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What is gender?

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Gender isn't alone in existing in a wobbly intersection of internal characteristics, societal influences, and the question of where one starts and the other begins either. Things like morality or accents are similar(ish). The culture you grow up in shapes these things, but there's variance on an individual level, sometimes quite extreme. People with the same accent don't sound identical, obviously. People even within the same household and close social circles have variance in how they approach moral questions. We could come up with dozens of examples I bet.

I don't mean to trivialize gender issues in any way. These are similarities nor equivalences.
 
Desdendelle said:
I understand that you find gender harmful, but I still don't get what gender is. To make an analogy, it's like I'd tell you that khamtsan is harmful because it's corrosive; you'll be able to understand why khamtsan is bad but not what it is.
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I think that my previous post was a bit off the mark and I want to try again, perhaps a bit more simply. The issue with just defining gender is that its so baked into our society that basically everything is judged by it, or is defined by it, or it plays some sort of role in it. The way that we talk, the way that we act, the choices that we make, and so on. Even when we're young, gender in many ways defines us. The simple answer to the question "what is gender?" is that it's a system of language, behavior, and various forms of being and expression. You could also claim it as a societal construct based upon that same factors. But I don't like those definitions because a lot of things are a system or societal construct and yet they don't exist on the same level as gender does in terms of societal importance. They feels inadequate, but I'm not sure of a proper word or term to replace them.

I could write you a long essay on the impacts of gender but that isn't really what gender is. I can't claim gender to be... something that can be easily defined within the scope of a post on SV; it's a really tricky construction that needs to be heavily unpacked and at our current stage, we might not even be able to properly do that.
 
Huttj said:
When I say "Manly" what runs through your head?
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The courage to live one's life authentically and without regrets.

Huttj said:
When I say "Womanly" what runs through your head?
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Compassion and empathy.


...

These need not be contrary to each other at all! Neither of these have anything to do with genitals! Both of these are desirable personality traits! What the hell society?!


Artifical Girl is right. Gender is a spook.
 
Okay, let me explain what gender is, best as I can. Gender is a multifaceted thing, and, as such, there are many contributing factors, some of which vary between different cultures, some of which vary between people, and none of which are easily definable. It is a very nebulous thing.

The first part of gender is your culture's idea of each biological sex. Most people will say gender here, but it's important to understand that at this point in time the concept of the cultural conception of gender is almost always based on the preconception of there being two distinct biological sexes as the two genders (and nothing else). Within this sphere lies gender roles, stereotypes, and acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. This is who it's expected each sex will take as sexual partners, what they will will wear, what jobs they will take, what subjects they like, what hobbies they have, what their bodies look like, how they speak, their expected personality, how they express emotions, and much more. This is the totality of the range of what people think when they think 'man' or 'woman.'

The next part is your own behavior and traits. All those things that I listed in the previous part- in that area, what are your preferences/decisions/qualities. Also, what is your biological sex? So on and so forth.

The next piece is the intersection of those two things - what you are juxtaposed what society thinks you should be, which then results in your gender identity.

So, in essence, our concept of gender is our applicable traits/behaviors/characteristics being compared to what we think our cultures define the binary genders, and us figuring out where we fit. If you're CIS, you find your self identity matching up with your definition of whatever gender you're assigned to a degree that you accept. If you're trans, you find your self identity matching the opposite assigned gender to a degree that you accept. If you're nonbinary, you're saying that neither definition is accurate enough to who you are for you to accept the application of the labels of man/woman, and instead identify as something else.

Edit: Consider this a very basic definition that's easier to parse. There's more to gender and gender identity, but I'm not college professor.
 
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Desdendelle said:
I understand that you find gender harmful, but I still don't get what gender is. To make an analogy, it's like I'd tell you that khamtsan is harmful because it's corrosive; you'll be able to understand why khamtsan is bad but not what it is.
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Hmm. How to put this.

So, this is not my area of expertise by any means, but IMO, 'Gender' has two primary elements.

First, it is a social construct- that is to say, it is an idea about how things are or should be which people learn via socialization. A child grows up as part of a society, observes the behaviors of other members of that society, and forms a 'construct' in their mind about 'how things work' based upon their observations. They use this knowledge of 'how things are' to form later judgements about 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', etc, etc.

Second, it is an element of personal identity. A person first exists, and then defines what they are; In so doing, they have to rely on their understanding of what things are and how they work, as much as anything else. The (mostly) subconscious process of forming identity involves the individual defining themselves in terms of the context in which they exist.

These social constructs are useful, to some degree, because they allow people to easily contextualize themselves and their society and how they should interact with it without needing everyone to get together and agree on how society should work, but they're also problematic because the social norms thus created can easily be unjust, or even actively harmful, on both an individual and a societal level.

Does that help?
 
Desdendelle said:
@HMS Sophia under option 1, what differentiates gender from, say, deeply held philosophical convictions about the self (e.g. the existence/non-existence of a soul, whether a Self is a unitary thing, etc etc)?
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Nothing. Some people feel the existence of God in their bones. I feel the existence of my gender so deep I transitioned. Some people cannot feel gender and some people cannot feel God.
Is gender real? Well given that multiple cultures experience the existence of multiple genders we can certainly say that gender isn't limited to just 2 options. Given also that these multi-gender societies have had different gender options and different gender roles within those... Might we admit that gender is made up?
Sure bio-sex exists as a kind of continuum of messiness that also doesn't fit into boxes. But why bother defining people by that as a binary gender hellscape tries to do when humans aren't particularly sexually dimorphic and we have such variance within gender categories as to make those categories essentially useless as a descriptor (See: what makes a woman? Her identity).
 
Artificial Girl said:
"Spook" is a term used by philosopher Max Stirner and refers to any artificial construct or idea that society tells you is real in order to exercise control over you. It's kind of a meme in some leftist circles.
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Vyslanté said:
But isn't that more gender roles than gender itself? Is there a difference?
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Artificial Girl said:
Gender roles and gender are kind of inextricably linked in our society as it exists. The easiest way to stop them is to just stop gender. I mean, if there were no gender or gender roles people who were trans could just. Be the way want to be and not deal with any of the crap that societal gender shit drops on everyone, too. Just get rid of it.
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Except if gender is a spook than why would transgender people care in the first place? Isn't the whole crux of the conflict transgenders have is that society dismisses their real gender as a spook and rejects their efforts to rectify things? The concept of transgender only has meaning if gender is in fact a real thing independent of biological sex or societal expression. Committing to a "gender is a spook" attitude sounds like it would be inherently hostile to transgender people, not friendly.
 
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firefossil said:
Except if gender is a spook than why would transgender people care in the first place? Isn't the whole crux of the conflict transgenders have is that society dismisses their real gender as a spook and rejects their efforts to rectify things? The concept of transgender only has meaning if gender is in fact a real thing independent of biological sex or societal expression. Committing to a "gender is a spook" attitude sounds like it would be inherently hostile to transgender people, not friendly.
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Please, continue to tell a transgender person what ideas are hostile to being transgender. :)

Also the plural form is transgender people, not "transgenders."

If gender wasn't a thing we had to worry about, then transgender people could act and present in the way that is most comfortable to them without having to worry about societal roles and pressure on them to present and act in the 'right' way. There would be no stigma to looking like a 'man in a dress' or being a 'girl pretending to be a boy' or whatever else. There would just be people being comfortable with themselves and their bodies. Transitioning wouldn't be a thing that mattered--if you want to take hormones to make your body a different way than it is now, do it. Because no one cares. Destroying gender doesn't harm trans people, it frees us.

Also even if it is a spook that doesn't mean that I don't have to worry about it because I live in society and not alone in a cave by myself.
 
Artificial Girl said:
Please, continue to tell a transgender person what ideas are hostile to being transgender. :)

Also the plural form is transgender people, not "transgenders."

If gender wasn't a thing we had to worry about, then transgender people could act and present in the way that is most comfortable to them without having to worry about societal roles and pressure on them to present and act in the 'right' way. There would be no stigma to looking like a 'man in a dress' or being a 'girl pretending to be a boy' or whatever else. There would just be people being comfortable with themselves and their bodies. Transitioning wouldn't be a thing that mattered--if you want to take hormones to make your body a different way than it is now, do it. Because no one cares. Destroying gender doesn't harm trans people, it frees us.

Also even if it is a spook that doesn't mean that I don't have to worry about it because I live in society and not alone in a cave by myself.
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...Um. I think the point he's trying to make is that if you define yourself by your gender then how do you define yourself in a world without gender.
 
Gamerlord said:
...Um. I think the point he's trying to make is that if you define yourself by your gender then how do you define yourself in a world without gender.
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As a person. In a world without gender if I wanted to take estrogen and make myself more like myself, then no one would fucking care. There wouldn't be all the baggage associated with transitioning that there is. It would be like getting a tattoo or a piercing.
 
Grimnir said:
Hmm. How to put this.

So, this is not my area of expertise by any means, but IMO, 'Gender' has two primary elements.

First, it is a social construct- that is to say, it is an idea about how things are or should be which people learn via socialization. A child grows up as part of a society, observes the behaviors of other members of that society, and forms a 'construct' in their mind about 'how things work' based upon their observations. They use this knowledge of 'how things are' to form later judgements about 'good' and 'bad', 'right' and 'wrong', etc, etc.

Second, it is an element of personal identity. A person first exists, and then defines what they are; In so doing, they have to rely on their understanding of what things are and how they work, as much as anything else. The (mostly) subconscious process of forming identity involves the individual defining themselves in terms of the context in which they exist.

These social constructs are useful, to some degree, because they allow people to easily contextualize themselves and their society and how they should interact with it without needing everyone to get together and agree on how society should work, but they're also problematic because the social norms thus created can easily be unjust, or even actively harmful, on both an individual and a societal level.

Does that help?
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It helps and it doesn't help. It helps because it narrows the field somewhat (it's a social thing that's also part of your identity), but it doesn't help because it's not enough to differentiate it from, say, faith in Jesus.

HMS Sophia said:
Nothing. Some people feel the existence of God in their bones. I feel the existence of my gender so deep I transitioned. Some people cannot feel gender and some people cannot feel God.
Is gender real? Well given that multiple cultures experience the existence of multiple genders we can certainly say that gender isn't limited to just 2 options. Given also that these multi-gender societies have had different gender options and different gender roles within those... Might we admit that gender is made up?
Sure bio-sex exists as a kind of continuum of messiness that also doesn't fit into boxes. But why bother defining people by that as a binary gender hellscape tries to do when humans aren't particularly sexually dimorphic and we have such variance within gender categories as to make those categories essentially useless as a descriptor (See: what makes a woman? Her identity).
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What I meant to ask with my question is, "what makes gender a separate thing from all of those things?" If it's not its own thing, why do people put stock in it (and people do, to the point of changing their life in pretty big ways)? If it's its own thing, what makes it its own thing? Mind, I'm not asking about "male" or "female" (or the gender binary, or other genders).
I'm asking, "what is the meaning of 'gender'?" because right now, I see letters on the screen (or hear a bunch of syllables) and I don't get what they're supposed to mean, I just get that it's bad and should be abolished because it's something that society forces on people in opposition to what they feel internally; it's like the khamtsan analogy I made earlier - there is no what in this explanation.

(NB: the quotes here aren't scare quotes, they're there to differentiate between talking about e.g. snow the thing and "snow" the word/concept.)
 
Desdendelle said:
What I meant to ask with my question is, "what makes gender a separate thing from all of those things?" If it's not its own thing, why do people put stock in it (and people do, to the point of changing their life in pretty big ways)? If it's its own thing, what makes it its own thing? Mind, I'm not asking about "male" or "female" (or the gender binary, or other genders).
I'm asking, "what is the meaning of 'gender'?" because right now, I see letters on the screen (or hear a bunch of syllables) and I don't get what they're supposed to mean, I just get that it's bad and should be abolished because it's something that society forces on people in opposition to what they feel internally; it's like the khamtsan analogy I made earlier - there is no what in this explanation.

(NB: the quotes here aren't scare quotes, they're there to differentiate between talking about e.g. snow the thing and "snow" the word/concept.)
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Gender can pretty much only be described as "Your understanding of self which leads to an identification within a cultural system". That's it. (It's the cultural system which is bad, btw).
 
Desdendelle said:
So there's zero difference between saying e.g. "I'm male" and saying e.g. "I'm a geek"?
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Other than the expectations levelled upon a person based on those identifications... I suppose not, except for one or two things.

The problem is that society has expectations based upon both the gender someone is assumed to identify as (based either on a person reading their presentation or based on their birth assignment) and based upon the gender someone does identify with.

Deviation from assumption or assignment is punished because there is a certain way to be a boy or a girl according to society.
Active identification must be evidenced in order to be valid according to society, generally by hyper-performing that identity.

Both of these things (the punishment of deviation and the expectation of evidence) are bad and limit the way in which people can open self-identify according to their gender identity. When these two things are eliminated, then we will have a society wherein saying "I'm a woman" and "I'm a geek" are no different from each other. They should not be different from each other. Both are simply a part of acknowledging parts of our identity, after all.
 
V4Guss said:
I'll state this is why I tolerate transgenderism and various genders outside agender, but do not condone or accept them. The way I see it, we shouldn't be trying to act like we're adopting costumes, or acts (again, gender does seem like nothing more than an act and costume to me), or assigning ourselves into boxes or labels. Physical sex is one thing, but gender can come off quaint at best, insane or idiotic at worst, for anyone to care about the way I see it. Gender just hurts people, let's ignore it and stick to people's minds and referring to physical sex if we really need to or when it's important.
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If the body and gender is a shell or clothing, shouldn't people be able to wear whatever they want for whatever reason they want?
 
How would you explain butch trans women or feminine trans men? People who present that way on purpose? What makes being agender any less of a costume?
 
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firefossil said:
Except if gender is a spook than why would transgender people care in the first place? Isn't the whole crux of the conflict transgenders have is that society dismisses their real gender as a spook and rejects their efforts to rectify things? The concept of transgender only has meaning if gender is in fact a real thing independent of biological sex or societal expression. Committing to a "gender is a spook" attitude sounds like it would be inherently hostile to transgender people, not friendly.
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Ignoring what feels incredibly like concern trolling, which I will take as unintentional, over what is and is not hostile to transgender individuals, the issue is that this is circular in the sense that this concept that gender has any meaning is based solely upon its existence. As a societal construction that has no inherent value, it "means" something in that trans individuals have to present and act and be a certain way, which is a way that wouldn't occur if gender didn't exist as a concept.

Also you have the first part pretty backwards. It's not that society dismisses the gender trans people identify as as a spook, it's that they refuse to listen to trans people about the gender that they identify as. In a culture where gender matters, this is important, because we as human beings matter as well. Gender, as has been established by several posters in this thread, is a dominating factor in our lives and therefore our genders should be aligned with who we really are. However, that's only because gender is perceived to be a meaningful construct. If it weren't, then as AG said, we could simply exist in our lives and do as we wish, because bigotry regarding gender wouldn't matter. It wouldn't even be a thing that would be up for consideration.
 
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V4Guss said:
I'm saying what's the point in adopting an act or costume based on expectations? How many people conform to gender roles because that's what they're expected to do or go with what is essentially a stereotype because they think that's what their gender does? It seems like a lot of people do this.
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Artificial Girl said:
How would you explain butch trans women or feminine trans men? People who present that way on purpose? What makes being agender any less of a costume?
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I was gonna say...
Hi, @V4Guss I'm a trans woman who doesn't conform to gender roles or expectations. I am still a woman because I understand my gender to be woman. I'm not adopting a costume, I'm acknowledging part of my identity and then performing it in opposition to the way society expects.

None of which detracts from the validity of my femme sisters, of course, they still have a gender identity and a way of performing it and that is not bad because it fits with cultural expectations.
 
V4Guss said:
I'll state this is why I tolerate transgenderism and various genders outside agender, but do not condone or accept them.
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You know I'm trying to be as charitable as possible while reading your posts but given how a lot of what you posted in the LGBT thread has been incredibly exclusionary, I'm finding it pretty difficult to read this as anything but thinly-veiled bigotry.

And with the rest of your posts it frankly sounds like clueless concern trolling. And I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I'm pretty goddamn tired of it.

Also it's like a perversion of freshman philosophy. Come back when you have a more nuanced view of existence.
 
HMS Sophia said:
I was gonna say...
Hi, @V4Guss I'm a trans woman who doesn't conform to gender roles or expectations. I am still a woman because I understand my gender to be woman. I'm not adopting a costume, I'm acknowledging part of my identity and then performing it in opposition to the way society expects.

None of which detracts from the validity of my femme sisters, of course, they still have a gender identity and a way of performing it and that is not bad because it fits with cultural expectations.
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Butch trans girl solidarity!

V4Guss said:
To call things like agender a costume is a bit like calling baldness a hairstyle or nudity clothing I think. It's nothing, it's rejection. It's not anything. It's choosing not to present or care at all about it.

I'm not saying gender doesn't exist, what I'm saying is that our idea of it all originates from physical sex and claiming it isn't seems off. Bodies are nice to an extent, but they seem a bit vulgar I suppose is the point I'm trying to make.

Okay, like I said I tolerate transgenderism. But I would note you use the word perform, as in act. Acting opposite to something to be contrary is just as bad as conforming to it I think? You're still conforming to a different gender's standard?

What? Sorry?

I thought I was raising a valid point in the LGBT thread about asexuality and I admitted my viewpoints may be skewed on that, though I still have reservations concerning it I will admit. Sorry.
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Agender and non-binary identities are tied in explicitly with trans and other gender identities. You don't get to arbitrarily say "oh the way I perform gender isn't a costume but yours is." A rejection of gender as it applies to yourself would still be be a costume in your definition.

And if you don't care, what does that mean? That you don't think about it? That your presentation changes depending on your mood? Would it bother you if you were called a man or a woman? Are there pronouns you like better?

Or does it just mean that you live your life as the gender assigned at birth and have the privilege of not caring?
 
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