Ka-pi96 said:
I don't buy this whole "gender and sex are different" thing. So care to explain how exactly men/women are expected to behave? Do you consider me a woman because I prefer to cook than chop down trees? Do you consider women that join the army to be men? Do you consider Scottish people that prefer skirts (technically kilts, but eh, they're the same for all intents and purposes) to trousers women? Do you consider anybody that likes to have sex with men women? Because if any of those are true then it's either a load of bullshit, homophobic or both. So how exactly are men/women "expected to behave"? |
There isn't really anything to "buy" here. Ignoring the fact that we have words for these things real quick, it shouldn't be difficult to understand that there are both biological and social aspects of maleness and femaleness. Biological aspects of maleness/femaleness involve things like chromosomes and genital formation, while social aspects involve things like clothing choice and hobby choice. We know if we see someone wearing a dress, high heels and lipstick, that they are following social norms regarding femaleness. The very fact that you bring up things like chopping trees, joining the army, and wearing skirts or trousers here demonstrates that there are societal expectation of those things involving maleness and femaleness.
The word used to describe those societal norms is "gender".
Does this mean that someone who identifies as a female has to embody literally every aspect of femaleness? Of course not. There are a few different concepts which must be discussed here (and I want to keep this brief), but first I want to mention that our binary definitions of gender should be seen as a semantic limitation and not a functional one. This leads me to the first concept:
Gender expression - Gender expression refers simply to how an individual expresses themselves in relation to gender. Which norms do they adhere to and which norms do they not adhere to? As stated above, individuals rarely completely match social expectations for one gender so this basically refers to the spectrum between hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity and everything in between.
Gender identity - Gender identity refers to the psychological aspects which point to how an individual identifies. This is up to the individual and is not assigned. No one is a woman because they express feminine characteristics or wear skirts, however, typically those who exhibit more "feminine" gender expression identity more as a woman (but not always).
Finally, sexuality doesn't really play into this question here, because sexuality isn't really social in the same way as the norms that we are speaking about. There are non-chosen aspects of sexuality which largely separates it from issues relating to transgenderism.
