A Therapist's Treatise on Social Issues, Part 6: Sex and Gender Definitions
Continued from part 5.
Meanings of the words sex and gender are evolving rapidly. My current position on the matter is to stick with the biological definitions of these terms, in which sex is determined by one’s gametes (in humans: sperm and eggs), while gender is the more fluid behavioral expression that usually and for the most part — but not always and entirely — correlates with sex.
Sex predates humans by aeons. Where there is sexual reproduction, there is sex. In all sexually reproducing species — plants, fish, birds, reptiles, mammals — there have always and only been two sexes. While humans can have surgeries such as vaginoplasty and phalloplasty, these do not fundamentally change their sex. A person born male will never produce eggs or be capable of menstruation or pregnancy. A person born female will never produce sperm or be capable of impregnating someone.
Gender, defined as the behavioral expression of sex, also predates humans. A great many species across animal phyla have gendered behaviors. Common examples among males include: fighting over females, growing showy physical attributes (bright plumage, big horns), making special vocalizations (bullfrog croaks, birdsongs), mate guarding, building special nests (bower birds), mating dances. Females, with more biologically expensive gametes, are choosier, so require less effort, but in mammals, caring for young is typically a female dominated role.
Among humans, gender roles have existed across all cultures and times. The gender distribution of certain activities has always fallen across certain lines, eg.: male hunting, female gathering, while others can vary by culture (eg. weaving, pottery, medicine making, or cooking may each be considered the domain of men or women depending on the society). Activities that remain most consistently gendered often have the strongest biological correlates. For example, men on the whole are physically stronger, while women are more flexible; men on the whole have a stronger ability to visually focus on moving objects (eg., spotting prey), while women have better color perception and peripheral vision (eg., seeing all the berries on a large bush). These combinations of traits correlate strongly with men being better suited for hunting and women for gathering.
I do not believe it is inherently unjust to state facts about sex and gender. What we do with those facts, how we interpret and apply them, is what has the potential to be unjust. To place a higher value on one sex than another, or to deny members of one sex the right to participate in activities typically considered more normative for the opposite — those are unjust. But just because a woman should have as much of a right to become a surgeon as a man, doesn’t mean we should ever expect the number of female surgeons to equal the number of male surgeons. While the differences in their numbers may in some cases be affected by sexist behaviors in male dominated field — and we should seek to eradicate those barriers to equal opportunity — they are also driven by biology. Modern leftist prioritization of equality of outcomes, as opposed to equality of opportunity, may be not only an unrealistic aim, but one that has the potential to be detrimental, if it means pushing some people into careers that they don’t want while limiting others from pursuing those they do.
Likewise, attempts to destroy the notion of a gender binary can have many negative consequences, including but not limited to the removal of women-only spaces, the destruction of women’s sports, and the risk of denying important differences between the sexes that affect healthcare.
Speaking of healthcare…
