What is gender? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more

[Sloady]

Oh! We should create a gender neutral pronoun. I mean, why not? The whole thing here has been about people getting annoyed others were using incorrect pronouns. So, let's solve the problem.

[JBeata]

But it's not a matter of fitting societal roles, it's a matter of the body you're comfortable with.
The trans people I know feel exactly the same about gender roles as you do. This is not a matter of other people's expectations, but of personal preference.

That thinking is foreign to me, though. I'd be perfectly comfortable as either gender. If I woke up tomorrow and was physically female, sure, there'd be some superficial changes, but who I am and how I identify myself wouldn't change in the slightest, save to say I'd check the "F" box instead of "M".

I too am confused by this focus on the body, if anyone would care to explain further it would be appreciated.

Another question: would you prefer it if English had a neutral gender pronoun? There are languages that do, or those that don't separate genders. For instance, in Turkish, third person is just "o," encompassing he, she, and it. There is no mention of gender. Is that better?

Does not English already have one? i.e. he

[Narzul]

What people think of themselves is irrelevant when something purely biological is concerned. Your gender is decided by what bits you have and don't have. Whether you can identify with those bits and the societal expectations related to them is something else entirely -- namely psychology, not biology.

[SAMIAM]

Oh! We should create a gender neutral pronoun. I mean, why not? The whole thing here has been about people getting annoyed others were using incorrect pronouns. So, let's solve the problem.

Daedra.

Call them Valys

short for valynaz.

[Stereotype]

Female ---------------------------- 0 ------------------------------------ Male

Peoples bodies may be one but their minds fall somewhere on the scale above.

My mind is on the exact point in that scale where it falls to the scale down the track and lands in an incomprehensible maelstrom of images and words.

Re, Sloady's point on a gender neutral pronoun:

There are many. Zie/hir is quite popular. Me, I'm more of a cie/hir sort of chick/gryphon/badger/gray rainy city, but those are my custom pronouns to minimize dysphoria. Personally, I adore the idea of custom pronouns, but YMMV.

[Avron the S'wit]

Another question: would you prefer it if English had a neutral gender pronoun? There are languages that do, or those that don't separate genders. For instance, in Turkish, third person is just "o," encompassing he, she, and it. There is no mention of gender. Is that better?

Does not English already have one? i.e. he

Ah, JBeata, you and I are old fashioned!

In the dialect of Standard English, you would use "he" in this sense, yes - at least, that is how I was taught growing up originally. If you did not know someone's gender, the default pronoun was "he," always, without a doubt. It was as close to gender neutral as English got, but without, obviously, being neutral. However, I'm not sure they teach that anymore, or that it is widespread. When I moved for college and started discussing linguistics - particularly sociolinguistics, where we discuss this - it seems that many people here haven't heard of that, or that it was no longer considered the norm.

So, no. We do not have a gender neutral pronoun that is linguistically accepted.

There are many. Zie/hir is quite popular.

What language is this?

[SAMIAM]

Female ---------------------------- 0 ------------------------------------ Male

Peoples bodies may be one but their minds fall somewhere on the scale above.

My mind is on the exact point in that scale where it falls to the scale down the track and lands in an incomprehensible maelstrom of images and words.

Re, Sloady's point on a gender neutral pronoun:

There are many. Zie/hir is quite popular. Me, I'm more of a cie/hir sort of chick/gryphon/badger/gray rainy city, but those are my custom pronouns to minimize dysphoria. Personally, I adore the idea of custom pronouns, but YMMV.

So you also are a Daedra which brings me back to my point of calling people who don't want to be consider one or another Valynaz.

[Sloady]

From now on, I will only be referred to as Sera. This is my pronoun, and I'm sticking to it.

[Avron the S'wit]

So you also are a Daedra which brings me back to my point of calling people who don't want to be consider one or another Valynaz.

Come on now. Serious replies only, Samiam!

[SAMIAM]

From now on, I will only be referred to as Sera. This is my pronoun, and I'm sticking to it.

lol, what about Serjo isn't that a title for lords?

and Avron I'm totally serious.

[Stereotype]

Female ---------------------------- 0 ------------------------------------ Male

Peoples bodies may be one but their minds fall somewhere on the scale above.

My mind is on the exact point in that scale where it falls to the scale down the track and lands in an incomprehensible maelstrom of images and words.

Re, Sloady's point on a gender neutral pronoun:

There are many. Zie/hir is quite popular. Me, I'm more of a cie/hir sort of chick/gryphon/badger/gray rainy city, but those are my custom pronouns to minimize dysphoria. Personally, I adore the idea of custom pronouns, but YMMV.

So you also are a Daedra which brings me back to my point of calling people who don't want to be consider one or another Valynaz.

Nope, I'm more of an incomprehensible gray thing. I'd make a good minion of Sithis, if I wasn't such a clumsy over-moral combat liability.

RE Avron's language query:

Zie/hir are English, hence why they sound like she/her to provide an easy-to-remember framework of grammar. They/them are also used as neutrals in my online community, which is grammatically valid as it started around Jane Austen's time period.

[SAMIAM]

Plus its TES forum I think it makes the most sense people will know what you mean lol.

[Avron the S'wit]

Zie/hir are English, hence why they sound like she/her to provide an easy-to-remember framework of grammar. They/them are also used as neutrals in my online community, which is grammatically valid as it started around Jane Austen's time period.

Interesting. I will have to research them; I have only heard of them very, very vaguely, and they are certainly not an accepted English lexical unit. Of course, I am speaking linguistically.

Pronouns are considered members of what is called a "closed group," a group that develops over a long period of time and is often very rigid and difficult to change. There has been speculation over whether or not there could be room for a third gender neutral pronoun, but I believe the current view is that it's very unlikely. It would have to gain a lot of momentum, and right now it has about...none. You must introduce a word into the language and even words that are introduced are not guaranteed to stick around. Language naturally evolves, of course, but certain classes of it not so much. However, linguistic change comes from very specific groups. People in power are the easiest way to introduce new words into a language - the presidents are common examples - but linguistic change must also be backed by a change in the sociocultural way of thinking...since language is, you know, a sociocultural thing.

[Taters]

The problem with acceptance of a gender neutral pronoun is the same problem of acceptance of non-traditional genders(by most people). If you can't change society for the one, I doubt you can change it for the other.

[SAMIAM]

Its funny that you think the President can introduce new words into the world when the U.S. President is considered to be black despite the fact that he's only half black they already have a term for people that are both black and white but he still doesn't get called by it. I don't think introducing a new word is going to change peoples perceptiveness. People can't peer into anothers mind and think oh this person doesn't consider themselves to be man or woman and I should treat them as such. People judge by eyesight,on here by their avatar, names, writing style. Nobody clicks the profile. I think you'd have to choose a word and allow people to see what gender they are when they post that way they can distinguish between man woman, and Daedra Sithislike grey mattered people

Even then its a choice by the poster to follow that code and call him by he, she, or lol Valynaz.

[Veck]

Okay, let's see how much I can write before the mention of the word gender drives me into a fit of anger...

First things first, a disclaimer because I'm absolutely horrible at wording stuff. The only point that I am against in this is the idea of completely breaking down the meaning of man and women and having everyone live socially as some kind of between-genders group. Not only do I consider it genetically impossible seeing as the differences between biological male and biological female are blatantly existent, but also morally wrong as the contrast between male and female is part of what makes us human. If I say somethng that looks like I'm against any other point, ignore it because I'm not, it's just me being rubbish with my wording.

Alright, all that transgender stuff. I'll never refer to myself by any of those terms, and I'll never identify with them personally. I've always considered myself female, and I don't fit any of the 'girl like this, no like that' stereotypes. I also dislike most of the terms. If people actually want these overlapping, blanket statements to actually get recognised, then they should stop with all the unnecessary terminology. The way I see it, your social gender (which is a term I dislike using, I just can't think of a better word to use right now) is continuous, not discrete. You can be as ignorant as you like and pretend that you aren't, but no matter what you're going to be ever so slightly on one side of that spectrum, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. And that's why I think the whole 'identify with your gender by applying these random terms to it!' idea is a load of bull. It doesn't help you identify with yourself as an individual, it just rounds you up od down to the nearest point on a spectrum and throws you in with everyone else who's decided to apply that term to yourself.

The whole thing that started this: no, male and female should be the only options on something like an internet forum or questionnaire. As I said previously, you can deny it as much as you like, but you are going to biologically be of one gender. Even if you were born without the parts to identify as one, you will have grown up as one of the two genders, you will identify with one more and you will probably be getting more of one gender's hormones than the other to justify that. If I suddenly relapsed for no apparent reason and decided that I wanted to socially be male, I'd still tick female on a 'What is your gender?' box because I am still a female.

The m/f divide: now I can certainly support dumping this! I've never really distinguished between males and females as friends, and I don't see why people should. I'm not sure where the absolute revulsion the two genders often have for each other comes from as children (my best guess is that it's probably some bollocks that matriarchy has thrown at them to try and prevent them from getting into Doctors & Nurses a little too early) but whatever it is, I sure as hell know it isn't biological, because in case you haven't noticed, heterosexual human beings are pretty much hardwired to be obsessed with getting in with the other side. I even see it now. In my last school a number of girls were ridiculously immature, afraid to even speak to boys because they were afraid that they were all potential rapists or bullies. Yeah, men are more aggressive, we get that. Just throw them all in a nice blanket group and refuse to judge any of them as individuals. Come to think of it, that's exactly the same problem that all those gender terms have.

[Kerr]

I really hate gender roles and I don't care about my own gender. I'm a man but that fact is unimportant to me, it is like being white and my hair and eyes being brown it doesn't matter to me. I wouldn't care if any of those details were different, it wouldn't change me as a person.

[Stereotype]

The arguments of most of the people here amount to statements that rely on taking their conclusions as correct, thus being circular logic. Given that I presented many logical reasons as to why sex does not define gender in any way on the first page, I'm not swayed by a load of unproven, illogical assertions.

[Wolfie]

I really hate gender roles and I don't care about my own gender. I'm a man but that fact is unimportant to me, it is like being white and my hair and eyes being brown it doesn't matter to me. I wouldn't care if any of those details were different, it wouldn't change me as a person.

Except being male and female dose as each respective hormone makes you ACT defreint, proof of this is if a guy or girl gets a lot more of the other their personilty changes as dose their body

if you change eye collor nothing changes besides look, this is not so for Gender

[Dark Lord Cam]

Gender is your sex. Gender Identity is how you see yourself.

[Avron the S'wit]

I really hate gender roles and I don't care about my own gender. I'm a man but that fact is unimportant to me, it is like being white and my hair and eyes being brown it doesn't matter to me. I wouldn't care if any of those details were different, it wouldn't change me as a person.

Except being male and female dose as each respective hormone makes you ACT defreint, proof of this is if a guy or girl gets a lot more of the other their personilty changes as dose their body

What do you mean by this? Do you mean you act the way you do because of hormones? I mean, you do within a certain scope (more estrogen will make you moody, for instance), I'm just trying to determine how much of your gender you would define like this.

For instance, I have a condition that grants me a hormone imbalance, but it doesn't make me less female in terms of my gender, as it's typically defined. I still act the same as I always did.

I'm wondering if we all have different ways of defining and understanding what "gender" is.

[Sloady]

The only guarantee gender provides is XX, or XY. This is a fact. That is the only biological difference. Women can lose the ability to get pregnant, men can become women, women can become men, but chromosomes don't change.

[Wolfie]

What do you mean by this? Do you mean you act the way you do because of hormones? I mean, you do within a certain scope (more estrogen will make you moody, for instance), I'm just trying to determine how much of your gender you would define like this.

X ad Y decide it, but if you missing one, you will act defreintly then if you had both, the fact remains that if your female your body is

A. defreint
B. you act defreint
C. your instincts are defreint

how much has to be defreint for we admit there is a diffrince?

For instance, I have a condition that grants me a hormone imbalance, but it doesn't make me less female in terms of my gender, as it's typically defined. I still act the same as I always did.

I'm bipolar, where I female, it would afect me defreint then if I where male.

I'm wondering if we all have different ways of defining and understanding what "gender" is.

Gender is many things, first and formost its X or y
2nd off its which hormone you have (with in a fe exciptions)
3rd it's parts
4th its role in mating
5th its way of actting (what i mean is if you where to magicly c hnage form male or female you would act defreint.)

[Stereotype]

The only guarantee gender provides is XX, or XY. This is a fact. That is the only biological difference. Women can lose the ability to get pregnant, men can become women, women can become men, but chromosomes don't change.

Uhhh, no. Intersexed people can be XXY, XYX, or various other combinations. XY and XX are not the only chromosome combos.


RE: to hormones = gender:

I've been on estrogen, I've been on testosterone, I've been on both at the same time and I've been on flat nothing. You know what changed? Nothing. Also, nobody has provided anything linking sex and gender, only emphasizing the importance of sex in a generalizing, stereotyping manner.

[Avron the S'wit]

Oh, I see, Wolfie. Thanks for explaining it! You're right, that hormones do affect different things, but I think we are looking at gender differently, which is why I asked. I asked about defining "gender" because this is how it's defined academically and scientifically:

To me, gender is a sociocultural expectation of how people will treat you - give you dolls if you are "female," dress you in blue if you are "male" - but biological sex is genetic and determined at birth. That's how we define it when discussing gender in anthropology and linguistics, at least.

So that is how I am used to using it, and thinking about it, which explains my questions!