Metaphor...if I may.
I don't really have a dog in this hunt; I've been following along more or less just to have something to read. I can see valid points on both sides of this debate -- if one were to say there were only two-- but on a more fundamental level, what I think is going on is this:
For years and decades and centuries past, "gender" was strictly defined as a stark, binary, black OR white box to check off, even though it isn't, wasn't, and never has been, but...that's the way you grew up with it and that's the way you're used to it being. And the world is changing faster than you're prepared to accept. That isn't an indictment of you; it's simply to say that (in my opinion) what you're doing is refusing to get on board with this emergent re-imagining, this burgeoning acceptance, of gender as being more fluid, more malleable, only because it flies in the face of the way you've always known gender and are used to thinking of it.
Do you allow for that possibility?
Define 'gender' for me, as you've used it in the above paragraph.
The problem with that is that the definition, along with the overarching set of expectations/characteristics of what it means to be
only "male" or "female"...is
changing. It is evolving--slowly--probably far too slowly for some, and yet way too uncomfortably fast for others--but, today's definition of gender would not be the same as it would have been in, oh, I dunno, 1921, let's say; a hundred years ago.
At it's simplest, I'd say that "gender" is (or, was,) more or less synonymous with "sex," as used casually to say someone is a man
or a woman; a boy
or a girl. But there is gradual awareness, now, that "gender" exists more as a spectrum (albeit, a fairly condensed one) than as a perfect black or white binary system in which there are ONLY, EVER, "just' men and women. Part of the issue is that "sex" more often, I think, refers to biological/genetic makeup while "gender" is more of a social construct, but, again, they tend to be used interchangeably. If a form asked me, "what's your gender?', it's not like I'm confused--I'd put "male." If someone asked me my partner's gender, I'd say, "she's a woman." (my wife.)
I think one could use "gender" to identify people as "he's a man" or "she's a woman" correctly, with confidence and appropriateness, a very high percentage of the time, since the vast majority of people happen to be born, live their lives, and die having been one or the other, a man or a woman, the whole time. Which is great; good for them, I guess.
But that doesn't account for
everybody.
I hope that helps find common ground.
