4 ms·
Which demonstrates the important of distinguishing gender identity from biological sex (i.e: woman from female, man from male). When deciding what pronoun to u
by Latty 4y ago
Which demonstrates the important of distinguishing gender identity from biological sex (i.e: woman from female, man from male).
When deciding what pronoun to use, biological sex clearly doesn't matter, when talking to a doctor, it may well matter. We can use the appropriate thing at the appropriate time, just as we do with, say, an adopted child, where most of the time you don't need to distinguish, but when it comes to inheritable disease it clearly matters. Likewise, saying "that female over there" when talking about a trans man is utterly useless to me because it doesn't help me identify them without pre-existing knowledge. Man/woman referring to gender identity clearly makes sense for casual conversation, someone's biological sex is none of your business in most cases.
Of course, our increased understanding also says that dimorphism is an oversimplification: the reality is that sexual traits are varied and it is much more of a spectrum, and better understanding of this medically should lead to more personalised medicine that is more effective.
This is especially true when it comes to trans people, if the issue is, for example, linked to oestrogen, then HRT can be more relevant than the chromosomes someone has.
- spinach 4y ago
- Latty 4y agoThis is clearly not very useful, or reasonable. People's biological sex is none of your business, so using it when talking about them is not viable. If you see someone who is presenting as a woman, calling them a man because you happen to know they are trans isn't useful to anyone you are communicating with, and it's reminding them of something they'd rather not be bought to the forefront, just as with specifying someone is adopted—it's irrelevant to the conversation in 99% of cases. > If we muddy these words to mean gender, then no one will understand what anyone is saying when talking about health, or sexual orientation, etc. We have trans/cis, male/female, and "biological sex"/"gender identity" to distinguish. We manage to be just fine referring to both biological and adoptive parents as just "parents" and we can still specify where necessary. > If we are talking about a transman, then you can talk about their sex by referring to them as a woman and as a female. Their gender identity is "transman". Even if they appear to look like a man, their sex has not changed. Transman isn't a word, it's incorrect. Trans men are men who are trans, in contrast to cis men. Turning it into a single word would be like calling someone a tallman. No one ever claimed their sex changed, their gender identity is distinct from their sex, that was very much the point.