Questions about terms and stuff

[Edge]

Sorry if this is confusing. I am confused by it.
What do people mean by "the gender binary?" Does it just refer to male and female gender identities like I thought? Or does it only refer to cis males and females like some people I've spoken to thought? Or does it refer to gender roles like some people make it sound? Or does it refer to a mix of all three? Or is it something else?
What exactly is the difference between sex and gender? From what I've understood, sex refers mainly to primary sex characteristics, but I've also heard secondary sex characteristics and genetics being included. As we all know, there can be a lot of variation between those. I've read that gender refers to the brain which is an organ. As fascinating as the brain is, how come other body parts (which can vary) are lumped together as sex, but the brain (which is just as physical) stands on it's own as gender? Am I making sense? Probably not.
What exactly makes us the gender we are anyway? I mean, what exactly are our brains telling us? Why are our brains telling us this? I know the studies done on the structure of the brain and myelin and stuff and how that makes us identify as we do, but I want to know more details and specifics. I want to know in detail how that affects us and the signals our brains are sending.

[spacerace]

Sorry if this is confusing. I am confused by it.
What do people mean by "the gender binary?" Does it just refer to male and female gender identities like I thought? Or does it only refer to cis males and females like some people I've spoken to thought? Or does it refer to gender roles like some people make it sound?

It refers to everyone - the binary is male vs female as distinct categories. They are the endpoints of each side of the gender spectrum.

|------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------|
male                                                                                                                                                   female

What exactly makes us the gender we are anyway? I mean, what exactly are our brains telling us? Why are our brains telling us this? I know the studies done on the structure of the brain and myelin and stuff and how that makes us identify as we do, but I want to know more details and specifics. I want to know in detail how that affects us and the signals our brains are sending.

I post this link a lot, but it is actually really detailed - you can follow the reference links too and read at least the abstracts of the quoted sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_transsexualism#Biological-based_theories

[Tessa James]

Binary: 2. relating to, composed of, or involving two things

That is my understanding of the term when applied to trans people or gender.  That is, that there are only two choices, male or female.  Many of us, however, clearly feel and see a wealth of choices, presentations and a real history that includes a spectrum.  A spectrum suggest relative degrees or components of gender identity with the androgyne accepting and even celebrating combinations or ambiguity. 
Women wearing pants in the 1930s was a scandal as pants were only for men.  Now, in the modern western world, pants are no longer a big deal and everybody wears them.  I think that is happening with gender too.  At some point in transworld the choice was, are you becoming a man or woman?  More of us now see the shades of gray and the pleasures of fluidity.  We have more options from our palette that helps us paint the rainbow.

To me, gender is more of cultural construct while sex refers to our biological reality.  My sex was determined as male at birth but I never felt like I fit the current cultural definitions of boy or man.  No doubt, a penis is a male reproductive organ while a nurse was often seen as a female role in the past.  Binary choices are just two limiting:-)

[spacerace]

You can read this chapter from Whipping Girl by Julia Serano on google books for free- she is a geneticist and a transgender woman, and she does a good job of comparing biology vs social construct and how the two intertwine:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fR5ji5h5g1MC&pg=PT69&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4

The link is sorta odd - I would scroll up a few pages and start where it says : "6" in big bold letters, that is the beginning of the chapter

[Edge]

So it refers to gender identity? Ok thanks for clearing that up.
I still don't understand why the brain is considered separate from other body parts.
Personally, I am very much against the idea of gender being a cultural construct.
I like those links, spacerace. Thanks.

[suzifrommd]

My understanding is that "the gender binary" refers to a worldview.

One in which everyone "normal" must pick either male or female and anyone who doesn't identify as one or the other is "abnormal" or "difficult."

It's enforced by governments (where all documents must have an M or an F) language (there are no universally accepted gender-neutral pronouns), architecture (so many buildings require you to identify as one or the other just to be able to pee), countless single-sex and sex-segregated institutions, and nearly all social interactions (nearly everyone treats people they perceive as male different from those perceived as female).

You hear of people now who want to "challenge the gender binary", to try to relax the enforcement I talk about above.

As to where non-cis-gender people fit, that's open to interpretation. Where I live, I can change the gender marker on my license with just a letter from my doctor. I'm still in the gender binary, but I would become, in the eyes of the motor vehicle folks, a woman. So that interpretation of the gender binary accommodates gender transition of non-cis-gender people, but is still a binary system. You still need to be M or F. The state where I was born will only change my birth certificate if I have genital surgery. It's a binary system still accommodating to non-cis-gender people, and but is more strict. There are places in my country where the gender binary as interpreted by local government doesn't accommodate non-cis-gender people at all. In those places, it's impossible to change gender markers.

Does this help? Or just make it muddier?

[Tessa James]

Thank you for brining into view the broader cultural implications Suzifrommd.  The intractable and rigid orthodoxy enforced by virtually all governments is hard to overstate.  It takes time to tear down these walls?

[MadeleineG]

Dunno if this helps, but I think the distinction between binary and non-binary conceptions of gender as being analogous to to the distinction between truth-functional and fuzzy or continuous logics.

Maddy