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<blockquote data-quote="somethingtobelievein" data-source="post: 75382" data-attributes="member: 90">I had a few individual responses to certain sections of this, but they didn&#039;t seem very productive.I think one additional question would be more productive.&nbsp; And then a proposal/hypothetical I hope you will consider and tell me your thoughts about.You want &quot;sex&quot; to be &quot;a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological.&quot;You want &quot;Gender, on the other hand, [to be] a set of elements that references sex.&quot;The biggest question, I think, is why - if you want a concept that merely references &#039;sex&#039; without being totally divorced from it rather than replacing &#039;sex&#039; - would this concept use the exact same words as &quot;sex&quot;?For a very long time, sex meant biological, and gender was the same thing, but a synonym introduced for social purposes, and both meant: &#039;these are men, these are women, here are different ways to distinguish them, etc.,&#039; &#039;boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.&#039;Let&#039;s say -hypothetically- we agree that in modern times we need some new framework that goes beyond &quot;what it is&quot; and captures &quot;how it presents.&quot;&nbsp; We agree that while we&#039;ve got words for &quot;biological sex,&quot; we need to capture &quot;the social &amp; cultural variations in the social manifestation of biological sex (and sex-related traits).&quot;&nbsp; Even if we agreed on that: why on earth would we choose the words &quot;man&quot; and &quot;woman&quot; to use in this second concept?&nbsp; The words &quot;man&quot; and &quot;woman&quot; that already have biological meanings?Why not a framework that takes both of our definitions and molds them?&nbsp; Hypothetical:Hopefully you will see easily where I took from each of our prior statements and where I changed things up.You could call X, Y, and Z anything you want, and we could agree on this clean framework that accomplishes all goals that we both have . . . so long as you don&#039;t call them &quot;woman,&quot; &quot;man,&quot; and &quot;gender,&quot; which already have different definitions.&nbsp; There would be no issues with the areas people complain about where we want men and women to be separated: Sports? Use man v. woman distinction only.&nbsp; Dating apps?&nbsp; List man v. woman (required) and (optionally) Z identity.&nbsp; Introducing yourself online?&nbsp; Feel free to just use Z identity if that makes you more comfortable.You asked me earlier what the social benefit of my definitions are, but I can&#039;t help but wonder what the social benefit is of saying &quot;man&quot; means one thing when talking about sex and another thing when talking about gender instead of leaving &quot;man&quot; as is and introducing new terms to reference (while not being divorced from) &quot;man&quot; to explain this newly introduced concept.Obviously, you personally do not have the power to introduce new terms into the lexicon, and I&#039;m not expecting you to.&nbsp; But when you have this discussion with someone who thinks like me, we think &quot;certainly there are group leaders who could introduce new terms that would easily clear up all misunderstandings, yet they choose instead to fight this social war over redefining &#039;man&#039; and &#039;woman.&#039;&quot;&nbsp; Our question then becomes about motivation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="somethingtobelievein, post: 75382, member: 90"] I had a few individual responses to certain sections of this, but they didn't seem very productive. I think one additional question would be more productive. And then a proposal/hypothetical I hope you will consider and tell me your thoughts about. You want "sex" to be "a set of elements that are a) physical and b) biological." You want "Gender, on the other hand, [to be] a set of elements that references sex." The biggest question, I think, is why - if you want a concept that merely references 'sex' without being totally divorced from it rather than replacing 'sex' - would this concept [U]use the exact same words[/U] as "sex"? For a very long time, sex meant biological, and gender was the same thing, but a synonym introduced for social purposes, and both meant: 'these are [U]men[/U], these are [U]women[/U], here are different ways to distinguish them, etc.,' 'boys have a penis and girls have a vagina.' Let's say -hypothetically- we agree that in modern times we need some new framework that goes beyond "what it [I]is[/I]" and captures "how it [I]presents[/I]." We agree that while we've got words for "biological sex," we need to capture "the social & cultural variations in the social manifestation of biological sex (and sex-related traits)." Even if we agreed on that: why on earth would we choose the words "man" and "woman" to use in this second concept? The words "man" and "woman" that already have biological meanings? Why not a framework that takes both of our definitions and molds them? Hypothetical: Hopefully you will see easily where I took from each of our prior statements and where I changed things up. You could call X, Y, and Z anything you want, and we could agree on this clean framework that accomplishes all goals that we both have . . . so long as you don't call them "woman," "man," and "gender," which already have different definitions. There would be no issues with the areas people complain about where we want men and women to be separated: Sports? Use man v. woman distinction only. Dating apps? List man v. woman (required) and (optionally) Z identity. Introducing yourself online? Feel free to just use Z identity if that makes you more comfortable. You asked me earlier what the social benefit of my definitions are, but I can't help but wonder what the social benefit is of saying "man" means one thing when talking about sex and another thing when talking about gender instead of leaving "man" as is and introducing new terms to reference (while not being divorced from) "man" to explain this newly introduced concept. Obviously, [I]you[/I] personally do not have the power to introduce new terms into the lexicon, and I'm not expecting you to. But when you have this discussion with someone who thinks like me, we think "certainly there are group leaders who [I]could [/I]introduce new terms that would easily clear up all misunderstandings, yet they choose instead to fight this social war over redefining 'man' and 'woman.'" Our question then becomes about motivation. [/QUOTE]

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