is always a dropdown, with predefined values.

But like I said, the Canadian government seems to often ask for your sex, but the responses on their dropdowns indicate that they are actually asking for your gender. Which is also confusing. If they mean to ask for gender, why not ask for that?

I guess the modern and progressive answer to this question would be to train people not to ask about gender?

 

[warpus]

Screw me for asking how such questions should be asked, right?

Whether you like it or not and whether you think it's oppression or not (what?), people will insist that these questions get asked. So it's only sensible to ask "So how do we do that?"

Asking for your sex seems simple enough, as there are only 2 options... I think. But if a client wants to ask for gender, it seems to get tricky

 

[Lexicus]

Oh yes, we should redefine sex and genders for those 1/4500 people

I mean, you act like this is some kind of imposition but is it really? Anyway, I thought you said that gender can be whatever people want it to be, so why are you dying on this hill anyway?

 

[Akka]

No, I think Perfection summed up the current consensus pretty well. Gender is pretty much whatever feels like it

If it isn't defined and anybody can put whatever meaning they want into this, then it basically means nothing. Which is, simply put, in complete contrast to what happens in reality, where gender is pretty serious business. So your definition simply doesn't describe reality.

Why should they oppress people by trying to force them to conform to some outdated preconceived notions? If it's absolutely necessary, can't they provide a field where people can write their gender, whatever it is?

How can you say a notion is outdated if there is no definition of the notion ? "whatever one wants it to mean" can hardly be "outdated". So if you think it's outdated, then it means it has a meaning and this meaning is outdated. What meaning is it ?

I'm really wanting to get at the CORE of the idea. The thing which allows people to recognize some concept as "gender", regardless of what they put into the descriptive boxes.

 

[uppi]

There is a reason why these things are called "disorders" or "syndromes". No category is defined by its extreme outliers.

Any binary category needs to be tested against all the extremes. If any extreme does not fit, you cannot use binary categories.

Asking for your sex seems simple enough, as there are only 2 options... I think. But if a client wants to ask for gender, it seems to get tricky

Even for sex you need to have at least a third option for people of biologically non-binary sex. Otherwise you would be forcing some people to lie.

By default I would create three buttons for gender: Male, Female and Other. If the client isn't happy about that, he should provide a list of what genders he wants to ask about (including 'Other' for those not covered by the list)

 

[Perfection]

@warpus i like your post and will (hopefully) respond later

How can you say a notion is outdated if there is no definition of the notion ? "whatever one wants it to mean" can hardly be "outdated". So if you think it's outdated, then it means it has a meaning and this meaning is outdated. What meaning is it ?

I'm really wanting to get at the CORE of the idea. The thing which allows people to recognize some concept as "gender", regardless of what they put into the descriptive boxes.

I am not convinced there is any CORE to the idea. What might be core to someone mught be peripheral to others, and I don't think there's a straitforward means to disentangle the two.

Think of it as asking what the difference between a democrat and a republican is. You can talk about the issues, but there will always be gun nut democrats and pro choice republicans. In the end if you want to know if someone is a Democrat or Republican, you ask them and then take their word for it.

 

[Hehehe]

If it isn't defined and anybody can put whatever meaning they want into this, then it basically means nothing.

It seems like we've stumbled upon the modern definition of gender here.

I mean, you act like this is some kind of imposition but is it really? Anyway, I thought you said that gender can be whatever people want it to be, so why are you dying on this hill anyway?

No like I said, we should redefine it

Any binary category needs to be tested against all the extremes. If any extreme does not fit, you cannot use binary categories.

Even for sex you need to have at least a third option for people of biologically non-binary sex. Otherwise you would be forcing some people to lie.

By default I would create three buttons for gender: Male, Female and Other. If the client isn't happy about that, he should provide a list of what genders he wants to ask about (including 'Other' for those not covered by the list)

How about this? 3 categories: "male", "female" and "syndromes and disorders"?

Moderator Action: This kind of comment has no place in an RD thread, and is uncalled for. Please refrain from posting insulting and hurtful comments like this in the future. --LM

 

[Yeekim]

Binary means binary, not "binary with some exceptions that we decide not to count". Sex does certainly break down into two major clusters, but it is not binary.

I believe it would be correct to say that while human species has only two sexes, not all persons are of either sex.

 

[Ryika]

Sex is binary. Man, woman. Those are the two blueprints that exist.

The fact that nature sometimes messes up and creates people who do not fit those blueprints, does not change that it's a binary system.

Claiming otherwise is like claiming that humans are not a species with two legs, because in rare cases people are born without legs, with only one leg, or with extra legs.

 

[luiz]

Why should they oppress people by trying to force them to conform to some outdated preconceived notions? If it's absolutely necessary, can't they provide a field where people can write their gender, whatever it is?

So we should just abolish the concept of gender, and for instance stop separating "male" athletes from "female" athletes? Or keep it and just let people choose where they want to compete (we seem to be heading towards this direction...)

 

[Yeekim]

So we should just abolish the concept of gender, and for instance stop separating "male" athletes from "female" athletes? Or keep it and just let people choose where they want to compete (we seemstos beheading towards this direction...)

This particular distinction should be made according to sex and not gender, imho.

 

[luiz]

This particular distinction should be made according to sex and not gender, imho.

Which then raises the question of what does it mean to change one's sex (I.e., just declaring desire to change, hormone therapy, sex reassignment surgery, surgery + hormones, or nothing at all).

As an anecdote, the best female volleyball player in Brazil right now is a transwoman (she's had her surgery and hormone therapy). She broke all records, some of which have stood for decades, in a country with a huge female volleyball tradition. It's a very complex issue.

 

[Peuri]

Which then raises the question of what does it mean to change one's sex (I.e., just declaring desire to change, hormone therapy, sex reassignment surgery, surgery + hormones, or nothing at all).

As an anecdote, the best female volleyball player in Brazil right now is a transwoman (she's had her surgery and hormone therapy). She broke all records, some of which have stood for decades, in a country with a huge female volleyball tradition. It's a very complex issue.

Why not create a seperate league for trans people?

 

[luiz]

Why not create a seperate league for trans people?

I doubt they would want that... Their whole struggle is to be recognized as full members of the opposite sex. But of course there are multiple complications.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

1. Biological sex is important for health reasons. Trans people who lie about their biological sex on health forms suffer from being treated incorrectly.
2. I firmly believe that Men’s sports should be open to all and Women’s sports only open to cis women. Ronda Rousey was severely injured by a Trans woman who obviously had an advantage of muscle & bone density of previously being male. Really, when most gold medalists in the women’s sports are trans, it puts natural women at a distinct disadvantage.
3. Biological Sex is a binary, with some exceptions arising from rare Intersex disorders. Gender is a social construct that I don’t fully understand.

 

[stinkubus]

For something to be binary there can be no exceptions. If the universe under consideration is the set of all humans, and all those humans cannot be placed into one of the two buckets, the the "binary" you've created is nonsensical on its face. The fact that the relative number of persons who don't fit the scheme you've created is irrelevant.

 

[Commodore]

the the "binary" you've created is nonsensical on its face.

Not when those exceptions you speak of are the result of things going wrong. When someone is intersex, it's because something went wrong with their chromosomes. Intersex is a defect and you don't count defects when determining what's normal.

 

[luiz]

For something to be binary there can be no exceptions. If the universe under consideration is the set of all humans, and all those humans cannot be placed into one of the two buckets, the the "binary" you've created is nonsensical on its face. The fact that the relative number of persons who don't fit the scheme you've created is irrelevant.

Why can't something be binary with exceptions? Most thing have exceptions. It's like Yeekim said. Based on your logic, we can't say that Man is a species with two legs, two arms and two eyes.

PS: is someone else having all sorts of trouble writing with their mobiles on this site? It's like auto correct has gone mad

 

[Verbose]

Sex is binary. Man, woman. Those are the two blueprints that exist.

The fact that nature sometimes messes up and creates people who do not fit those blueprints, does not change that it's a binary system.

Claiming otherwise is like claiming that humans are not a species with two legs, because in rare cases people are born without legs, with only one leg, or with extra legs.

The hell it is. In western Christianity, likely eastern too... traditionally there were effectively three genders: Men, Women and... Virgins.

Men and Women have sex, Virgins don't. You can marry Virgins. If you do, they can become Mothers. All women who don't fit in the Virgin-to-Moter frame are of course Whores...