Sex and gender

In popular usage, the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are often used interchangeably, as if they meant the same thing. Sociologists, philosophers and others however mostly agree that they refer to different things. 

• Sex is biological: whether a person is male or female. It is a material reality: you have certain physical features or you don’t. A small minority of people have DSDs (sometimes called intersex), i.e. their sexual characteristics don’t fit easily into the categories of male or female.
• Gender is social: whether a person behaves in masculine or feminine ways. Gender refers to behavioural stereotypes to which people are expected to conform depending on whether they are male or female. Gender is a social construct: it has been built (and can therefore also be unbuilt). 

A whole host of other terms come piling in after. For example, neither term should be confused with sexual orientation, which is who you are sexually attracted to. The terminology and the arguments, like in any field, change over time. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on whose interests are served by the change.

I am going to delve into the topic of sex in the next few articles. Discussions of sex can get controversial and there are wildly divergent opinions. But we can only try to work out what is true, as far as we can.

For the best understanding we need to think about these categories in various ways. We must approach them scientifically, insofar as we are discussing facts about people’s actually existing bodies. We assess material reality with reference to such observable and testable features as biology, anatomy and chromosomes; and this overlaps with approaching them psychologically. We must also approach them philosophically, since we are dealing with concepts that require clarification. Finally we must consider them politically: we live in a world where resources (and therefore power) are distributed unequally, and so whether people are male or female, or masculine or feminine, has profound consequences for their lives. Politics penetrates everything. It would be naive and incorrect to suggest that the science and philosophy of sex and gender have no politics.

To begin with a caveat: describing people using labels is convenient and, to an extent, necessary. Without universal concepts, we couldn’t even hold a conversation. But concepts have their limitations: they are approximations of a world that is infinite. Every human being is particular, and like all particulars is complex and unique, living in a dynamic interaction with an infinitely complex world. Each person has their own experiences, emotions, and relationships. No actually living human being is reducible to a concept or a stereotype.