I was originally going to ask how many legal genders there should be, but I fail to see a compelling argument against 0.
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In an ideal society? No.
However, in our current patriarchal nightmare, people other than cis-men need various special protections to soften the impacts of sexual violence, sexism, discrimination, and inequality, hence the need to have legally defined genders.
That… is a good point
It obviously did matter when same-sex marriages were not legal for example (some countries still do this…), but in most parts of the developed world today… yeah. I guess it does feel a bit grandfatherer-in right now
Obviously things such as the medical system need to know what biological sex someone is, but they don’t have to tie into the legal system
Yeah, that’s what I think some of the replies is missing: Whether or not it needs to be tied to the legal system. I can think of a decent amount of ways of confirming someone’s biology without checking their passport or drivers license.
As for rights and legal protection, I fail to think of a situation in a just society where the same rights and protections shouldn’t apply to both/all.
I fail to think of a situation in a just society
Exactly, we need it because we don’t live in a just society.
Because there are many laws that grant some benefits to one gender but no the other. For example:
- In Poland women get to retire earlier
- In many countries there’s mandatory conscription only for men
- In many countries maternal and paternal leaves are different
- Physical requirements for some jobs (police, firemen) are lower for women
- There are legally mandated proportions of genders in companies or in political parties (in parliamentary clubs to be exact)
- In Spain there are laws that specifically protect women from violence committed by men and special courts that handle them
- Many other laws/rules that require some % of public grants to go to women
You can remove all those laws but that will make feminists unhappy because most of them are pushed by them and leftists governments. As long as those laws exists you need legal genders.
Yes, it turns out if you want to use the mechanisms of the legal system to try to counter the marginalization of any group by the whole system, it has to recognize them in law and provide a method for distinguishing them in practice.
But, once you have some method of distinguishing them, the people that want to strengthen hierarchical structures will use that to identify them and (further) marginalize them.
This is true whether you are talking about chromosomal properties, internal anatomy, external anatomy (not limited to genital shape, but also melanin quantity and distribution), gender-assigned-at-birth, current gendered behavior, religious practices or associations, etc.
Still legal recognition might be the best way to reduce harm until we can achieve a future where the category or distinguishing characteristics no longer make one a target of (extra-judicial) marginalization.
I think gender mixed prisons might be considered problematic as well.
This is a very interesting topic but it’s too complex to discuss on lemmy. Most people would not be able to understand the legal nuances and would just start lashing out. I will just leave this here for those interested.
For anybody wondering, it’s about a male criminal that is allegedly not transsexual but claims so to be held in a female one prison.
Interestingly there is a similar case here in Sweden.
I too abstain from posting any judgement in a complex issue that goes beyond quick opinions based on headlines.
Is that the problem or is the problem that prisons are largely badly designed in the first place?
No, gender mixing would obviously be a problem leading to an insane increase in sexual assaults. Couldn’t imagine being a woman in a mixed prison no matter the design. Quite unethical.
It’s almost like prisons are a terrible idea and shouldn’t exist
You act like there’s no option to create GENDER EQUALITY, and instead the only option is to remove those laws.
Do I? I said that as long as those laws exist legal gender also has to exist. I didn’t say that those laws should or shouldn’t be removed.
Most of those laws are passed by leftists governments and many were passed very recently. Those laws are how the left is trying to create gender equality right now. If you have other ideas you’re free to propose them.
It’s a case of those laws need to exist, because of gender inequality, but when things become more equitable then it should be changed to not the removal but the widening of them
All genders getting the same amount of (increased) parenthood leave, for example
All genders being allowed to fight in wars if they want to. Nobody being forced to fight in wars.
But the way you were wording it felt like you’re saying “THOSE DAMN FEMINISTS GET AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE”
I’m curious how you create GENDER EQUALITY without forcing people to acknowledge and correct for systemic biases. It’s not like there was GENDER EQUALITY before such laws existed.
The idea of affirmative action laws is that, systemically, white men in western countries were born on third base thinking they hit a triple, and everyone else needs some amount of help to catch up to their institutional and generational wealth and power. A law can’t correct for that difference if the difference is no longer recognized, and that means white men get to retain their position.
It’s why the Trump administration focused so hard on dismantling DEI efforts. Their position is that we’ve achieved equality and these programs are an unjust bias. Obviously bullshit, but it’s what you immediately end up with if race and gender are not legally recognized characteristics.
I do think men getting conscripted because they’re men in kinda bullshit.
There’s a funny story here in the US about that. We were trying to pass the Equal Rights Act (ERA) - equal pay for equal work, and some Republican tried to tank it by putting in the bill that women would also be subject to the draft - apparently he figured that was so horrifying it would sink it. Supporters just said “yeah, that seems fair, good idea” and he had to scramble to take that wording out because he had so misjudged the situation. Still managed to sink the bill though:(
That one isn’t a feminist law, that’s a fascist one, under the fasc ideal “women are too weak to fight!”
I’ve always thought that it’s more ‘we need more women than men to repopulate our country after the war’ as us men are nearly useless when making new life to this planet. But obviously that idea is ‘a bit’ dated too today.
It can be all 3 things.
But no matter what, it’s outdated
It’s less “women are too weak” and more “the point if war is to kill off excess young men so there’s more young women available for powerful older men”
Like it or not that women will guaranteed face harsh realities.
Iraq.
A line of “Iraqi military” taking turns at a boy. Nothing you can do about it.
what
It can be both
Conscription is bullshit. If your war is so unpopular to your people that they aren’t volunteering, then you shouldn’t be at war.
Yep
Meh people aren’t really known to do the “right” thing if they would we wouldn’t have had war in the first place. Also people might be fully supportive of a war but don’t want to get their hands dirty themselves.
The natural conclusion would be that any country forcing its people to fight will probably have an advantage over any country that doesn’t and if that country overtakes you you get conscripted anyway.
Tell that to Ukraine.
I would say that if people don’t care about their country and don’t want to fight for it it’s OK for this country to lose a war.
Back when I lived in Poland, if it was invaded I would be the first one to flee the country. Let the people that want to live there die for it… Now that I live in Spain, if anyone tried to invade, I would definitely join the fight. Well, maybe not if they invaded Catalonia but once they reached Murcia I would be on the front lines.
Also, if there was a very great threat, people would enlist willingly, making conscription unnecessary.
You would have to believe that people are willing to sacrifice to protect their communities but people aren’t even willing to look at windmills to protect their communities from climate change. Which does not mean they don’t want to keep their community as it is, they might just be to afraid and/or selfish to join themselves.
If people were guided by some intristic “goodness” we wouldn’t have such a shit society in the first place.
Fr
Reading the comments I’m surprised how many people don’t know about them.
It might be less about not knowing about gender disparity, and more about wanting to get rid of that too.
- global retirement age is bullshit anyway; tell me that someone that worked 50 years in a coal mine (and survived somehow) should retire at the same age that someone that worked in an office. Gender is not needed there
- mandatory conscription is already a dicy subject; if one assume it makes sense, making it men-only doesn’t. No need for gender disparity here either; plenty of military roles that can be done without being a beefcake
- many countries are actually looking into extending paternal leaves because they finally got that both parents are important to raise a child
- physical requirements should be physical requirements. If they exist, they should match the job requirements. Having different bar of entry because of gender makes no sense. If the job is lifting iron all day, and you can lift iron all day, that’s all that matters.
- parity requirements related to gender exists to curb all the disparity that’s ingrained in society because we decided to make men and women a different thing. remove the difference, remove the need to “make amend with a mandatory quota”
- same as previous point
- and same as previous previous point
The only need to keep distinguishing gender for legal stuff is because we keep the “women are lesser than men” mentality, coupled with “women needs protection”.
Guess what: there isn’t a gender that is “less” than the other, and everyone needs protection. Sounds like an equality thing to me, where genders only get in the way.
remove the difference, remove the need to “make amend with a mandatory quota”
Have you seen what’s going on in the US lately? Abolishing DEI programs that recognize race or gender helps whoever has the most institutional power. White men have run the world for their own benefit for centuries. You think taking them off the leash now will result in a gender-neutral equitable utopia?
It’s one of those funny cases were far left and far right go full circle and collide on the other side. Like with opening stores on Sunday which the left and right both oppose or support depending on the country. Here we see people attack gender violence laws from the left but in Spain it’s the far right Vox party that is against them.
Maternal and paternal leave also applies in adoptions and surrogate births so it is gender based.
I wasn’t sure about that as each country has different rules. Thanks for clarifying, I restored that point.
Gender is an artificial construct anyway. I don’t see why it should be on your ID.
Your sex is on your ID, your gender isn’t.
That’s not really the case anymore. Most places allow you to put the gender you identify with on your ID now. That’s kind of one of the hot button issues with republicans trying to force only having your biological sex on IDs and not allowing people to change their gender on them.
We don’t.
I don’t see any benefit to society in doing so. Why the hell does the government need to know what my gender is at any point?
I agree that gender public records should disappear.
Probably to not spend lots of money updating all sign up forms in the world that ask for this information for no good reason at all.
Also, if we get rid of gender, please transition those who have it worse to the conditions of those who have it better! (I can forsee pensions going for the furthest age in countries that have diferrent retirement ages)
We don’t.
Here in Germany one of the few good things that came out of our previous federal government was the SBGG, which - among other things - allows you to delete the entry. And before anyone points it out: I’m aware it isn’t perfect.
nothing has to be perfect. it just has to work sufficiently well.
the idea of just being able to leave the field blank, is a simple enough solution, but it won’t appease the extremists.
personally i like being able to put ‘unspecified’ in the gender/sex field of things. it’s a lot more elegant than the 50+ gender identities that are ‘available’ now.
The important thing is not the legal genders, but that we can hate somebody we don’t know for something they haven’t done.
Because church and patriarchal society basically.
Government database defining what our names are is also backwards.
A name is what people call you. You should be able to change it whenever you want. Most people just don’t want to.
Like if you go to a new country, you can tell them anything, and that becomes your actual name, because that’s what names are. Pisses me off when the word “preferred” gets put there. Like, no, that’s not preferred, it is, the government database is just wrong and refuses to update their records because it’s run by a bunch of racist, sexist, misogynist ignorant old fucks.
Gender is the same way. I exist for now, and while I do, I have free will. Perks of being alive.
That may be how it is where you live, but where I live the name is very much checked and double checked when you switch countries and it’s next to impossible to change it. Gender is another matter and that is probably one of the exceptions that allow for a name change.
I think you’re misunderstanding. It very much is like this, basically everywhere, including were I am. But I’m saying that, it’s that way because civilization has fucked up its priorities and government is grossly overstepping reality. Because in reality the government doesn’t control what your name actually is, it just controls what it legally is in that country. Which, yeah, unfortunately has a pretty strong hold on you. But, still isn’t how actual names work.
Think of it this way: if nuclear war happened and all government databases and registries were wiped away, your name would still be whatever you say it is. If you get abducted by aliens, and they decide to call you something in alien, that becomes your new name. If you get sucked through a time machine wormhole into the past or future, your literal name is whatever you set it to be. Because that’s how names work: names are just what people call you - not what a government database has written down for your id number.
If your name is written down in the government database, and that aligns with your actual name, then yeah, it is your name - but not because it’s from the government. The government cannot set your name. Only you, and maybe the people around you can.
A government doesn’t have natural authority to set your name, just like they have no natural authority to set your hair color, height, butt position, dick length, who you’re married to, who you love, who your family is, what genitals you have, or where you physically are.
So unless they MAKE YOU A PRISONER, you control your life.
And if they’ve made you a prisoner… that is indeed a different story, for a similar time. I’m sure you understand the implications of that, though.
Excellent 👌
It’s so the state can attack people. So it can control “marriage” privileges. Etc.
Medical issues.
Men and women have different anatomy and needs. Knowing your biological sex for medical reasons is kinda important.
Everywhere else, it’s a social construct and does not matter in the slightest.
“Biological sex” says jack shit about a trans person’s biological characteristics, especially deep into transition. It’s more often than not a dogwhistle that transphobes use to imply that trans women have the same violent sexual tendencies as many cis men, and to imply that those characteristics are somehow immutable.
The state does not need to get involved in a medical discussion between a trans patient and their doctor.
- you’re trans
- you’re involved in an accident
- you’re unconscious
- EMTs administer medication at levels that a woman can handle depending on body fat composition and hormonal fluctuations
- being a genetic male, you die because you lack the increased body fats and estrogen that was assumed in dosage
I get your point, but it’s important to have your gender somewhere on a trustworthy source that everybody has.
Emergency medication isn’t dosed by gender, it’s dosed by weight. It really would only matter with certain drugs in pregnancy.
It is helpful to know the original gender for some things because certain illnesses present differently in men V women and not all of that changes post transition so if you are treating a man it would be helpful to know that he was born a woman so you don’t brush off certain symptoms as minor if in fact in a women they would be very alarming. For example, men having heart attacks are more likely to present with the classic chest pain radiating to their arm. Women can have chest pain, but often present as sudden onset of nausea and vomiting with no pain. That’s a rare presentation of a heart attack in a man, so a man complaining of severe nausea is more likely to be thought of as GI in nature, but if you know he’s trans then alarm bells start screaming that this might be cardiac and you need to do an EKG now.
But in an unconscious trauma patient, it doesn’t really matter. If a trans man still has a uterus then that’s an additional organ to be damaged that might not be expected, but that’s not something that’s going to be caught in the ambulance either way because we don’t have a CT scanner hanging out in the cabinets.
For example, men having heart attacks are more likely to present with the classic chest pain radiating to their arm. Women can have chest pain, but often present as sudden onset of nausea and vomiting with no pain. That’s a rare presentation of a heart attack in a man, so a man complaining of severe nausea is more likely to be thought of as GI in nature, but if you know he’s trans then alarm bells start screaming that this might be cardiac and you need to do an EKG now.
This is why we need more medical research focused on trans and intersex bodies. It’s honestly a travesty that it hasn’t been studied much, largely due to the pushback from oppressive governments and transphobes. The problem extends beyond trans people, so much medical research is modeled on white cis male bodies, but I’m sure you’re already aware of that issue.
Transition affects nearly every part of the body. It’s already known that trans brains more closely resemble their cis counterparts rather than their sex assigned at birth (citations: NIH.gov, Scientific American). It wouldn’t make sense to treat a trans woman as a cis man for brain imaging. In trans men, testosterone deepens the vocal chords and can even slow down or stop periods. In trans women, estrogen shrinks the prostate and can even reverse male pattern baldness. Surely there are other effects on internal medicine, both positive and negative
Part of trans liberation involves sponsoring more research in this topic. In your heart attack example, has it been scientifically proven that the symptoms are immutable with transition? Does the amount of time someone’s been transitioning affect it? These are genuine questions, I don’t know the answers to them
I agree that more research needs to be done. I don’t know the answers to those questions either. I’m sure there’s lots more knowledge out there that is known that I just don’t know, but there’s also tons of knowledge that’s lacking, the same way that there’s tons of knowledge that’s lacking about women’s bodies. Humans are fascinating and there’s so many different factors that can affect medical presentations or risk factors.
Unfortunately in the current climate that research is considered too “woke” to “waste” money on, so people will continue to suffer from insufficient medical care even when their providers are genuinely trying their best.
Weight isn’t the only consideration for emergency medicine dosing, though… There are lipophilic drugs in emergency medicine. CT scanners aren’t the only thing used in emergency medicine, point-of-care ultrasound is used by physicians too.
It’s not like biological sex is irrelevant in emergency medicine.
Sure, but none of the drugs that would be used in the situation you describe would matter enough to kill or seriously harm anyone. At worst it would just have a longer half life and then you just don’t give as many or as high doses later on. And that also applies to many different demographics including old people and people with other medical issues that causes them to clear drugs slower, which is why patients are monitored and dosed accordingly and the dosage schedule is a guideline not a rule.
If some random distribution of body fat could kill a person then you’d have people dropping dead left and right based off differences in everyone’s muscle mass to body fat ratio and it just doesn’t work that way.
I never said it was irrelevant, I literally wrote that it can be very very relevant in some cases, but it’s not so relevant that it’s vital to know if you’re unconscious and bleeding out.
This sounds convincing, but then, is there actually any medication an EMT would administer based on sex? I honestly dont know.
Maybe we should all have blood types written down somewhere, because that surely is the same situation right? (I mean, we should all know it, I don’t)
If you donate blood, depending on the org, you might get a card that has your blood info on it. Seems like a good thing to keep in your wallet :)
I’ve been on HRT for 12+ years. My body fat and hormones are literally nowhere near “genetic male”. Doctor confirmed, repeatedly.
I’d also love to see what emergency meds you’re talking about that are lethal based on where your body fat is located rather than something like weight, allergies, or age
Cisgender women have a naturally higher percentage of body fat than cisgender men, so lipophilic drugs have a larger volume of distribution in women. They sink into the fat tissue, stay in the body longer, and can take much more time to clear out. Overlooking sex-based variations in volume of distribution can be dangerous in an emergency situation, it absolutely can result in adverse drug reactions.
That kind of information can be a factor in an emergency medicine situation, it’s not worth pretending that it’s not the case.
Medicine is one of the areas where biological sex is actually relevant.
Lol imagine going to a doctor and they can’t figure out your gender if it’s not on you legal documents.
Get another Dr. I think this one got his license from Trump university
The blood group is very important too, for medical issues, but I don’t think it is common to make it a legal marker (such as on passport).
Also, some people are born not matching exactly the classical genders, and labeling them legaly male or female can be misleading for medical things…
Does it need to be tied to the legal system, though?
Only in-so-far as medical regulation would require. Like if the hospital failed to check this crucial information and made a mistake because of it they should be held liable. Having it on your ID might also be important if you list yourself as an organ donor; not sure if that would matter but it might.
I can think of a handful of ways of confirming someone’s biology without checking official documentation. After all, hospitals still check blood types and tissue types
I think the same for the donor marker in general. Can’t the hospital system keep that info? Why does it need to be on my ID?
Yup, that’s my point. I don’t think a government (should) need this.
On that note, I learned from another commenter that in Germany you can have your gender deleted from their database.
That takes time. You don’t want to get the wrong dose of fentanyl, but you’ll definitely want fentanyl if you’ve been hit by a car and broke some ribs.
Okay but that argument kind of falls apart when you know that emergency medicine won’t, for example, give a patient a dose of fentanyl without having naloxone immediately on hand. I am not a paramedic but I have known a few and a few ER nurses and they are almost always working with more unknowns than knowns.
And why would you want to add an additional unknown factor again? Because that’s what you’d be doing by removing sex from the basic information card.
Don’t see how increasing the amount of times naloxone is given is beneficial here.
I mean it’s not, what I’m saying is that the only time a patient’s gender being unknown is a risk is in emergency situations. Otherwise the doctor and the patient are going to have a conversation before the doctor does anything and it should come up then. Although I should hope that it’s not a doorknob comment.
With the only situation when a person’s gender is undermined is when the doctor and/nurses are already working with less than ideal information. Having a person’s sex/gender on their identification isn’t really answering the questions that need answering then. The only reason it’s so important is because the protocols are built with the assumption that the person is one of two genders. Which lets not even begin to get into the atypical sex’s (XXX, XXy, Xyy, ect). It’s an outdated standard but it’s so engrained into everything.
I can count your ribs faster than I can look up government documentation, and even that’s assuming you’ve already been identified.
My apologies, I didn’t know you were such a slow reader.
need to know weight for dosing, not genitals
Crime investigation purposes. The information on state ID was used s as a resource for crime fighting. Once DNA analysis became a thing, knowing male vs female was even more important.
Everyone has a different anatomy/needs. You know how many random foramen and bones people can have? Random extra shit that the body spontaneously develops on it’s own for no reason? Most of them are fine, some are not, but to say we need to know if you fit into the “male” or “female” box to treat you is incorrect. We need to know so much more. In fact, I think the mere presence of a vagina seems to tell a lot of doctors “Don’t take this persons pain seriously,” so I think if we just assume everyone is a male or a testosterone/testes-deficient male at the clinic, we might get better results.
Tbh most of the medical history men’s anatomy was treated as the default, not much far off from what you’re suggesting. Therefore now medical doctors still have no idea wtf is going on during perimenopause despite half the population going through it and as someone in the thick of it I can tell you that no, we abso-fucking-lutely need a more specialized women’s healthcare.
This also I think could be fixed by taking a more human-centric holistic approach. Don’t need to know you’re a woman, just that you’re experiencing drastic hormone changes. BAM, we gotta help regulate those hormones. Men love finding out they’re low on testosterone, so they can start taking a bunch. Women should be able to get their hormones just as easily.
Trans people should go to the doctor and be like, I appear to be missing a bunch of estrogen and progesterone! and the doctor should be like “no shit, that sucks, here’s a prescription for them.”
This assumes that men and women have the same medical needs. They don’t. Our average hormonal balances are completely different so for a doctor to be able asses doses, they need to know what the average hormonal balance is for women.
but what they really need to know is the average hormonal balance for that specific person, before they started going out of whack.
Except women’s hormonal balances change during different phases of each month, but not for men. Thus the need to study women’s health since women and men have different phisiologies. Oh look, we’ve come full circle.
I mean, yes, we need to study women’s health more. It’s a big glaring hole in a ton of medical research. I’m just trying to stay with the vibe of the thread. I think that just like with cutting edge cancer research being done that focuses on tailoring the specific drug/method of action to that persons specific cancer, so too should most of our medical treatments be tailored not just to what’s between your legs, but to you, specifically. More research into everyone, but especially the largely ignored demographic of women, is needed to accomplish this. So… you’re right, but I think I’m right too.
Weird as fuck how heavily this gets downvoted.
Yes, it does matter in a medical context. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fucking ridiculous and not understanding the nature of reality.
I agree that it doesn’t matter in too many other places. But pretending it doesn’t matter in a medical context is quite frankly ridiculous.
It’s important for people with breast tissue to get screened for breast cancer.
It’s important for people with prostates to get screened for prostate cancer.
People who bleed each month often have lower hemoglobin levels that are not as immediately alarming as in people who don’t bleed every month.
It’s not rocket science. Enjoy not being treated for potentially deadly issues because you think biological sex is irrelevant to medical issues.
Could help with medical procedures and in case of harassment, otherwise no none at all.
For the harassment example, there can be no protected class if the class isn’t strictly defined. maybe the laws could be changed to protect masculine or feminine instead of male or female but it might become more difficult to prove the discrimination.
I’m not sure. You’re not allowed to criminally harrass a white cis man even though they are not a protected class.
In Canada, our charter specifies:
- (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
No gender specifically, but equality is universal.
you don’t have to define every race to make race a protected class- you just have to define what ‘race’ is. all ‘protected class’ means is that It’s a group of people that have protections against discrimination.
For example, if a black person gets a parking ticket, sure it could be that the officer was a racist fuck. but that’s irrelevant if they can show the black person didn’t pay for parking. (you might try to make an argument saying ‘well they don’t ticket white people’, but good luck proving that in court.)
protected classes at the us federal level include:
- Race
- Sex
- Age
- Disability
- National Origin
- Religion
- Genetic Information
Race is a protected class. So, white cis male are a protected class. White, African American, Latino, Asian, Native American, etc. All of them.
I don’t think any legal identity separates gender from sex, either, so it might as well already be 0.
Yes. Sorry if I wasn’t clear, that was my point. Universal, without calling out specifics, but then they called out these specifics as a clarification rather than a limitation.
(from our thread in Actual Discussion) It exists as you see it in this weird middle state now because gender used to be completely synonymous with sex.
I first became familiar with the idea of gender in High School in the 90’s. Unlike most, I have forestry credits as I was in boarding school and had some very… odd classes. We ran an apiary and made our own honey, kept and raced sled dogs, worked a restaurant we ran, ran a library, etc.
We were tasked with taking care of a square kilometre of forest up in Northern Canada and, as such, had to learn about plant species native to the region. We learned about plant gender.
Plants have a gender because they lack a biological sex; it is a different classification system. In regards to humans, however, the dictionaries (and people using the term) at the time used it interchangeably with the term sex. The only differentiation that I ever saw between the two was in dealing with plants or academic papers.
Intersex humans were, at least taxonomically, an aberration and not a classification. Early on they presented and operated as whatever their dominant sexual traits would indicate and frequently did not deviate and there was little issue with this.
But… even since the early 80’s when I was born, there was a wide berth in what it could mean to be a man or woman. When people were talking about stereotypes, they seemed to be speaking about things that I’d seen in old TV shows from the 50’s and 60’s, not things I was familiar with in real life. That “housewife and single breadwinner husband” home shit was long past and seemed antiquated even then. It wasn’t BAD to be stereotypical or not, mind you, but other than a few farming households I knew, I never saw the “stay-at-home-Mom” dynamic. Every family had a different dynamic and people fit where they built themselves space to do so. I knew very few “stereotypical male” Dads or “stereotypical female” Moms other than on TV, and we all knew damn well that TV wasn’t true to life.
When I witnessed third-wave feminist messaging start to get big in the 2010s speaking about this stuff like it was common, expected, and had to be destroyed, it was odd to me. It was like they were fighting with ghosts from days long past.
I recognize that my personal experiences don’t match everyone, but I lived in Cincinnati, Edmonton, Calgary, Saudi Arabia, Kingston, Amsterdam, Thailand, Kentucky, and many more. The only place I witnessed what could be described as “traditional roles” was in Saudi, and even then it was only defined by a few laws, not the way people actually acted. I knew many friends that had their father completely cowed by their mother even in that insane theocracy.
All that to say that gender in humans… doesn’t seem to have a purpose to me. Since gender can be fluid in humans, it is not at all worth categorizing in humans. It means, effectively, nothing. It’s like trying to categorize hair colour down to the hex code; it accomplishes nothing whatsoever.
Sex is a medically distinguishing characteristic. I get why it needs to exist. Gender? I don’t understand why it came to be used for anything as it hasn’t done anything other than stir basic culture war garbage.
This matches closely with my own experience.
Ok. I get the sex differentiation when needing medical care. What I don’t get is why we have to tell everyone else what gender we are. If you can do the job, what does it matter? If you are driving, what does it matter? You can change your appearance at any time. Now, I know that injuries can happen anywhere, but there are so many variables in appearance and dress that it seems pointless. Emergency services don’t demand sex identification before treatment. Doctors treat injuries not sex. Yes, there can be treatments that need this information, doctors do ask for a valid reason. I know I’m neurodivergent. I just feel like it’s not really my business whatcha got going on below the “packaging” in a non-having sexual relations soon kinda way. If I would like to have sex with you, I would then start with what I’ve got going on, then ask if you’re ok with that. I’ve always assumed the people I’ve had sex with were human, haven’t gone wrong with that yet. I didn’t decide to have sex with someone on what I think is under their clothing. Communication is key folks. I have made assumptions in my life, but a quick, kind correction is not going to ruin my day. Yes, I’ve made passes to persons who turned me down, who hasn’t? Didn’t slow me down. I’ve mostly worked in office situations, but I did have a few years driving tractor-trailers, even there, you really don’t know what the “packaging” covers. I think it’s just all just busy bodies poking their noses and prejudice into others people’s lives. They can just fuck off with that shit. So many want to bring up safety reasons, maybe we should start with stopping non-consent culture and supporting those who have suffered. Today’s culture explicitly supports non-consent culture. It’s disgusting. Sorry for the wall of text.
Women are excluded from medical studies and even medicines designed for women are trialed on men, anyway, so I would argue it wouldn’t make a difference medically, anyway.
Primary care physicians need to know what conditions you might be susceptible to in the future, and some of these conditions are based on your sex.
I wouldn’t, due to biological differences in sex. I mean, not that I wouldn’t take drugs designed for women, but if you’re hemorrhaging blood or have a problem where certain medicines present contraindications with your biology, you’d want a doctor to know.
I agree … ish
I think sex identification is useful for medical stuff, until it isn’t. If I was born with testicles, and I have a motorcycle accident that removes them. I don’t have testicular cancer. The bit here isn’t that I am “male” so I might have testicular cancer, the importance is “do I have testicles”.
Sex is an overall term that may align with certain likelyhoods, chances or diagnosis. But even then, it’s not a guarantee.
My first statement is about medical personnel asking valid questions about physical sex. Considering there are quite a variety of answers to this question, it’s most likely needed in your example. If you have had testicular cancer, it could have metastatic implications without actually having testicles at that time. I would hope that it would be caught before then, but I take your example to mean your testicles were removed in the motorcycle accident (I assume they are gone?) so you assume that you didn’t have, at the time of the accident, testicular cancer? Idk, seems to support my points. No ish involved.
