There are clearly things that fall under physical differences. People with penises will always find it easy to stand up while peeing, and that affects how bathrooms are arranged. These things fall under their sex.
There are clearly other things that don’t fall under those physical differences. Men can have long hair styles, but western culture doesn’t usually go that way. That hasn’t always been true, it’s more common now than it was in the 1950s, and other cultures make entirely different choices for hairstyles between men and women. These things fall under gender.
Which means gender is performative by definition. You fall into society’s rules for gender, or you deliberately break them, but it’s never something encoded in DNA or anything. If it is, then it’s sex, not gender.
I had hoped that as we as a society realised that gender is performative, it would make gender and these arbitrary gender roles less and less meaningful, to the point of eventually being effectively erased. That people could just say “this is my personality” and be accepted without needing to wrap it into definitions and groupings.
However what seems to be happening instead (from my perspective and experience) is that people are embracing the performative nature of gender more strongly, albeit with new non-traditional genders.
As a specific example, it seems like having one pronoun for everyone regardless of gender, would be better than inventing new pronouns in addition to the traditional gendered ones.
Note that I am happy to learn/hear other perspectives, or how mine is flawed.
There are clearly things that fall under physical differences. People with penises will always find it easy to stand up while peeing, and that affects how bathrooms are arranged. These things fall under their sex.
There are clearly other things that don’t fall under those physical differences. Men can have long hair styles, but western culture doesn’t usually go that way. That hasn’t always been true, it’s more common now than it was in the 1950s, and other cultures make entirely different choices for hairstyles between men and women. These things fall under gender.
Which means gender is performative by definition. You fall into society’s rules for gender, or you deliberately break them, but it’s never something encoded in DNA or anything. If it is, then it’s sex, not gender.
I had hoped that as we as a society realised that gender is performative, it would make gender and these arbitrary gender roles less and less meaningful, to the point of eventually being effectively erased. That people could just say “this is my personality” and be accepted without needing to wrap it into definitions and groupings.
However what seems to be happening instead (from my perspective and experience) is that people are embracing the performative nature of gender more strongly, albeit with new non-traditional genders.
As a specific example, it seems like having one pronoun for everyone regardless of gender, would be better than inventing new pronouns in addition to the traditional gendered ones.
Note that I am happy to learn/hear other perspectives, or how mine is flawed.
Even sex isn’t particularly cut and dry (Relevant Radiolab Episode). Here’s hoping technologically enabled transhumanism makes it all moot.