sex vs. gender

[LordKAT]

This comment is from :wordpress.com/sex-is-sex-not-gender.


Gisele said
July 20, 2009 @ 3:03 am

This is a fairly serious issue if it's important for the general public to understand the difference between science and politics. Transgender activists want gender and sex to mean the same thing because they believe that people are born with a gender as well as a sex. Typically if you are born female you also are born with the female gender identity. But, you can be born with just the female gender identity but not the typical female body parts. A transgendered person may be born to the female gender yet still want to keep the male body parts. Nevertheless they were born "women". The transgendered community wants there to be no distinction made between different types of "women" nor even different types of "females".

If they can get science to use the word "gender" as a synonym for "sex" it supports their believe that "gender" is something people are born with and that it is the more important factor in determining the difference between men and women rather than sex.

When words are used interchangably they become meaningless.


I am wondering how many of you agree that Transgender community wants gender and sex to mean the same. I have learned more of the difference here than any where else.

[Miniar]

I think that the pressure is on the opposite actually.
That is to say, transfolk want to make sure people understand that sex and gender are NOT the same thing.

[sweetstars]

I think that the pressure is on the opposite actually.
That is to say, transfolk want to make sure people understand that sex and gender are NOT the same thing.

Yup...Completely agree.
Sex is a condition of physical.
Gender is more a persons neurological state.
Sex (the physical manifestation) can be changed.
Gender (the mental manifestation) cannot be changed.
That is why TRANSSEXUAL is FAR more accurate a term than transgender.  I do not IDENTIFY as transgender, because my mental identity as female is static, unchanging.  MY SEXUAL manifestation is what changes to become congruent with my GENDER IDENTITY, thus the sexual manifestation changes and is/was in transition...transsexual.

That is also why I don't like the umbrella term "Transgender".  It creates misnomers and confusion.  A lack of clarity as of what we do and why we do it.  I am transitioned so my sexual characteristics could match my gender.  As I see it I share NOTHING with CD, Drag Performers, etc, who fall under the larger umbrella term, for them its about the cloths, or performance, or something else, but not ones core incongruety with sexual manifestation and mental identity.  That is why I am very specific...I am transsexual, but I am NOT transgender.  I don't particularly like the umbrella term or the associations made, and I think it leads to confusion more than anything.

[tekla]

If I were the enemy, I'd find these types of arguments to be very heartening.

[rachelanne]

I think that the two terms have been interchanged for so long that everyone sees them as meaning the same.  Sometime I would love to be filling out one of those forms and when they ask "Sex" I would love to say "Yes."

It will be next to impossible to get society to get the two words straight.  Even more impossible to get them to understand that gender is not a woman or man but a sliding scale with multiple different stops.  Woman and Man are just the two extremes.

[Nicky]

That is also why I don't like the umbrella term "Transgender".  It creates misnomers and confusion.  A lack of clarity as of what we do and why we do it.  I am transitioned so my sexual characteristics could match my gender.  As I see it I share NOTHING with CD, Drag Performers, etc, who fall under the larger umbrella term, for them its about the cloths, or performance, or something else, but not ones core incongruety with sexual manifestation and mental identity.  That is why I am very specific...I am transsexual, but I am NOT transgender.  I don't particularly like the umbrella term or the associations made, and I think it leads to confusion more than anything.

Make sure you read rule 10. Advocating the separation or exclusion of one or more group from under the Transgender umbrella term won't be tolerated.

You actually share a lot more than you think with Cds, Dragqueens etc. You have to wonder where the desire to dress comes from and I would be very very careful if you are trying to suggest that it has nothing to do with their core identity or an incongruity between desired and expected gender behaviour. Your own desire to dress as you want to dress may be a seperate thing to your gender identity too, it just happens to be congruent in your case. You do realise that when you were in drab you could be viewed as being a crossdresser too. In the very least you share the same battles for rights. Might as well fight it together.

I like the term transgender. Transexual can be seen as an outcome of something you do. You can argue that you are not transexual untill you change your physical sex (I don't use that definition but it is a good argument). But it in itself is a confusing term too, do you include those transgendered that have not had the chop of the boobs or penis?  But I think it is a mistake to view transgender in the same sense. Transgender is really something that requires no action for it to be. Trans means something like to move or beyond ortravel or accross or away from. My gender is beyond my physical sex, that makes sense to me. It can also mean a movement away from standard gender roles - hence inclusion of all kinds of people. When I use the term with people and say that it includes anyone that goes against the 'gender/sex grain' of society people get it. It is not that difficult.

[sweetstars]

I have my opinions, and I am bound to keep them.  As far as I personally see it I share nothing with CD and the like.  Plain and simple, and from an advocacy standpoint it does complicate things.

I should also say I was born IS, assigned male, and identify as female.  HRT is a necessity for me one way or the other as I was very sick in my twenties because of abnormal levels of hormones.  This is in addition to poor muscle development, spine abnormalities, dental abnormalities, Development Disorders (LD and PDD) and an abnormal puberty and all sorts of other issues growing up.  I also had two T shots when I around 13 years old to jump start a very limited puberty.

So when I feel I share very little, its for good reason, quite literally I share very little.  While I do believe that most folks who transition do so because of a neurological syndrome, I don't think the same is for CD since a. they don't transition b. they identify as their birth sex.  I think the causes are very different.  I have known a share of CD, and I have yet to see a common link. 

I don't like the term transgender.  I never was transgender and never will be.

[K8]

Getting back to LordKAT's original post:

I think the statement is 180 off.   Part of the TG push has been to separate sex and gender - actually, physiological sex and gender identity - because for TGs (mostly) they do not agree.  Certainly, they do not agree for pre-transition TSs.

All my life it was very clear to me that my sex was male.  The problem was that because of that everyone - including me - expected me to be a man.  I could never make my sex and gender match, therefore I am now transitioning my sex and presentation to match what I really am.

May each of us have the opportunity to align our sex and gender.  Alignment of two qualities, though, does not mean they are the same.

- Kate

[LordKAT]

Exactly as I think Kate. I was reading that and thinking that this person don't know much about us at all or what we want. I started to feel angry and frustrated that someone actually thought the transgender community wants to confuse the issue when all I ever seen are people who want to clarify it. It bothers me when someone who has no idea of what I think or feel says things quite contrary to the truth.