Is gender a binary or a spectrum?

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I don't think gender and sex are the same thing. My definition of gender, or a definition I believe is appropriate, is the expression of biological sex or the characteristics commonly associated with biological sex.

My point is that the purpose of identity is to identify - to classify - to differentiate between things. If the definition of gender isn't rooted in biology, then it isn't very good as an identity because the identity could be anything one wants.

I do acknowledge binary trans people as valid identities, ie a person whose gender identity is opposite to their biological sex. But the keyword there is opposite.

How can it be a spectrum? There is male, female, and... what else? Nothing.

How can autism be a spectrum? There is autistic, not autistic, and... what else? Nothing.

Because we all know that each of us here is exactly as autistic as each other. And those who aren't autistic have NO autistic traits whatsoever. Yes, the world is entirely constructed of binaries. It's soothing to not have to consider nuance, shades. Nope, just a regular black and white world we've got.

I don't understand how that is relevant to my question. Starting with broad categories, which of the following would you want to know?
1) genotype
2) phenotype
3) both
4) neither is relevant to what you see as objective facts, you want to know something else

Does he mean to say contrarian?

Exactly. It isn't a 'spectrum'. You either have the condition or you don't. A person doesn't have autism if they just tend to take people literally and really enjoy routine, but are also good at picking up 'body language', enjoy gossiping, and are otherwise like an N.T.

That was my point: there's no spectrum.

There is was an earlier point about development and how chromosomes are not totally deterministic. That is certainly true, however chromosomes are a major catalyst in sex traits. However than process can be suppressed/disrupted just like any kind of development has the potential to be disrupted such as growth of limbs. This can happen due to environmental agents or due to genetics.

Yes is can be a fragile process, but nevertheless the outcome produces anomalies very rarely.

You can argue that we basically all start out with female traits, but either were continue to develop such traits or we develop more male traits.

Yes there is a huge variance in certain body part, however other body part other physiology the variance is less.

The whole point of gender is that by an large we tend towards certain characteristic which are binary. Just like in digital electronics where high is 5V and low is 0 something is not exactly at 0 or 5V but there is a strong tendance towards 0 or 5 due to circuitry that regulates the voltages. However even DC, is difficult to make totally smooth, so the baseline you are working with isn't totally flat, and switching is not instant so will be ramped/sloped.

Third sex might not make sense from a biological standpoint. Here were aren't arguing over personality or even sexuality which different. If you argue the biological sex is purely chromosomes, then there rare conditions that could be defined as biological sex. However this doesn't really work, becuase these conditions don't account for all of the intersex individuals, and it is a clearly a process which has a tendency toward binary.

The problem with this discussion is people on the own hand claim that gender is separate from biological sex, but on the other hand are trying to argue from biological sex. So it is almost like two different discussions.

The OP was about gender. Therefore the relevance to biological sex is based on whether you think it has anything to do with gender.

The question I would ask is whether people who are on the internet (tumblr/youtube), who want to to identify as unicorn, fluid, grey, etc are all doing it becuase of underlying physiological reasons related to biological sex, neurology or more due to a cultural memes. I have my doubts that the current prevalence of non-binary folk as much to do with intersex folk.

Identity is individual but we are still influence by others. However I have no problem with this, so long as it doesn't encroach on my rights. So I'm all for them expressing their personalities, I just don't have to agree with thier social the

Nature in impervious to politics, whether people have socially conservative, identitarian social marxist, liberal or social libertarian, nature still does it thing and runs roughshod over that.

When people argue that something is totally a social construct or totally a something your are born with the are only doing that because it suits them politically.

The scientific consensus on sexuality is that it is both something you are born with and more or less fluid. Except due to politic people need it to be one or the other. But the reality is a totally separate question to morality of identity. As a social libertarian I don't care either way, it is not my business. I just don't want people legislating identity becuase they don't feel happy.

It is funny the same people that ague say that base sexuality is something you are born with but in the same breath say some other sexual preference is not becuase it doesn't fit their social theories. This has nothing to do with scientific fact, and everything to do with politics. Similar story with social conservatives.

Who is trying to control identity today? It was social conservatives, but they are being eclipsed by regressive, so called "liberals" (who need to look up the word in the dictionary). In other words, "we accept all these variance of identity we proscribe, except if you are a white male, heterosexual or anything we don't happen to like". Of course these identitarians, end up with many internal disagreements becuase despite claiming to the contrary they are all about pigeonholing and labels.

Identitarian is a political movement for ethno-nationalonalist in Europe, however the word applies in general to SJWs too, as they are two sides of the same coin as fair as identity politics is concerned. They are both antidemocratic, and solely focused on control of identity, and have half baked social theories.

I find this argument facetious at best. For 10k+ years the west has run on patriarchy (your white males), and now that large populations of people have demanded a voice, a form of equality, they're regressive? It's true, they don't want to hear about your white patriarchy, they've heard about it for 10k+ plus years and it's been over represented. Truth is white males are ~33% of the U.S. population, the sooner white males come to terms that they're a minority, not a majority, and the better off we'll all be. A minority can only suppress majorities for so long before there's a revolt, just be grateful this revolt has been a peaceful one.

Ginger lesbians are < 1% of the populations. Relevance...none.

Why are you separating white women from the white European demographic? As if white women are an ethnicity all of their own? The logic of intesectionality and its primitive mathematics does not make any sense.

Also why are you conflating institutional power with all white men?

Howe exactly are people living in poverty the rust belt and the south with no real power suppressing middle class women in cities? Simply for being white, and male?

I thought I explained this well enough.

You're talking individuals, I'm talking institutions, they're completely different things with completely different rulesets that govern them. So no we will not reach stasis on this disagreement because we're talking about two completely different things. As for how an individual experiences it here's a personal story: when I was 17 me and some friends were detained for under-age drinking. It was a 70 dollar fine and an embarrassing confession to our parents, except for our friend who's last name happened to be Martinez, he got 20 hours of community service slapped on him as well. No explanation, he did nothing more than we did, just happened to be of Mexican descent in a town full of white people. It's not about the benefits you receive so much as the punishments you don't. Granted that's a form of racism and not necessarily patriarchy, but the same people that enjoy subjugating people based on racial identity tend to be the same ones that have no problems subjugating based on gender as well.

US has complex racial issue no doubt about that.

But my point was the conflation of institutional power and individual in the rhetoric and ideology. That is inherently obvious when "white male" label is applied, and it mostly middle class educated people, who clearly have privilege and influence over policy. "You're a white male...etc" It is really getting old and clearly based on resentment. This is supposed to mend the divides that exist in the country?

I am white male and heterosexual but that isn't the whole story, I come from a mixed background, I don't look English.

If you are treating white males as an minority they are clearly the largest minority besides maybe white females by slim margins. Other ethnicity divided by gender would be smaller.

Fortunately people don't just think along those line as hard as intensectionists or etho-nationalists want you to.