Poll: There are only 2 genders....right?

[rcs619]

So lately I've been coming across all types of discussions on the internet.

Supposedly at the moment I'm supposed to accept that there are like what 64 gender types?

I'm sorry to say people but I think that's ridiculous.

You can be a man
You can be a crossdressing man
But you're still in your essence a man that's just biology.
You didn't grow a new reproductive organ or create new hormones that justify you being a new gender.

BUT WAIT

You were born a man, but you feel like a woman.
What does that make you then?

Well if you have a sexchange.
That makes you a woman.

If not... that makes you a man who feels like a woman but doesn't dress that way nor willing to change his gender.


Same goes the other way around ofcourse.


This is my opinion obviously, but what do you guys think?

And can someone even explain to me what in the world qualifies something to be a new gender outside of biology?

Okay, sticking to biology for the first part here. Biologically, normally, there are only two genders. These are controlled by which combination of the two sex chromosomes you possess, as passed down by your parents. However, there are legitimate cases where errors happen during the fertilization process, or even the meiosis process that creates your sex cells. Sometimes people have more copies of sex chromosomes than they should, or they don't work properly. There's a pretty well-known case of this woman who was anatomically female by all appearances, but instead of ovaries, she actually had internal, vestigial testes and never knew it until well into adulthood. Apparently she had an XY chromosome combination like a normal male, but one of the key parts of her Y chromosome was not functional, so the X chromosome overcompensated and she expressed almost totally feminine traits.

There are quite a few different biological issues, with varying degrees of seriousness and various phenotypic expression.

What you're talking about here (and what most people really mean when they talk about this sort of thing) is sexual identity (or... gender identity? I'm honestly not sure what the best term is, as both aren't quite completely accurate). That, is a whole other issue all its own, and I don't believe we truly actually understand the mechanisms behind it all that well yet. The most compelling ideas I've seen on the subject have to do with brain chemistry, and different hormones and signals expressing in ways that are not quite the norm for the given gender. I feel like it's important to remember that there is a distinction between cross-dressers and drag queens (which tends to be more along the lines of a fetish), and actual transgender people (which does seem to be a legitimate biological issue related to brain chemistry and likely many other factors we don't understand yet).

It's definitely an interesting thing to study though, since it does seem to imply that sexual identity may actually be more dependent on how your brain is wired than your actual, physical chromosomes (although, under normal circumstances, those chromosomes are likely some of the main driving factors behind the brain chemistry), and understanding how neurology and biology interact in regards to sexual identity could shed more light on things like homosexuality, bisexuality, and various other ways people look at sexual identity, gender identity and attraction. It's interesting stuff. So yes, most of the time, you're either physically male or female, but when you get into the actual brain chemistry and neurology behind how you mentally identify... that's just, a whole mess of stuff we don't quite understand fully yet.

 

[loa]

So gender is a social construct and not the same thing as the biological sex and there are not "64", there are 3.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Biological stand point, yes due to chromosomes. Female being XX and male XY.

If you define sex like that, where do you put the people who don't fit and the people with Klinefelter syndrome?

Having a Y chromosome makes a human biologically male since they will develop a penis and testis, regardless of having an extra X chromosome. The Y chromosome is the sex differentiator for humans.

Except that hormone disorders such as congenital adrenal hyperplasia can cause the body to develop incorrectly to their chromosomes, both early on and/or later in life.

Plus it begs the question of where XYY syndrome people like myself fall into it all.

Now there's no real difference to be observed in those who are XYY and those who are XY (hell, my doctor and I didn't even know until I had a test done that was unrelated to it).

Or how about someone like me who was born with XX Male syndrome?

Even with XX male syndrome, you still possess the SRY (sex determining region Y) gene on your second X chromosome. Normally that gene is attached to the Y chromosome, plus the other genes that bring about stereotypical male physical development. During crossing over in meiosis, it's possible (though exceptionally rare) for the SRY gene to attach to an X chromosome instead.

As for klinefelter syndrome, etc, from a purely technical standpoint, it's relatively simple: if you have a Y, you are biologically male. It doesn't matter if you're XXXXXXXXY, or if you have a completely female phenotype, you're still technically male. 99.999% of the time, Chromosomes determine biological sex, but really it's the genes associated with those chromosomes that actually determine sex.

So in other words, even with XX male syndrome, you still possess the 'male genes', so you are biologically male. Even intersex humans are still technically male or female, but obviously you can't look at a person and know what their genotype is.

TLDR, for purely biological purposes and when we're talking genotypes, yes there are only two human sexes, but it doesn't have much to do with your appearance, and gender is a separate issue.

It's a touch more complicated than that.

In say, Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome, the genotype is XY, but the phenotype is generally heterosexual "female."

In fact, in CAIS/PAIS, the person might not even be aware until they try to get pregnant. No luck? Here, have an ultrasound. What's that? You have rudimentary testes in your abdomen.

Are they male? Should they drop what they knew of their life for the past few decades and pick up as male?

As I said: "...for purely biological purposes and when we're talking genotypes, yes there are only two human sexes, but it doesn't have much to do with your appearance, and gender is a separate issue."
Genotypes and phenotypes can be very different things.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

What's an "Otherkin"? I keep seeing that a lot when people identify themselves as that but what is it?

Otherkin are people who believe they have the soul of an animal, either real or mythical, instead of a human soul.
Sometimes you get human/animal soul hybrids, but generally they're people who think they're...Dragons, or ponies but in human form.
Literally

Reading their blogs they talk about transforming into animals, or 'morphing' or whatever.

I honestly don't know if its just attention seeking or signs of neurological disorders, but its provably wrong, especially with the mythical unicorns, dragons or whatever.

 

[Drathnoxis]

64?! Does anybody have a source for that? Heck, can anybody list even half of those?

Stretching it, the most I can come up with is 8:
-Male
-Female
-Male identify as female
-Female identify as male
-Male identify as none
-Female identify as none
-Male identify as both
-Female identify as both

Or am I missing a layer of complexity here? Is there such a thing as a male who identifies as a female that identifies as a male?

There was a FaceBook update about a year ago that allowed for quite a lot of choices with 56 options, but I'm not sure where this 64 was coming from. To be fair, there was only really a few options considering many you'd be able to fit in many different categories. I technically fit 5 categories.

Oh, and disagree.

Huh, I can't even imagine what some of those options are supposed to indicate. Two-spirit?

Oh well. Yeah, most of those options seem to be redundant, so it would really be stretching it to the limit to say there are anything close to 56 genders.

And maybe I'm missing something, but plain old 'male' and 'female' without any prefixes or suffixes seem to be conspicuously absent from that list.

 

[rcs619]

What's an "Otherkin"? I keep seeing that a lot when people identify themselves as that but what is it?

Otherkin are people who believe they have the soul of an animal, either real or mythical, instead of a human soul.
Sometimes you get human/animal soul hybrids, but generally they're people who think they're...Dragons, or ponies but in human form.
Literally

Reading their blogs they talk about transforming into animals, or 'morphing' or whatever.

I honestly don't know if its just attention seeking or signs of neurological disorders, but its provably wrong, especially with the mythical unicorns, dragons or whatever.

Okay, dumb magical soul-unicorn stuff aside... Being able to turn into animals would actually be pretty badass, just saying

I may or may not be biased on the subject because I read the hell out of the Animorphs series as a kid.

 

[Parasondox]

What's an "Otherkin"? I keep seeing that a lot when people identify themselves as that but what is it?

Otherkin are people who believe they have the soul of an animal, either real or mythical, instead of a human soul.
Sometimes you get human/animal soul hybrids, but generally they're people who think they're...Dragons, or ponies but in human form.
Literally

Reading their blogs they talk about transforming into animals, or 'morphing' or whatever.

I honestly don't know if its just attention seeking or signs of neurological disorders, but its provably wrong, especially with the mythical unicorns, dragons or whatever.

Wait, what? Seriously? I'm all for ones freedom but isn't that just pushing it a bit? How common is this thought?

 

[Hagi]

I'd say two.

Not as in two absolutes, but even looking at that Facebook list there's a complete absence of a true third.

Everything is either male with some prefix, female with some prefix, neither with some prefix, both with some prefix or in-between with some prefix.

 

[Thaluikhain]

What's an "Otherkin"? I keep seeing that a lot when people identify themselves as that but what is it?

Otherkin are people who believe they have the soul of an animal, either real or mythical, instead of a human soul.
Sometimes you get human/animal soul hybrids, but generally they're people who think they're...Dragons, or ponies but in human form.
Literally

Reading their blogs they talk about transforming into animals, or 'morphing' or whatever.

I honestly don't know if its just attention seeking or signs of neurological disorders, but its provably wrong, especially with the mythical unicorns, dragons or whatever.

Wait, what? Seriously? I'm all for ones freedom but isn't that just pushing it a bit? How common is this thought?

Common amongst threads like these, and in stereotypes people make about furries. Otherwise, not so much.

If ever one single human learns how to shapeshift, OTOH, this will become a hell of an issue.

And...if an Otherkin claims it as a religious belief, I'm not sure if it's more strange than accepted religions.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Wait, what? Seriously? I'm all for ones freedom but isn't that just pushing it a bit? How common is this thought?

Couldn't say. I've never met one in my 25 years on this planet. But there are very popular sites dedicated to their beliefs and practices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin

This should help, but its honestly just creepy stuff.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

As others have said. What you have between your legs is what I will refer to you as. This whole "I identify as this therefore you must refer to me as this" is complete bollocks. You want to dress like a woman, act like a woman and do your damnedest to be a woman? Go for gold, but you're not a woman. Nor will I refer to you as one.

If I went around all day in Jedi robes, spoke like Yoda and swung around a fake lightsaber and said I identify as a Jedi. That doesn't make me a Jedi.

Yes because you have the magical ability to know what someone has between their legs, or if they've had bottom surgery, what they had. The complete bollocks part is using your own personal prejudice to judge someone, plus if you had a trans friend, and referred to them as their birth sex that would be outing them. Which again I'm going to remind you how dangerous that is, because trans people get murdered for being them selves more than almost any group. Besides that it's purely disrespectful to the point to being harmful to the trans person in question. One of the few times I ever agreed with MovieBob is when he talked about a lot of political correctness as "just being nice." So please understand that what you're doing is not only judgemental and arrogant on your part, it's also actively harmful, and potentially extremely dangerous.

Your point in the last part is a totally flawed argument, because Jedi are totally fictitious entities, and people who identify as one intrinsically might have a serious mental illness. Either way you don't have to go around calling them "master Jedi" so all my previous points still stand.

Captcha: roll again
Damnit captcha, if only I could.

 

[EternallyBored]

Wait, what? Seriously? I'm all for ones freedom but isn't that just pushing it a bit? How common is this thought?

Couldn't say. I've never met one in my 25 years on this planet. But there are very popular sites dedicated to their beliefs and practices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otherkin

This should help, but its honestly just creepy stuff.

Those sites in the wikipedia article weren't "dedicated" to otherkin, I remember some of those newsgroups when I was tooling around the internet in the 90's, at best they barely tolerated the few otherkin posters, otherkin were always a tiny part of those groups and nobody else took them seriously, they were treated like LARPers that took their roleplaying too far.

Even at its height, things like their mailing lists and early forums never reached more than a couple hundred members, and over half of those were trolls from Something Awful and Portal of Evil. The internet has blown the prevalence of actual otherkin way out of proportion, the number of people that believe the moon landing was faked outnumber otherkin by several orders of magnitude.

Otherkin are a niche of a niche, given way too much attention by the internet because their beliefs were easy to mock and present in a nonsympathetic fashion despite the fact that a lot of their prominent members were seriously mentally ill; as in receiving full government disability and unable to cope with leaving their house for any period of time, much like the schizophrenic person with delusions about being Jesus in a past life, except they've latched on to modern fantasy and mythology instead of historical figures.

They are easy to mock, but there is a good chance you are picking on a seriously mentally ill person when you do so.

 

[Abomination]

There are two genders just like there are two settings for temperature: hot and cold.

And all the degrees in between. While a gender is not binary as such it is stuck on a line scale. At one end is absolute male and the other is absolute female and varying amounts/allocations inside those limits.

Anything that is supposedly operating outside of this is a neurological disorder or some pretentious twat starved for attention.

 

[Notshauna]

There are two genders just like there are two settings for temperature: hot and cold.

And all the degrees in between. While a gender is not binary as such it is stuck on a line scale. At one end is absolute male and the other is absolute female and varying amounts/allocations inside those limits.

Anything that is supposedly operating outside of this is a neurological disorder or some pretentious twat starved for attention.

It's absurd frankly, the fact that people say I'm something between the (arbitrary) poles of Male and Female is direct proof there are more than two genders.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

Snip

Snip

I never claimed I had some magical ability to tell what junk they're carrying. But if I know you, and I know you're carrying a wedding tackle between your legs. You're a man, no matter how much you want to identify as something else.

We've been over this before. The world's a dangerous place for everyone. Trans people more so? Perhaps. But I'm still not going to cater to there every single need for them because they cry victim (which you sure as hell love do to. Whenever a trans joke is mentioned you pull the "but trans get murdered every day" card). Learn to defend yourself. Learn to stick up for what you believe in. Not everyone's going to agree with you, as I and many others have proven. If I'm being genuinely harmful for referring to a trans friend as a he instead of a she. That person has one fragile as fuck mind and I have no tolerance or patience for such weakness.

You're not the only people in the world that get beaten, raped and murdered. It's not exclusive to your group. Trans people want to stop being victims? Then learn to stick up and defend yourself. That's what the rest of the world has to do. Is it shitty it happens to you because of who you want to be? Yes. Same reason it's shitty for people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Doesn't mean you have to sit there and take it.

The reason we play the "victim card" is because when trans people get beaten, raped, and murdered we almost never get justice. "Learn to defend your self," is something a lot of trans people do actually do, and usually because we need to more than other groups. But people who assault trans people, rape them, murder them, in a lot of places just finding out the victim was trans is enough to get the perpetrators off the hook. Does that seem at all reasonable to you? Also it's like the old "queer beating" thing still for us, even when we can defend ourselves we often get ganged up on. I'm not physically strong enough, or fast enough to deal with multiple attackers hand to hand, but at least I live in the USA and in a "no bar to carry" and "open carry" state. So that at least gives me one self defence option that trumps most others, and it's an option a lot of trans people simply don't have.

The learn to stick up for what you believe in part can be moot, because the people who target us are often bullies, and standing our ground on beliefs makes them even more adamant on mistreating us. Either way yes it sucks that everyone has a chance to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that doesn't mean you have it just as bad. Hell a lot of places get away with openly discrimination against trans people, even though it is against federal law. People can use finding out someone is trans as a legal defence when they commit a violent crime against a trans person. That goes beyond the "wrong place wrong time" and "things everyone has to deal with line" to the point where being trans means we get no justice either. Are you starting to see why we are such a sensitive group, why our problems are magnified to absurd points? Hell if I did have defend myself the person I defended against could press counter charges against me and have a better chance of putting me in jail. That's despite them being the ones who broke the law, no matter the evidence, and despite me being innocent and justified. This isn't a hypothetical either, it actually happens.

Not everyone's going to agree with you, as I and many others have proven. If I'm being genuinely harmful for referring to a trans friend as a he instead of a she. That person has one fragile as fuck mind and I have no tolerance or patience for such weakness.

This line is particular bullshit. You don't have to agree with me. That still doesn't excuse behaviour that is patently you being rude, insensitive, jerk to someone. Really to me it smacks of a lack of empathy that is disturbing on a very deep level, not to mention a symptom of the reasons why trans people are mistreated so badly. No matter what you say it's actively going out of one's way to alienate someone else, standing on a principle is no excuse for being that much of a jerk to someone else for being different, period.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

And there was me thinking that we'd gotten past this 'Sex=Gender' thing a while back.

 

[Notshauna]

SNIP

So basically you're willingly being a dick. By that logic I could, rightfully so, refer to you as a dick in every regard and you'd have absolutely no problems with it. And no you don't deliberately misgender transpeople because it more "scientifically accurate" because it's not (seriously read a goddamned book on the subject written in the past 20 years), and it's not for a lack of caring because if you had no strong feelings either way on the subject matter you'd just gender us how we want to be gendered. It's simple you're hiding behind elementary pseudo-science and faked apathy to hide the fact that you're no better than the people who burnt "witches". You're dumb and afraid not of transpeople but of anything that challenges you're established world view.