honorentheos wrote: ↑Sun May 08, 2022 5:23 pm
Markk,
You described the question that you sidestepped as a trap. Had you thought about it and answered it, it would help highlight that we are talking about two related yet different things when we talk about gender and sex.
I noted that "2" is an invention, a construct of culture that we've found very useful. It and numbers like it allow us to take individual items, group them into sets, and use this in our daily lives. For example, you may answer the question regarding how many kids a friend has as, "2" even though one may be male and the other female, one may be freckled and the other tanned, one tall and the other short, or any numerous variations that make them individuals. Why? Because you and the asker share an understood definition for what is meant by "kids", and the set of individuals in the world that meet that definition have the qualities of the construct "2".
You may argue that the kids and how many of them there are is not something society or culture created, as their being your friend's kids is a biological fact. And there being two of them is also a fact. So isn't all of the above just complicating an obvious and simple situation? Inventions and definitions exist precisely to make things more simple so they can be useful, which explains why you find yourself arguing tautologically for the definition being sum of the debate. Conceptually, having methods for counting is a basic, early invention of social groups that happens independent of other group influence in most cases because it does simplify and seems necessary for human societies. Yet there are variations that have been found, and more complicated inventions such as "0" or imaginary numbers do not appear in most cultures independently but were discovered and then spread.
Regarding being your friend's kids, we have the most simple answer for that meaning their biological offspring, but also adopted children they are raising who are legally their kid. We may question if your friend deserves to call them their kids if they are an abusive or negligent parent. And society may go so far as to remove them from the home and someone else adopt them legally if the situation is sufficiently dire. One of those kids may be the friend of the only biological child but is living with them, with your friend caring about their well being and calling them their kid. So while most often the instance of "kid" speaks to someone who has half that person's genes, that isn't binary and simply a question of a person's genes. Biologically? It is that simple but requires testing to confirm. Socially? We apply the simplified and shared understanding and make judgement calls.
So if you kept reading this far you are making the blah-blah-blah hand gesture and wondering why I'm so far off topic, I'm sure.
If you go back to very early in the thread you'll see Chap laid out the two sides of this question. One being biological and the other cultural/social. They pointed out that while the biological question of sex is largely defined by two major types - male and female - there are cases that do not fit as neatly into those categories even when looked at scientifically and strictly. We use male and female to describe sex, with the understanding the apparent binary definition is not comprehensive if it is useful. Both Kevin and DT have offered up posts on more variations on this to point out that arguing it is binary is not reality.
Biological sex is just one axis on which gender identity hangs. We assign characteristics to male and female members of our society. Keeping in mind that the biological binary is an over-simplification already that is useful but not precise. Society then defines what manhood is, what womanhood is. It tells you that in certain situations a male should behave one way and a female another, defining what it means to be a man and to be a woman. These definitions include socially idealized traits of each, and it informs members of society what society expects of them as either a man or woman. These definitions change and evolve, too.
Today, in LDS church buildings leaders will take the national day set aside for honoring mothers and use it to explain the Mormon cultural ideal of womanhood, often preceding the term "womanhood" with terms like, "sanctity". Chromosomes aren't something you sanctify, though. Norms are. Norms being, "the rules or expectations that determine and regulate appropriate behavior within a culture, group, or society" as defined in sociology.
Now, being a religious conservative type, it is understandable that in your mind sex and gender are the same, God-defined binary from which no variation is recognized because God is good and perfect, and being a man or woman just simply comes naturally like prayer and belief in life after death. If someone experiences discomfort trying to fit in one of the two boxes of traditional society and protests, "Neither of these fits me", they're the problem. If someone born with a penis feels the way society describes womanhood also describes them, and manhood seems alien, if they don't just squeeze into the box labeled "Man" you insist they are "choosing" to be a woman even though they don't feel it's a choice and the social construction of the term is not an objective, biological fact but rather a bag of cultural norms and values. Or the other way around, a biological female that does not see themselves in the contents of the bag society labeled, "Woman" isn't choosing to not be female when they act according to their own individual sense of who they are as a person. If a person of either sex undergoes surgery to more closely fit the social definition of the gender they most closely associate with, that isn't choosing to be a woman or man. That's them making an outward change in the attempt to better fit in the bag of norms and values they see as being who they are as a person, comprehensively and not just based on the plumbing in their pants.
Now, the response of many younger people these days is to realize the problem isn't in trying to figure out which one of the two bags best fits, but the entire social binary apparatus is the problem. "Non-binary" is becoming a normal response to gender identity question precisely because the modern binary ideals of "manhood" and "womanhood" are damaging to individual identity and favor society over the individual. Post-modern types favor the individual over the ideal, believing it is the most realistic, and they aren't playing the game, period.
So you aren't engaging the discussion but instead asserting an outdated and ignorant position that you don't understand yourself.
All that is to say, you would call a person with complete androgen insensitivity a woman (you can't see their genes but what you could see would be interpreted as female by you), you could insert your penis into their sex organ and ejaculate, and you'd expect her to make you breakfast in the morning and blame her when she doesn't give you male offspring to carry on the family name (I get the sense you are that kind of guy but who knows. Oh, LOL! Now its ok I said that.)