I'm probably out of my league in a debate like this, but I'll give it a shot anyway. :P
A crude way of putting it is: sex is what's in your pants, gender is what's in your head (which is where the biological component comes in as studies have show that trans*women have brains structure that is similar to cis*women). And then of course there's also gender as a social construct. When all three don't line up as society dictates that they should, that's when there are problems.
Have you ever read Evolution's Rainbow? It's a really good book on sexual diversity in nature, and how humans feel the need to categorize and label things (which kind of ties into restrictions on gender expression).
Culture is, among other things the set of values and beliefs that a group of people share. At its core, there is no biological component. Ethnicity might play a part in some cases, but not always. Which is key.
Therefore, I don't think that sex is to gender, as culture is to ethnicity, since gender (in the brain as far as we understand it to date) has a definite biological component, while culture does not.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-07-21 03:35 am (UTC)A crude way of putting it is: sex is what's in your pants, gender is what's in your head (which is where the biological component comes in as studies have show that trans*women have brains structure that is similar to cis*women). And then of course there's also gender as a social construct. When all three don't line up as society dictates that they should, that's when there are problems.
Have you ever read Evolution's Rainbow? It's a really good book on sexual diversity in nature, and how humans feel the need to categorize and label things (which kind of ties into restrictions on gender expression).
Culture is, among other things the set of values and beliefs that a group of people share. At its core, there is no biological component. Ethnicity might play a part in some cases, but not always. Which is key.
Therefore, I don't think that sex is to gender, as culture is to ethnicity, since gender (in the brain as far as we understand it to date) has a definite biological component, while culture does not.