Sherman123
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 7,774
- Reaction score
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- Location
- Northeast US
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Undisclosed
Gender is a social construct and there have been more than two genders in many cultures in the world. How gender is defined is a moving target as well. Sex is a male or female. Gender is about your social expression of how you express that sex. Masculine and Feminine are defined by the culture you are in as well as having them linked to physical sex in many cases. But for some cultures a third way of being that crosses lines or blends more of the two to create something new. Ancient Rome, Native American and Indian Hindu cultures all have a third gender or more. This is not new at all.
I accept anyone's self-identification (within reason) but I've never been comfortable with the notion that gender is a social construct. Gender as colloquially used and understood overwhelmingly refers to sex, which is emphatically not a social construct. When people talk about a 'third gender' what they are invariably talking about how people of a particular sex express themselves sexually, personally, and in wider society. This can manifest itself in innumerable ways including the obvious example of the trans-community. But other genders? I've always thought that was a bridge too far and that it muddles the biological waters for political purposes.