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by LynfromNM on January 18th, 2006

LynfromNM

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Are the words "sex" and "gender" interchangeable when distinguishing between males and females?

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  • by JordanQat on March 31st, 2010

    JordanQat

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    Selected by the asker, LynfromNM. (What's this?)

    Only if you believe in a binary (o ir 1, ie, M or F) system of sexual expression. I think the two words cover different areas. For example, my "sex" (meaning my physical body's expression genitally) is female. My "gender" (meaning how I see myself inside my head) is not female. I feel a difference between my inside and my outside. I personally don't feel a need for surgery to "correct" anything, because I don't have a deep driven need to inhabit "the other box" so to speak. I don't want to be a 1 or a 0. I'm not a pink baby or a blue baby. I'm something else. There's no words for it, so I made my own up. For people who are completely at peace with the inside of their perceived selves and the outside of how they show themselves to the world, these people are probably pretty happy with being in an M or an F box, whichever fits them. I have no problem with their happiness or their fitting into a box that accurately describes them. That's way cool, especially since about 90 to 95% of the population ARE good fits for the boxes M and F.

    But me? I think of me as being none of the above, neither male nor female. I'm a person, a friend, a lover, a thinker, I contribute as best I can to peace and growth, I give back as much as I can, and not one of those things requires a gender assignment to the people with whom I associate. I have a friend, male bodied, who also sees himself as not fitting into either box. HE feels as though HE is ALL of the above. He embraces his male portions (not his genitalia, his inner maleness), but he also embraces his female portions and paints his toes when he feels like it. He's a tradesman, a craftsman level cabinet maker who deals with all kinds of people every day. None of his activities are dependent on his gender expression. Now, being an adult, he also knows when to be appropriate and when to show some savoire faire... going on a sales call in drag just won't necessarily make the deal happen unless you're selling to other queers or transvestites or (fill in the blank with any number of other kinds of folks). So, my best friend is a guy who's my best girlfriend ever, and he often describes me as his boyfriend, as a joke. It really just means that we get one another's "come-from" around gender, we understand one another.

    If you feel like you fit into a "box" with a certain label, then I count you lucky. Life is a lot easier when you have role models and history on your side. The others of us who are defining ourselves accurately according to our own awarenesses and not according to other people's rules often face prejudice and misunderstanding. There are a lot of people on this planet, and we have both more similarities than differences and at the same time we are all so very unique. There's room for all of us to co-exist peacefully.

    I hope that came somewhere near answering your question.

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  • by kabama on January 19th, 2006

    kabama

    In casual situations, sure, people use the words interchangeably. But there are certain situations when one is more appropriate. Example: "Sex" is determined biologically by what sex chromosomes you inherit. You are male if you have a Y chromosome. You are female if you do not have a Y chromosome. Generally, males have one X and one Y chromosome in their genome, and females have two X chromosomes. Certain abnormalities can occur that result in individuals with XXY, XO (just an X), XXX, and XYY sex chromosomes, but even then, their biological sex is determined by the presence or absence of a Y chromosome. On the other hand, "gender" refers to sociocultural and psychological roles individuals have as a result of their classification as a male, a female, or something else entirely. Over the years, as American society has become more comfortable with discussing gender issues, many interesting observations and assertions have arisen. For example:

    1. Women's suffrage (the right to vote) was won at the turn of the last century because many people (both men and women) felt that all citizens, regardless of gender, had the right to participate in government.

    2. Paternity leave (the equivalent of maternity leave) is offered by more and more companies, as men today discover that they too can juggle family and work, just as women have been doing for centuries.

    3. Many people assert that there is more to the gender debate than we all previously thought. They explain that it's not accurate to categorize all individuals into distinct categories such as heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and transsexual anymore. Research is being advocated that will study whether a gender identity and sexual orientation could be described as a spectrum of possibilities rather than strict categories, and whether one's gender identity and/or sexual orientation can change over time, even from day to day.

    Hope that helps.

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