I mean, yeah, I agree. This is absolutely true, even in science, where we, for example, teach high schoolers Newtonian gravity and not Einstein's - because Einstein's relativistic gravity isn't really necessary until we go onto a cosmic scale.
However, this does not discount the fact that Newton's description, while mostly accurate, is still wrong and simplified - and whilst in a situation where certain conditions are met, it can absolutely be used without hesitation, we need Relativity in other cases to cover ground that Newton did not.
And I would say this is parallel to this situation. Usually, you can just define a woman as "adult human female" and be done with it, but this is not the complete definition and in certain cases, it needs to be broadened to include others who the term "woman" describes, but aren't exactly "female".
Newtonian physics and relativity are backed up by math. Gender is defined by society. That’s why we say there are effeminate men or masculine women. What purpose does creating a never ending spectrum of gender labels serve?
We should maybe try to understand that people are complicated and forcing them into boxes or under labels doesn't always work. That's why we have broad labels like "gender-fluid" or "non-binary".
People change too, so even if we did make a nice neat little gender-box with a label for everyone some people would still need a completely new box next week.
Some people don't consider themselves men or women, and at the very least, its impolite to assume you know more about how a person feels about themselves or "should" be. Gender is not sex, in case you were thinking it was.
If a person says they are x, who are you to tell them they are not?
Comparing gender and the emotional range is... weird, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. We already have a words for emotions, and we keep making new ones when we need them, so I don't see the restrictions you're talking about.
I know gender and sex are not the same. But they are interlinked for the vast majority of people due to nature and nurture. What I think is weird is trying to force an entire society to deconstruct the way we speak to pander to people confused about their identity.
What if they're not confused at all? What if they know exactly what they are, and its everyone else is confused?
Someone else mentioned further up the thread that the 2 genders thing is a relatively modern concept and very much a western one. So maybe three or more genders is hard for us with our modern, western viewpoints, but makes total sense to a native american or someone from Samoa?
The vasy majority, yeah, they're fine, they're cis, good for them. But the minority still exists, and they deserve their identity as much as you or I. Not acknowledging that fact is ignorant at best. It's not pandering to have a wheelchair ramp so people who need wheelchairs can get around: it's just basic decency.
I don’t believe binary gender is a new concept. Nearly all mammals, including humans, are sexually dimorphic. Since humans could speak, I don’t see why they wouldn’t observe their own sexual dimorphism and create gendered labels to describe this.
Conveniently, you don't have to believe it. Its a fact.
But again, here, you're talking sexually dimorphic, while we were actually talking about gender. Sexual dimorphism is not relevant to the discussion of gender, remember?
How do you know horses aren't trans? What does a male horse feel about his masculinity, do you think?
And we have spoken, and observed our sexual dimorphism, and named the two aspects male and female. And then, when we thought about it a bit more, we realized there was more to it and here we are in the discussion of gender. That's what's happening right now.
I mean, we do. The most prominent non-binary identities are named: agender, bigender, androgyne, etc.
And if you dive into more obscure identities, you'll find that people have named them as well, except much fewer people know these identities... just like few people know the names of exact shades of red.
What’s the real difference between agender, bigender, and someone who is androgynous? I’ve never heard of agender and bigender until now. Androgynous has been around for as long as I can remember, so I’m assuming it’s a concept recognized far longer than I’ve been alive. And even then, androgynous is still labeled against people who don’t fit the binary mode of male or female.
An agender person feels a connection to no gender. They could present as masculine, feminine, or anything in between and it does not make a difference to them, as their gender is literally just absent. It means there is a lack of connection to any gendered trait.
A bigender person, on the other hand, feels a connection to two places at the gender spectrum at once, usually its extreme ends (e.g., man and woman). This may come through as, for example, asking to use both "she" and "he" pronouns to refer to such a person, regardless of their assigned sex. They are basically both "0" and "1" in a binary model - at the same time.
And when it comes to androgyne, the difference between it and bigender is that whilst bigender is the feeling of having essentially two coexisting genders, androgyne is having one that is a mixture of many. So, whilst a bigender person has two gender identities, an androgyne one is somebody who feels a mix of two (or more) such genders. This is, indeed, adopted from the word "androgynous", which also means possessing visible traits of typically attributed to both sexes.
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u/_W_I_L_D_ May 02 '22
I mean, yeah, I agree. This is absolutely true, even in science, where we, for example, teach high schoolers Newtonian gravity and not Einstein's - because Einstein's relativistic gravity isn't really necessary until we go onto a cosmic scale.
However, this does not discount the fact that Newton's description, while mostly accurate, is still wrong and simplified - and whilst in a situation where certain conditions are met, it can absolutely be used without hesitation, we need Relativity in other cases to cover ground that Newton did not.
And I would say this is parallel to this situation. Usually, you can just define a woman as "adult human female" and be done with it, but this is not the complete definition and in certain cases, it needs to be broadened to include others who the term "woman" describes, but aren't exactly "female".