I think male is biologically male. Female is biologically female. That's it for gender.
Gay is men attracted to men. Lesbian is women attracted to women. Bisexual is people attracted by either sex to a significant extent. Heterosexual is people attracted to the other gender and not significantly attracted to their own. What is a "significant" attraction is a judgement call.
A gay man is no more or less a man than a straight man. A lesbian woman is no more or less a woman that a straight woman.
Genetically normal individuals for whom having a particular social gender identity is so important that they alter their appearance or bodies can ask to be called whatever they like. It's a lot more important to them than it is to me. They can't actually alter their gender or "reassign" it, but who am I to tell them not to try? And if accepting a person's public declaration of gender benefits those few unfortunates whose biological gender is cryptic due to a genetic abnormality, so much the better.
I think gender is a very simple idea and society muddles it, rather than society narrowly defining gender and the truth being more complex.
boddi
On 11/17/05, Arash <arash at riseup.net> wrote:
> boddi wrote:
>
> You can hypothesize what you want. Science is there to test hypotheses
> and science says there are two genders.
>
>
> I think it would help to clarify what you mean by gender from what others
> are using it denote. I understand your usage of gender as describing the
> sexes whose anatomy and behavior (at least to some minimal level) is
> regulated by biology. Others such as Brian seem to using it to describe the
> different roles we can express ourselves socially using the spectrum of
> human sexuality.
>
>
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