standing_alone
Well-Known Member
Often people use the words gender and sex interchangably. I don't think they are so interchangable and here's my reasoning (it's the reasoning of others as well, but I'm just pointing out it's an opinion):
To me "sex" is the actual sexual gentitalia that a person is born with. Someone can be born with with the female genitalia or someone can be born with the male genitalia. I'm not even going to go into intersexed people (at least yet anyways, maybe further on if this becomes a big debate), since that gets complicated.
To me "gender" is the "sex" that someone personally identifies with. So, for instance, someone's "sex" can be male while this person's "gender" is female. This person can be born with male genitalia, but they identify more with the "gender roles" of someone born with female genitalia.
To me, "sex" is "biological" while "gender" is "psychological." Since I have no reason if those are the correct terms I want to apply, I will restate it: "Sex" is physical - it's the sexual genitalia that one is born with. "Gender" is more in the mind - a person identifies with the "gender roles" (something that is society/cultrual defined) of a certain "sex."
So someone's "sex" and "gender" can be the same or someone's "sex" and "gender" can be different.
Forgive me for making a thread on this - I did it more so since I have to write a literary analysis paper based on queer theory and this is one of the things I'm covering, so I wanted to set it all "straight" in my mind (basically since I should be writing my paper now instead of being on RF ).
So what are your thoughts on this? Are "sex" and "gender" interchangable terms? Or are "sex" and "gender" completely different? Am I just a crazy fool that hasn't a clue what she's talking about?
To me "sex" is the actual sexual gentitalia that a person is born with. Someone can be born with with the female genitalia or someone can be born with the male genitalia. I'm not even going to go into intersexed people (at least yet anyways, maybe further on if this becomes a big debate), since that gets complicated.
To me "gender" is the "sex" that someone personally identifies with. So, for instance, someone's "sex" can be male while this person's "gender" is female. This person can be born with male genitalia, but they identify more with the "gender roles" of someone born with female genitalia.
To me, "sex" is "biological" while "gender" is "psychological." Since I have no reason if those are the correct terms I want to apply, I will restate it: "Sex" is physical - it's the sexual genitalia that one is born with. "Gender" is more in the mind - a person identifies with the "gender roles" (something that is society/cultrual defined) of a certain "sex."
So someone's "sex" and "gender" can be the same or someone's "sex" and "gender" can be different.
Forgive me for making a thread on this - I did it more so since I have to write a literary analysis paper based on queer theory and this is one of the things I'm covering, so I wanted to set it all "straight" in my mind (basically since I should be writing my paper now instead of being on RF ).
So what are your thoughts on this? Are "sex" and "gender" interchangable terms? Or are "sex" and "gender" completely different? Am I just a crazy fool that hasn't a clue what she's talking about?