A contradiction, I think, between "gender is a social construct" and trans-ness

[Consul]

If "sex" and "gender" aren't used synonymously, I need to be told what exactly "gender" means. For example, the American psychologist Madison Bentley was one of the first (if not the first) to use "gender" in the contemporary psychological/sociological sense:

"…gender (which is the socialized obverse of sex) is a fixed line of demarkation, the qualifying terms being 'feminine' and 'masculine'. Many matters in grouping, playing, exercising, reciting, and the like, separate the boys from the girls. That these are social matters of gender may be demonstrated by a reference across to the domestic animals, where there is sex but no gender, sex which has its occasional demonstrations and signals but exerts little other influence upon the cattle, the horses, the cats and the chickens. There can be no doubt that the gendering of the younger child sets a definite stamp upon it and distinctly contributes to its general socialization."

(Bentley, Madison. "Sanity and Hazard in Childhood." The American Journal of Psychology 58/2 (1945): 212–246. p. 228)

This corresponds to what Ann Oakley writes later:

"Gender is a term that has psychological and cultural rather than biological connotations. If the proper terms for sex are 'male' and 'female', the corresponding terms for gender are 'masculine' and 'feminine'; these latter may be quite independent of (biological) sex. Gender is the amount of masculinity or femininity found in a person, and, obviously, while there are mixtures of both in many humans, the normal male has a preponderance of masculinity and the normal female a preponderance of femininity."

(Oakley, Ann. Sex, Gender and Society. 1972. Reissue, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. p. 116)

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Thanks for the (copy pasted) mansplanation

"to mansplain = to explain something to a woman in a condescending way that assumes she has no knowledge about the topic"

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mansplaining

My and Griffith's explanations are not cases of "mansplanation", because we have no sexist intention of condescension at all!

Anyone who 'quotes' 'merrian-webster' McDikshinry deserves nothing but contempt.

[Consul]

You'd save yourself a lot of unnecessary complexity if you replace all the stuff about (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dispositions, inclinations, or tendencies) with the simple term "social roles". Sex is a biological constant, social role is not. A person doesn't need to whack off their penis and replace it with a vagina in order to knit a blanket or something. If a person needs to assume the physical qualities of the opposite sex, then there's little going on there that perhaps isn't so different from this:…

Unfortunately, the conceptual situation regarding gender (as different from sex) is in fact complex and complicated, because there are various definitions. Gender qua differential social roles of males and females (associated with certain norms and expectations) is one of them, but there is also gender qua "identity", which seems to have become the predominant meaning. The latter is especially used by postmodern reductionists or eliminativists about sex:

"Here are two—very different—heterodox accounts of sex and gender:

Gender as identity. There is no sex/gender distinction, there is only gender. Sex, the idea that humans can be sorted into two biological types, male and female, is an outdated concept. Sex is a spectrum; or there are many different sexes; or there is really no such thing as sex, just a set of bad ideas imposed onto arbitrary features of bodies. Whatever sex is or was, it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is gender, in particular, gender understood as identity. Every human person has a gender identity, at minimum ‘man’, ‘woman’, or ‘nonbinary’. This new way of sorting people into categories supersedes sex, but takes over the role that sex used to play, for example as the basis of romantic and sexual attractions between people, or as the trait determining which social spaces can be appropriately used. According to this view, transwomen are women, transmen are men, and nonbinary people are neither women nor men. A transwoman belongs on a women’s sports team, or in a women’s prison, or in a women’s domestic violence refuge. Same-sex attractions are ‘transphobic’. Women-centred language is ‘exclusionary’ if it refers to biological traits. Wearing pussy hats and t-shirts with uteruses printed on them to the women’s march is bad; it suggests a connection between women and vulvas, women and uteruses. But some men have vulvas and uteruses (transmen), and some women don’t (transwomen).

Gender as social norms and expectations. There is a sex/gender distinction, and sex is indispensable to it. There are two sexes, male and female, and intersex conditions do not undermine this. Gender is a set of social norms and expectations imposed on the basis of sex. There is no understanding gender without sex. Women are subject to the expectation that they be feminine, men that they be masculine. Men are valued more highly than women. Understanding gender as norms imposed on the basis of sex allows us to make predictions, for example about who will be subject to social sanctions (masculine and other gender norm non-conforming women, feminine and other gender norm non-conforming men). And it allows us to think about the social construction of femininity, the ways that women have been ‘made’ to be feminine, both throughout history, and within an individual woman’s lifetime. This understanding allows us to critique a range of social practices, for example the standards of beauty by which women are assessed. These may require women to spend more time and money, and accept more pain and discomfort, than men (for example, to purchase skincare regimens, makeup, hair products, clothing and shoes; to take the extra time needed to apply makeup and style hair; to have body hair plucked, waxed, or lasered; to undergo cosmetic surgeries like breast implants, nose jobs, or labiaplasties). It is the social construction of womanhood that causes some women to dis-identify with womanhood and in some cases attempt to disaffiliate from womanhood (‘I am not like that, so I must not be a woman’). And conversely, it is the social construction of womanhood that attracts some people who are not female to identify with womanhood and in some cases affiliate with womanhood (‘I am like that, so I must be a woman’)."

(Lawford-Smith, Holly. Gender-Critical Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. pp. x-xi)

[Consul]

Anyone who 'quotes' 'merrian-webster' McDikshinry deserves nothing but contempt.

[Gary Childress]

You'd save yourself a lot of unnecessary complexity if you replace all the stuff about (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dispositions, inclinations, or tendencies) with the simple term "social roles". Sex is a biological constant, social role is not. A person doesn't need to whack off their penis and replace it with a vagina in order to knit a blanket or something. If a person needs to assume the physical qualities of the opposite sex, then there's little going on there that perhaps isn't so different from this:…

Unfortunately, the conceptual situation regarding gender (as different from sex) is in fact complex and complicated, because there are various definitions. Gender qua differential social roles of males and females (associated with certain norms and expectations) is one of them, but there is also gender qua "identity", which seems to have become the predominant meaning. The latter is especially used by postmodern reductionists or eliminativists about sex:

"Here are two—very different—heterodox accounts of sex and gender:

Gender as identity. There is no sex/gender distinction, there is only gender. Sex, the idea that humans can be sorted into two biological types, male and female, is an outdated concept. Sex is a spectrum; or there are many different sexes; or there is really no such thing as sex, just a set of bad ideas imposed onto arbitrary features of bodies. Whatever sex is or was, it doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is gender, in particular, gender understood as identity. Every human person has a gender identity, at minimum ‘man’, ‘woman’, or ‘nonbinary’. This new way of sorting people into categories supersedes sex, but takes over the role that sex used to play, for example as the basis of romantic and sexual attractions between people, or as the trait determining which social spaces can be appropriately used. According to this view, transwomen are women, transmen are men, and nonbinary people are neither women nor men. A transwoman belongs on a women’s sports team, or in a women’s prison, or in a women’s domestic violence refuge. Same-sex attractions are ‘transphobic’. Women-centred language is ‘exclusionary’ if it refers to biological traits. Wearing pussy hats and t-shirts with uteruses printed on them to the women’s march is bad; it suggests a connection between women and vulvas, women and uteruses. But some men have vulvas and uteruses (transmen), and some women don’t (transwomen).

Gender as social norms and expectations. There is a sex/gender distinction, and sex is indispensable to it. There are two sexes, male and female, and intersex conditions do not undermine this. Gender is a set of social norms and expectations imposed on the basis of sex. There is no understanding gender without sex. Women are subject to the expectation that they be feminine, men that they be masculine. Men are valued more highly than women. Understanding gender as norms imposed on the basis of sex allows us to make predictions, for example about who will be subject to social sanctions (masculine and other gender norm non-conforming women, feminine and other gender norm non-conforming men). And it allows us to think about the social construction of femininity, the ways that women have been ‘made’ to be feminine, both throughout history, and within an individual woman’s lifetime. This understanding allows us to critique a range of social practices, for example the standards of beauty by which women are assessed. These may require women to spend more time and money, and accept more pain and discomfort, than men (for example, to purchase skincare regimens, makeup, hair products, clothing and shoes; to take the extra time needed to apply makeup and style hair; to have body hair plucked, waxed, or lasered; to undergo cosmetic surgeries like breast implants, nose jobs, or labiaplasties). It is the social construction of womanhood that causes some women to dis-identify with womanhood and in some cases attempt to disaffiliate from womanhood (‘I am not like that, so I must not be a woman’). And conversely, it is the social construction of womanhood that attracts some people who are not female to identify with womanhood and in some cases affiliate with womanhood (‘I am like that, so I must be a woman’)."

(Lawford-Smith, Holly. Gender-Critical Feminism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. pp. x-xi)

I know it's complex. Everyone knows it's complex. However, how sure are you that the solution to the complexity of it lies in sexual transformation. By that I refer to changing a persons biological processes to match those of the opposite sex? Is messing with a persons natural biological development somehow, needed or desirable? If only lizards could survive on Mars (for example) should we humans biologically change ourselves into lizards, just to live on mars.

If you're simply talking about social customs like bathroom use then you have to mess with long established customs that are present for reasons that aren't random or merely capricious.

If you're talking about men wearing women's clothing, or sitting in knitting groups then that is not a change of sex, it's a change of preference or social role.

None of those things require a male to "identify" as anything more than a "male who wants to say he's female." That doesn't make him a different sex.

[Consul]

"The first distinction to make is between sex and gender. Sex refers to the biological categories of female and male, categories distinguished by genes, chromosomes, and hormones. Culture has no influence on one’s sex. Sex is a relatively stable category that is not easily changed, although recent technology has allowed people to change their biological sex. Gender, by contrast, is a much more fluid category. It refers to the social categories of male and female. These categories are distinguished from one another by a set of psychological features and role attributes that society has assigned to the biological category of sex."

(Helgeson, Vicki S. The Psychology of Gender. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2012. p. 3)

* No, biologists do not define sex in terms of genes, chromosomes, or hormones, but in terms of gametes, of different gamete sizes: Males produce comparatively small and usually mobile gametes called sperm cells, and females produce comparatively large and usually immobile gametes called egg cells.

* No, it is not the case that "recent technology has allowed people to change their biological sex," because it cannot turn sperm-producers (= males) into ova-producers (= females), or vice versa. This might become possible in the far future; but it's not possible now, there being many physical/physiological obstacles in the way of progress.

"gender: social, cultural, and psychological traits linked to males and females that define them as masculine or feminine"

(Lindsey, Linda L. Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 2016. p. 523)

Okay, but corporeal/physical features also play a role when it comes to describing or perceiving someone as masculine or feminine. How someone('s body) looks matters too!

"Distinguishing Sex and Gender

As gender issues become more mainstreamed in scientific research and media reports, confusion associated with the terms sex and gender has decreased. In sociology, these terms are now fairly standardized to refer to different content areas. Sex refers to the biological characteristics distinguishing male and female. This definition emphasizes male and female differences in chromosomes, anatomy, hormones, reproductive systems, and other physiological components. Gender refers to those social, cultural, and psychological traits linked to males and females through particular social contexts. Sex makes us male or female; gender makes us masculine or feminine. Sex is an ascribed status because a person is born with it, but gender is an achieved status because it must be learned.
…
Gender can be viewed on a continuum of characteristics demonstrated by a person regardless of the person’s biological sex. Adding the concept of role to either sex or gender may increase confusion in terminology. When the sociological concept of role is combined with the biological concept of sex, there is often misunderstanding about what content areas are subsumed under the resultant sex role label. Usage has become standardized, however, and most sociologists now employ gender role rather than sex role in their writing. Gender roles, therefore, are the expected attitudes and behaviors a society associates with each sex. This definition places gender squarely in the sociocultural context."

(Lindsey, Linda L. Gender Roles: A Sociological Perspective. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 2016. pp. 4-5)

* No, sex is not "an ascribed status", but a natural status that exists ascription-independently.

* Sex also plays a role in making us (appear/look) masculine or feminine, because there are sex-determined physical characteristics which contribute to a person's masculinity or femininity. For example, having a beard makes a man look more masculine.

[Gary Childress]

Sex is a term based on science. If gender is a "social construct" then that begs the the question why are we creating a "construct" (i.e. something we know without doubt is artificial and entirely fabricated by human beings)? Why do we need to deliberately pretend? Do we need to deliberately pretend that there is a Santa Claus in order to help adults to make their children behave?

[Consul]

Sex is a term based on science. If gender is a "social construct" then that begs the the question why are we creating a "construct" (i.e. something we know without doubt is artificial and entirely fabricated by human beings)? Why do we need to deliberately pretend? Do we need to deliberately pretend that there is a Santa Claus in order to help adults to make their children behave?

Paradoxically, postmodern gender theorists have argued that everyone has an innate gender identity, in which case it is anything but a "social construct".

Anyway, to say that something is "socially constructed" is not to say that it doesn't exist. There is a socially constructed social reality. Our idea or image of Santa Claus is socially/culturally constructed, but Santa Claus himself isn't. Our cultural representations of Santa Claus are part of social reality, but Santa Claus isn't, because he isn't part of any reality due to being nothing but a fictional person. Santa Claus himself is not a cultural construct but a cultural fiction.

[Consul]

I know it's complex. Everyone knows it's complex. However, how sure are you that the solution to the complexity of it lies in sexual transformation. By that I refer to changing a persons biological processes to match those of the opposite sex? Is messing with a persons natural biological development somehow, needed or desirable? If only lizards could survive on Mars (for example) should we humans biologically change ourselves into lizards, just to live on mars.
…
None of those things require a male to "identify" as anything more than a "male who wants to say he's female." That doesn't make him a different sex.

We humans aren't a species of sequential hermaphrodites, which can and do change their sex naturally; but it doesn't follow that we cannot change our respective sexual phenotypes at all. A biological male with a body that is artificially feminized as far as medically&surgically feasible, who now looks very much like a biological female, hasn't literally become female; but I'm willing to call this person quasi-female or a quasi-woman. A man can become a gynomorphic male, i.e. a physically female-looking male, and a woman can become an andromorphic female, i.e. a physically male-looking female.

I'm not saying that surgical operations and hormonal treatments are the only possible way of reducing the mental suffering of transsexuals; but in some cases it seems to be the best solution.

[Consul]

I don't recall children getting hormone treatment just because they didn't conform to gender stereotypes. In fact it's the wokies who are the worst offenders when it comes to gender stereotyping.

Right, the reason being that if gender/sex is defined solely in non-biological (psychological or sociological) terms, then all you have for your definitions are (questionable) stereotypes about girls/women and boys/men, about femininity and masculinity.

Against woke transgender propaganda, girls should be taught that becoming a tomboy doesn't require becoming a boy, and that being a tomboy doesn't mean being a boy.

[Consul]

What is it with this dichotomous way of thinking?

If you aren't a woman then you are a man.
If you aren't a man then you are a woman.
If you aren't woke then you are maga.
If you aren't maga then you are woke.

Why does everything have to be so binary?

A very important point:
The fact that sex is binary in the sense that there are only two sex-defining types of gametes (egg cells & sperm cells) doesn't imply that every individual organism is either male or female. There are sexually reproducing species whose members are simultaneous or sequential hermaphrodites, i.e. both male and female at the same time, or first male and then female, or vice versa.
However, the sexual reproduction of hermaphroditic organisms doesn't involve any third type of gametes; and therefore their existence is perfectly compatible with the binarity of sex. So is the occurrence of intersex conditions in humans or any other species, because all non-sterile intersexuals produce either male gametes or females ones. And certain sterile intersexuals are best characterized as neither male nor female; but, again, their existence is perfectly compatible with the binarity of sex.

[Consul]

Women can no longer have 'women only spaces' because the concept of 'woman' has been erased.

No, it has only become more inclusive by including nonwomen.

[Consul]

We humans aren't a species of sequential hermaphrodites, which can and do change their sex naturally…

Humans cannot change their sex naturally and they cannot change it artificially either (unless it becomes possible to surgically implant functional ovaries into male bodies and functional testicles into female bodies); but what about the possibility of a human sex loss instead of a sex change?
Is a transsexual man who has undergone orchiectomy (surgical removal of the testicles) and can hence no longer contribute sperm to sexual reproduction still male or "ex-male" (and thus neither male nor female)? Is a transsexual woman who has undergone oophorectomy (surgical removal of the ovaries) and can hence no longer contribute ova to sexual reproduction still female or "ex-female" (and thus neither male nor female).

Well, on the other hand, for instance, no one would (dare to) call a post-menopausal woman an "ex-woman" or "ex-female".
Of course, if being female means being capable of producing (mature) ova during some phase of one's life, then post-menopausal women are definitely still women, since they were capable of producing (mature) ova during an earlier phase of their lives.

[Gary Childress]

I know it's complex. Everyone knows it's complex. However, how sure are you that the solution to the complexity of it lies in sexual transformation. By that I refer to changing a persons biological processes to match those of the opposite sex? Is messing with a persons natural biological development somehow, needed or desirable? If only lizards could survive on Mars (for example) should we humans biologically change ourselves into lizards, just to live on mars.
…
None of those things require a male to "identify" as anything more than a "male who wants to say he's female." That doesn't make him a different sex.

We humans aren't a species of sequential hermaphrodites, which can and do change their sex naturally; but it doesn't follow that we cannot change our respective sexual phenotypes at all. A biological male with a body that is artificially feminized as far as medically&surgically feasible, who now looks very much like a biological female, hasn't literally become female; but I'm willing to call this person quasi-female or a quasi-woman. A man can become a gynomorphic male, i.e. a physically female-looking male, and a woman can become an andromorphic female, i.e. a physically male-looking female.

I'm not saying that surgical operations and hormonal treatments are the only possible way of reducing the mental suffering of transsexuals; but in some cases it seems to be the best solution.

OK. So taking an effeminate male and going all out and doing everything scientifically possible to change him physically into a female to the point that no one can tell any difference unless that person tells them that she used to be a male is just very odd to me.

I have no problem being friends with someone like that, but there's something about finding myself naked in bed with that person that would make me extremely uncomfortable. In fact, it kind of makes me lose trust in what I see in the world. Is that pretty girl who is going out with me a guy or a girl? How do I find out? Do I check to make sure her vagina goes all the way in with all the appropriate parts? Do you see what I'm saying here? Many men want to have confidence that what they are getting into is the real thing. Having men posing as females running around really does introduce a level of uncertainty and distrust, even paranoia can enter the picture. You're setting up society for a lot of uncertainty and the mental chaos that goes along with it. Do you not see that aspect of it?

[Consul]

I'm not saying that surgical operations and hormonal treatments are the only possible way of reducing the mental suffering of transsexuals; but in some cases it seems to be the best solution.

OK. So taking an effeminate male and going all out and doing everything scientifically possible to change him physically into a female to the point that no one can tell any difference unless that person tells them that she used to be a male is just very odd to me.

That would be the artificial counterpart of natural sequential hermaphroditism. You may find it odd, but in those cases of transsexuals where physical feminization/masculinization is arguably the only effective method of eliminating their intense mental suffering, it should be socially accepted as "physical psychotherapy".

I have no problem being friends with someone like that, but there's something about finding myself naked in bed with that person that would make me extremely uncomfortable. In fact, it kind of makes me lose trust in what I see in the world. Is that pretty girl who is going out with me a guy or a girl? How do I find out? Do I check to make sure her vagina goes all the way in with all the appropriate parts? Do you see what I'm saying here? Many men want to have confidence that what they are getting into is the real thing. Having men posing as females running around really does introduce a level of uncertainty and distrust, even paranoia can enter the picture. You're setting up society for a lot of uncertainty and the mental chaos that goes along with it. Do you not see that aspect of it?

Imagine you (as a straight guy, I presume) happened to have the best sex of your life with a person who you perceive as a natural woman (even when you see her naked) and who you find sexually attractive, but who later turns out to be a transwoman. Would that experience really make you "lose trust in what [you] see in the world"?

Anyway, sexual "paranoia" or "bedroom angst" cannot be an acceptable reason for demanding that all transwomen (and all transmen) wear buttons in public reading "Beware, I'm not the real thing!". Moreover, the number of transwomen who are totally unperceivable as such even when you see them naked is very small; so the probability that you'll ever find yourself in bed with one of them without being aware of it is very low.

That said, however, it is arguable that before clothes are taken off, a transwoman who is socially perceived as a woman ought to tell a straight guy or a lesbian woman sexually interested in her that she is a transwoman.