LGBTQ+

Among other social constructs such as gender, as useful as they can perhaps be when looking for a generalisation of "what are the terms for you to be understood in?" I have recently been questioning sex. Sex is often referred to as the biological bits, but is that true? No, because it's an incomplete picture.

Biologists seem to currently accept sex is a mosaic of sexual characteristics. This includes but is not limited to genitalia and chromosome—the two most thought about elements I'd wager—and your chest, your hormone balance, but also measurements like around the hips, waist, shoulders... And of course, your role in reproduction, especially if you can reproduce.

Many of these characteristics are mutable, especially in today's society with hormones and surgeries. Functionally speaking, they don't matter, we as a species are not at risk of extinction and simply do not need to care about it. Sex was fraught even as a measure of reproductive capabilities anyway. We should care for each other's happiness first and foremost.

But even mutability aside, sex isn't consistent between men and women, with different hormone balances and even some variations in chromosomes or the capacity for sexual reproduction. Also, see the existence of intersex people, who, by their existence alone, shatter the binary.

I don't believe sex is a useful categorisation. Sex and gender and expression and the things you enjoy are different, but they're also both still constructions with your presumed gender being extrapolated from the most visible elements of your sex and huge variability for each person therein, but the correlation is starting to feel weak.

Sex and genders, as structures, are the product of cisheteropatriarchy, ie sexism. Even in sports. Social constructs generally arise as a necessary division for societies to make given their material conditions, and it was used to increase populations. I would say it is time to leave such vestigial logic behind.

I personally don't think it makes sense. That's not to say it isn't real (its just as real as sex is). But it would be good to at least know that gender isn't generally about following social expectations. OTOH, conforming to social expectations can be a way to signal one's gender if its not as clear, so some overemphasize those traits for that reason. And others have felt the need to suppress their own self-expression when they were eggs and have lost time to make up for. For some, the social aspect of gender is very important and for others, its not. For others, its much more focused about making their body match their brain's expectations.

We’ve had men or women who enjoy things traditionally associated with the other gender for as long as there have been people I expect. If that’s the case then what purpose does the need for a gender title serve?

Boys don't a{sk} that way

(This is not a co-sign of Emma's views on the subject)