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

  • 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.