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Humans are relatively unique when it comes to sexual relationships. We’re very developed and our social roles are hugely important. It’s not crazy to think that

Humans are relatively unique when it comes to sexual relationships. We’re very developed and our social roles are hugely important. It’s not crazy to think that there are aspects of our sexual identities that don’t appear in other animals. We’re not unique in being unique. Consider our relatively close relative, the bonobos, in which they’re all bisexual sluts. Gender is sort of a natural thing in human identities, even if it is a social construct. Intersex individuals are a pretty good piece of evidence of this. People born with ambiguous genitalia. Doctors often pick which one to go with and will do surgery to make it so. They often “get it wrong” and the individual will later feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT necessarily knowing they were intersex at birth. Gender can be a social construct and still have biological intrinsic factors behind it. It doesn’t need to arise from a purpose per se. it doesn’t NEED to have biological intrinsic factors either.

Spivak 3y ago
> They often “get it wrong” and the individual will later feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT necessarily knowing they were intersex at birth. You see a similar phenomenon with trans people too. By a huge margin trans people know they're the wrong gender at age 5-6 well before they have any idea what boys vs girls even means. And it can't be they go with whatever people say they are because otherwise they wouldn't reject it. It's not something socialized. The expression is cultural -- boys have short hair, girls wear makeup, but the identity is fixed. It's not really all that surprising in hindsight but humans seem to have an internal sense of their gender that's independent of their chromosomes. I mean if you swapped my body or did some weird gene therapy I would still know I'm a woman. Trans folks seem to just be people for whom the firmware doesn't match the hardware. It's not even up there with the weirdest human things and now that we don't stigmatize it as much we're seeing that it happens wayyy more often than we thought it did.
- fauxpause_ 3y ago
  Hmm wow that does not match my expectations but the average age of gender dysmorphia beginning appears to be about 6 years old for adult trans individuals. I would have expected a closer tie to puberty but it would seem you’re closer to the mark.

Spivak 3y ago

> They often “get it wrong” and the individual will later feel they are the wrong gender WITHOUT necessarily knowing they were intersex at birth. You see a similar phenomenon with trans people too. By a huge margin trans people know they're the wrong gender at age 5-6 well before they have any idea what boys vs girls even means. And it can't be they go with whatever people say they are because otherwise they wouldn't reject it. It's not something socialized. The expression is cultural -- boys have short hair, girls wear makeup, but the identity is fixed. It's not really all that surprising in hindsight but humans seem to have an internal sense of their gender that's independent of their chromosomes. I mean if you swapped my body or did some weird gene therapy I would still know I'm a woman. Trans folks seem to just be people for whom the firmware doesn't match the hardware. It's not even up there with the weirdest human things and now that we don't stigmatize it as much we're seeing that it happens wayyy more often than we thought it did.

fauxpause_ 3y ago
Hmm wow that does not match my expectations but the average age of gender dysmorphia beginning appears to be about 6 years old for adult trans individuals. I would have expected a closer tie to puberty but it would seem you’re closer to the mark.