I think some slogans are so shorthanded they lose their meanings.

-- Mal

Thanks

Specifically, how does it differ from "sex" in your definition?

Just repeating a phrase that I heard.

that, when that phrase first began circulating (in the 80s, I would guess), "sex" refered to the biological construction, while "gender" refered to the social construct. "Male" and 'Female" are sexes. "Masculinity" and "femininity" are genders.

It is absolutely the case that this distinction has become blurred in public discourse in recent years, which leads to a lot of confusion.

On the other hand, a lot of the definitions that some use are just jargon.

"Jargon," by the way, isn't just a way of saying "obscure terminology" or "meaningless."

It's "the language, especially the vocabulary, peculiar to a particular trade, profession, or group."

So in linguistics, the word "root" deals with word formation and "tree" with syntax. It would be silly for people to use the word tree (as in, I have a lovely tree growing in the front yard) and for somebody to come along and say, "No, a tree is a binary-branching hierarchy of syntactic and functionary categories into which lexical items and morphosyntactic features are inserted and checked for acceptability. You're showing your ignorance in using it in such an incorrect way." "Tree" has a meaning in linguistic jargon.

It gets squirrelly with a lot of social sciences. They redefine terms to suit their profession, often based not upon what is but what they think should be or can be argued to be, and those definitions are clearly part of the jargon. In many cases these are proposed definitions, and only accepted by part of the field or subfield, possibly a very small part (a handful of researchers or experts). But others, often outside the field, feel that the terms as defined in jargon as the "real" meanings, the One True Revealed Definition by the Superior Enlightened Ones, esp. those superior enlightened ones that we agree with, and immediately insist that everybody use those and only those definitions. Then they belittle those "stupids" who form part of the other 315 million English-speakers in the US (or the other 600+ million English speakers in the world.) It's not the 1% versus the 99%, it's the .005% versus the 99.995%. It's a nice ego boost; it also is an appeal to authority intended to squelch any argument or discussion that might, just might, not go correctly.

This happens among adepts of the field. But a lot of people just can't wrap their brains around the fact that a word can have two meanings. These are seldom adepts; more like "inepts".

I always think of "gender" as a linguistic system for showing the syntactic relationship between adj. and noun or referent noun and pronoun. In languages that distinguish between adjectives and nouns, at least. Spanish robustly has 2 genders; Russian, 3 (some would say 4); but other languages have a dozen or more. Some call expanded gender systems "noun classes" and pull that terminology back into Indo-European languages. (Note that Hungarian and Finnish have 1 gender for nouns and pronouns, which is equivalent to saying "no" gender. As my hair-cutter once pointed out, "Why should I care about the sex of my neighbor's dog?&quot There's a tendency for people to use natural gender (the actual sex of the being involved) for animate nouns, but that's not always the case and varies a lot by language, education, register.

Note that when "natural gender" came into use in linguistics, the word "gender" was a euphemism for "sex". Separating the two, gender and sex, started off as politically convenient jargon, and that's where the "confusion" started.

The concept that Gender is purely a Social construct was tied into 2nd wave feminism. Third wave came along and modified the view to the more current it's partially a social and partly biological. As to race this case represents some unique aspects that I havn't considered before. Is she like Flip Wilsons' Geraldine or Barry Humphries Dame Edna, donning the Garb for income/money or is she more like a Lynne Conway or Nancy Nangeroni. There is too little information to conclude beyond a shadow of a doubt. But the indications in my Gut suggest she has more in common with an actor donning a costume than with someone who is ready to kill themselves if not allowed to live as they see themselves.

Perhaps some day we will meet someone who truly has a core racial identity that doesn't align with their body. Whom from an early age insists on ensuring everyone sees them as members of a race other than one they were born into. My own cynicism would probably prevent me from accepting it as true unless the person really took to living constantly at a much lower place than they could of easily been had they not. Like a 17th century white man choosing to live as a slave for decades.

Thanks

And there are going to be people born with both sets of genitalia...it is just going to happen; now people can either accept what is natural and wholesome with the world...or they can become total assholes and break ties with the natural world and defy it.

I personally go along with mother nature; we are all her children equal in her eyes which are the eyes of the world. It's just natural that we would all be different.

I don't understand why people still have hangups over this in 2015 America.

At the end of a meeting one day we were discussing an athlete who raised red flags re defined genders.
One of my young colleagues gave us an edifying lecture on the subject. Nature does throw up a variety of permutations which defy normative social constructs.

More than half of humanity's problems are based on some group's 'how it ought to be' versus nature's 'how it is'.

The day I learned what hermaphrodite meant, was NOT the end of the world nor did Jesus come back that day. My reaction was one of fascination at mother nature...not repulsion or scorn. Hermaphrodites exist in every mammal and some amphibians and I believe a few reptiles. Jellyfish are hermaphrodites...nature loves her children.

Your last sentence is spot on malaise. TOO MANY people spend most of their life worrying about someone else's life that has no real impact on them or their family or anyone around them. IMO, they SHOULD be spending this one shot Johnny on getting to know the world and all it's great and wonderful creations!

I feel pity for myopic people, I use to hate them...but then I grew up and became an adult.

I am proud of my race and you do not get to claim it just because you feel like it!

A thorough knowledge of biology would have given you a better platform from which to speak. Ignorant people need to either not speak, or read up before speaking.

I can come back to this thread when I have more time.