> But no, you made said point in support of a larger point (a new understanding of human sexuality). Since said point is irrelevant, and incorrect, it doesn't support the larger point. That's how reasoning works.
Let's have a look at my original reply
> Sex is defined by the gametes one produces. Female for few large gametes, male for many small gametes. If you don't have the capacity to produce functional gametes, you're asexual.
We can leave away the part about asexuality, the point still stands; sex is a biological trait related to the gametes ones genes and biological does (or would) produce.
Whereas gender is
> [..] the social expression of the set of behaviors typical for a given sex. Your gender does not necessarily have to correspond to your biological sex.
You on the other side take the position;
> Gender is sex.
You can go with that. But I've found it more useful to distinct between gender and sex since there's a lot more to human sexual behavior than just the biological mechanism underlying the dimorphism. Human's have culture - vastly different cultures - that all have a different interpretation of what it means to behave like a male or to behave like a female. And some people have the desire to not behave like their biological sex.
An example; wearing a skirt is considered female, in western societies. So if I - as a male - wear a skirt, I'm drawing attention and potentially ridicule upon myself. Why is that? My sex is unchanged, I'm still male. But I don't behave according to the societal expectations of how males have to behave.
> From What is asexuality?[1]:
This links represents neither my position nor my arguments about asexuality, so I will just ignore all said about them.
Yes, let's, because it didn't support your point, though I see you continue to assert its validity based on a claim to usefulness. Let's address that.
> > From What is asexuality?[1]:
> This links represents neither my position nor my arguments about asexuality, so I will just ignore all said about them.
Actually, it does, because it points out (via its inane existence) that the distinction you make between sex and gender is really a repurposing of the word gender where temperament or personality already sit.
> An example; wearing a skirt is considered female, in western societies. So if I - as a male - wear a skirt, I'm drawing attention and potentially ridicule upon myself. Why is that? My sex is unchanged, I'm still male. But I don't behave according to the societal expectations of how males have to behave.
Firstly, "wearing a skirt is considered female" is an equivocation. "Female" as an adjective is entirely different to female as a noun. Even if your statement is true, applying the adjective does not bestow noun-status on the object. Licking your feet may be feline but it does not make you a feline.
Additionally, males have certain strongly associated temperaments and personalities (e.g. lower disgust response, higher aggression), as do females in turn. These lie on a spectrum, if not some multi-dimensional shape. There are feminine men, or men that have higher disgust response than most other men, or men that enjoy musicals (I'm one), or men that hate sport… or men that enjoy wearing women's clothing. These are not gender, these are temperament and personality. Male is their gender. Enjoying X is their temperament or part of their personality. Expressing higher levels of disgust than most males is temperament. Being disagreeable or aggressive is personality.
Taking up the stereotypical behaviour of other people is not a "gender identity" or an identity at all. The clothes do not maketh the man a woman, and I only used to hear that kind of nonsense from those mired in stereotypical thinking who were often truly bigoted. Plus ça change.
So, grammatically it's not useful - and that's even before discussing pronouns (Lord, save us, this atheist begs you!); in biology it's entirely erroneous; and in life it's undermining free speech, endangering actual females, confusing the hell out of children, and helping close to no one.
Let's have a look at my original reply
> Sex is defined by the gametes one produces. Female for few large gametes, male for many small gametes. If you don't have the capacity to produce functional gametes, you're asexual.
We can leave away the part about asexuality, the point still stands; sex is a biological trait related to the gametes ones genes and biological does (or would) produce.
Whereas gender is
> [..] the social expression of the set of behaviors typical for a given sex. Your gender does not necessarily have to correspond to your biological sex.
You on the other side take the position;
> Gender is sex.
You can go with that. But I've found it more useful to distinct between gender and sex since there's a lot more to human sexual behavior than just the biological mechanism underlying the dimorphism. Human's have culture - vastly different cultures - that all have a different interpretation of what it means to behave like a male or to behave like a female. And some people have the desire to not behave like their biological sex.
An example; wearing a skirt is considered female, in western societies. So if I - as a male - wear a skirt, I'm drawing attention and potentially ridicule upon myself. Why is that? My sex is unchanged, I'm still male. But I don't behave according to the societal expectations of how males have to behave.
> From What is asexuality?[1]:
This links represents neither my position nor my arguments about asexuality, so I will just ignore all said about them.