Is gender a binary or a spectrum?

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The number of individuals required to produce fertile offspring is the number of sexes there are. See also: sexual dimorphism. A species with three sexes would achieve a hilarious degree of genetic variance. For reference, keep in mind that these:







are two animals of the same species, and still only sexually dimorphic.


Also related: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 104342.htm


This isn't to disparage people with a weak gender expression, even to the point that they may feel they don't have one at all. Nor is it to suggest that trans people don't exist, obviously they do, and in fact prove my point nicely in that they are on one side and feel they should be on the other. They are not, however, in any way, shape or form, a third sex. Nor does Klinefelter constitute a third sex. Nor does any number of conditions that cause muddling of the hormonal makeup of an individual.

Which is a subjective interpretation of a physical reality.

It carries as much weight as arguing whether the glass is half full or half empty. The only objective fact is that there is a glass containing water. Yelling louder doesn't make one particular point more valid than the other.

I will grant you that humans have two biological sexes (if we're being pedantic then there are thousands of sexes but that's irrelevant to this conversation).

While there are some people who identify with lots of strange "genders", they are anomalies within anomalies. While I don't rule out that they might be onto something, it's not a significant issue.

I am more interested in the people who identify as one of "in between", "no gender", and "both".

Our only evidence for the existence of gender is the existence of trans people. You can't measure gender biologically. It's just that some people report that they do not identify with their assigned sex and would like to be considered what a binary view of gender would call the "opposite" sex.

What about male or female brains? It's true that different regions of the brain show variety across the sexes. However, the variety is enormous. There are not two types of brain. There are variations at dozens of sites, and these rarely show 1-to-1 correlation. Maybe 60% of the people with this hippocampus are men, and so you can call it a "male hippocampus", but in practice most people have brains which are a mix of "male" and "female" structures. See here.

If we accept that some people don't match their assigned sex, then why not accept that some rare people have no gender, or are finely balanced between genders, or can feel their gender identity change the way that mood can change?

*sneezes*


I'm sorry, I'm just acutely allergic to postmodernist un-thought.

Full and empty are not imaginary states. They are two, determinate, reference points. You can ask how full or how empty, in the same respect that you can ask how male or how female.

There is no such thing as limbo. Everything has a name and a measurement. Know what it's called and how it affects other people, if you're supposed to be so intentional and well-adjusted.

Translation: I have no argument and am going to just keep repeating myself and yelling louder thinking it'll make me more correct.

I didn't say they were "imaginary," I said they were subjective.

You can ask how full or how empty, but it doesn't change the fact that people are going to have different opinions, and neither answer is going to be technically correct, or incorrect.

I suspect that this push-back against non-binary people has more to do with folks thinking that, by being against non-binary-ness, they're sticking it to liberals/SJWs. This is in despite of the fact that being "genderqueer" far predates the appearance of the oh-so-evil SJW.

In other words, it's rooted in emotion and ideology, not rationality. It's one of the reasons I've mostly stepped away from debating "gender."

That is bit a of a circular argument. What you mean is personality exists, but you can't separate cultural influence from that. How exactly do you separate issues like dysphoria or other mental ailments from these demographics? It is not that simple.

Here is a person here that wants to be a genderless alien:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cffyclpEo2s

That doesn't make him a genderless alien. The look he is going for is obviously an idealised cultural fantasy meme of aliens. He has no idea about actual aliens or how they reproduce. He also said himself the didn't identify this way until after his friends said he was like an alien, whatever that means.

No doctor is taking his case in the US. He is looking to go to doctors in either Sweden or Thailand, however that doesn't mean those doctors willing to do the transformation are more progressive for taking on his case. It just means they have a different ethical bar.

There are people who want to be limbless, blind or a another species, which are also forms of dysphoria.

The problem lies in in having irreversible surgeries, to rid himself from gendered features he has no idea down the line how he will feel about it. This is really a Bowie-esque permformace art piece with very real long term consequences.

Whilst there is a point that in that people should not be made to conform to norms that don't prevent harm. I also think often people are giving far too much significance to spur of the moments feeling, and this has been largely brought on by culture of identity.

When some say they are grey-gender or unicorn gender or gender queer what they really mean is at this moment they are somewhere in-between masculine-feminine and agender and this can be dynamic. These label aren't specific things and entirely subjective. You can feel that way, and still identify as male or female.

The assertion that real harm is being done by the use of binary labels, is not substantiated. Even those that are suicidal it is not possible to know that the labeling is more significant than the identity crisis. In fact you could argue that it is equally feasible that obsessing about identifiers could be just as detrimental, since in the real world you cannot control what other people think, and therefore it is not resilient mentally to have this expectation.

The tiptoeing around this issue for risk of causing offense could also be causing harm too. However if this individual finds someone to give him the surgeries he want he is free to do that. I do worry for him long term. If it turns out he is still happy with his decision when he is in his 40s or 60s then that would be great, but it is a hell of a gamble.

However these people whist they should be afforded the same protections as anyone, they have no right to insist that others may not gender them or others, especially if they are coming up with their own labels for things In fact I don't remember being asked permission to be called cis-gender, but I won't complain about about it becuase that is their right.

This is also a position on minorities. What is still comparatively small percentage of the population should not be able to dictate policy on the majority of people whose language is language reflects the population. This non-binary culture is largely a meme and part of identity politics regardless of the existence of those that feel their assigned gender. Dysphoria is not a trend, so this needs treatment but there is some dispute in medical community about how to treat it.

First off, the last time I did the "translation:..." type response, I recieved a warning for mockery. Are you perhaps above the rules as a moderator?


Second, I don't remember repeating myself once, nor do I recall any yelling. Seeing as you've levelled the accusation of yelling at me twice now, I'm curious as to where that came from. Or is my not actually yelling irrelevant to your subjective experience of me yelling?


And thirdly:Aside from ignoring most of my post, you also literally just said that objective reality exists and we can observe it, but we can not draw conclusions from what we observe that are any more valid than other conclusions that others may draw about it. This is basically a creationist argument. Do forgive me if I don't deem it worthy to engage with.

No, you would've have.

Should I have issued you a warning for you "sneezes" comment?



Probably because you're just repeating the same arguments every pro-binary person thus far has made, and hand-waving away any piece of information that complicates you point-of-view. In my experience, sticking your fingers in their ears and humming loudly when others start talking is the equivalent of "yelling."



No it isn't. We have evidence towards the process of evolution. Classifying sex and gender; however, remain arbitrary. You have yet to say anything worthwhile that refutes gender as a spectrum.

If you don't have a counter-argument, that's dandy, but you'll forgive me if I view it as yet more of your hand-waving.

I already addressed this. It is not a circular argument. It uses evidence (the existence of non-binary people) to disprove a hypothesis (gender is a binary).

If someone asserted that there is only one gender, how would you disprove them?

I must admit that I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. You are taking a scientific question and applying ethics to it. I will humour you nevertheless.

All people have the same right to having their gender recognised, with the possible exception of people whose self-identified genders are clearly ridiculous, although I think these people are much rarer than many would have you believe. You can't "dictate" to me that I call you a man rather than a woman, but I'm a dick if I don't.

Your point about "minorities" is obviously ridiculous. I know you are an intelligent person and a few minutes of reflection will expose you to the flaws in it. I am not a language prescriptivist but I do believe that good people try to communicate respectfully and help others to do so.

I agree that some people identify opposite to their biological sex. I never said otherwise. I'm simply saying that gender, even when the opposite of one's biological sex, must be either male or female. To say otherwise would render the term gender meaningless. People would just be able to make up whatever gender they wanted, which is precisely what people are doing when they call themselves "non-binary," "agender," "bigender," "trigender," etc. Such claims are simply absurd.

Sex is binary, male or female. Intersex is an abnormality, not a third sex.

Sorry, but, "Because I say so!" isn't a particularly compelling argument.