Like, so genders are social construct and different from biological “sex”, but identifying as a different “gender” requires surgery to change your “sex”? Is “gender” just personality? I’m so confused

Edit: also, the idea trans-affirming surgery and hormones is also absolutely horrifying to me for some reason; just, ouch

  • MILFCortana@lemmygrad.ml
    231·
    2 years ago

    Sex is xx xy and lots of intersex conditions including XX males and Xy women. Gender is an artificial construct and traditionally a division of labor. Most cultures before Christians and the West had LGBT in some way prior, although it wasn’t called LGBT, and ofc they had their own gender roles, which sometimes included 5+ genders

    Afaik most trans people don’t have surgery, because it’s too expensive, not very good, or undesired.

    • CommunistWolf@lemmygrad.ml
      22·
      2 years ago

      People who talk about “biological sex” often forget two very important things:

      • Biology is descriptive, not prescriptive
      • Biologists have lots of different descriptions of sex. We can talk about genotype vs phenotype, for a start; they can be pretty independent of each other, and in contexts where it matters, a biologist (as opposed to some internet carper) will specify.

      A common tactic of “gender critical” types is to say “biological sex is immutable”, meaning genotype, while actually caring about phenotype (“does this person have a penis?” - which is eminently mutable). Fun times.

      • Water Bowl Slime@lemmygrad.ml
        15·
        2 years ago

        Yeah we’re so used to talking about sex as if it has a concrete definition but really, it’s a vague idea that encompasses a broad range of features. And once you start appreciating human diversity, these categories become more and more arbitrary.