No, actually, it’s not. (Saying that something is “obvious” usually means “I want to believe this is true, but I can’t justify it so I’ll just say it’s obvious, thereby shifting the burden of proof off of me.”) How often do you see the “dangly bits” of a criminal while they’re fleeing the scene? About the only time this happens is when the alleged offense is flashing. It’s far more likely that you’ll have information about the individuals general appearance, which provides no reliable information about their sex.
“General appearance” does not necessarily correlate with gender or sex. It does, of course, directly correlation to gender role, which is, unfortunately, readily mutable. It’s relatively easy for most people to adopt either a male or female gender role, at least for a short time, and with sufficient convincibilty as to confound most casual observers as to the individual’s actual sex or gender. The reason why people crossdress to commit crimes is exactly because of the misbegotten notion held by most people that gender role apperance is closely tied to gender and to sex. Simply put, it’s improbable in most cases that the police will have any reliable information about the biological sex of a person wanted for an offense. Sure, they have information that will, in the majority of cases, turn out to be correct. But the assumption that “This is correct in 99% of the cases, therefore it’s correct all the time” will bite you, 1% of the time. (Actually, the transgendered rate is about 1 in 250, according to estimates from Lynn Conway and NGLTF, but you get the point.)
As to how you think “sex” is defined, that is irrelevant. Sex is defined in each state according to the laws of that state, just as marriage in each state is defined by the laws of that state. It is true that “sex” and “gender” are routinely misused in an interchangeable fashion by just about everyone who isn’t either gender-conflicted or a gender researcher; as a result, trying to play word-quibble games on which word was used by a government agency in any particular context is especially disingenous. I’m sure I can find cases where a court has declared that “sex” and “gender” mean the same thing (just as I can probably also find cases where a court has declared that they don’t mean the same thing).
If a suspect that you arrest is supposed to be of the male sex and you discover that the suspect is actually of female sex its fairly obvious you have the wrong person.
Its not how I think sex is defined it is how sex is defined. Sex is a well defined biological charecteristic that is independent and seperate from gender. It would be more helpful if the states listed gender on the license instead of sex but the fact still remains though that they are asking for sex which rests soley on biological factors. The easiest way to determine sex is the obvious charecteristics of each sex which are the sex organs. In the case of conflicting charecteristics the persons sex is said to be ambigous and is usually determined by self-identification. In your case KellyM there is (as far as I know) no ambigouity about which sex you are. If the state asks which sex you are and you answer female you are indeed commiting fraud. If a state wants to ask you what gender you are that is perfectly fine but as long as they ask about sex their information should match exactly with the SSA. According to you some states are in effect asking which gender you are but listing it as sex. This shouldn’t happen and needs to be fixed by the states by either listing it as gender or requiring accurate information about your sex.
lee-
Usually people who lose their genetalia by accident are listed according to the sex they had before the accident.
That begs the question of how the police are supposed to know that a suspect is of male physical sex. It also ignores the possibility that the suspect has been reassigned between the last time the authorities ascertained his or her physical sex. Note that the police rarely do a genital exam of criminal suspects, and it’s not uncommon for a pre-op transsexual who has been arrested not to be discovered as a transsexual until he or she is booked into prison after conviction (at which point a strip search and medical exam are standard procedure).
It would appear that you’ve ignored everything I’ve said about the role of gender in identifying suspects. But that surprises me rather little. I am well-aware how deeply many people want to cling to their ignorance when it comes to issues related to gender and sex.
Not everywhere. California recently adopted law defining “male” and “female” for the State of California, and most states have legal procedures of some sort for recognizing when someone’s legal sex should be considered to have changed. Those procedures differ from your “definition”, which in any case is too fuzzy to be of any legal value.
How is it fraud when I present a document to the State of Illinois stating that I am a transsexual and asking them to list my license as female, and the State thereby agrees to do so? What false statements have I made to the State? You claim it would be fraud for me to do this, but I don’t see the false statement.
I agree that sex is a very limited tool of identifying a suspect and I haven’t ignored anything you said about gender. My argument consists of the following: A state asks you for your sex. The definition of sex is clearly defined and it consists soley of biological factors. You meet all the criteria of a member of the male sex. You wrongly claim that you are of the female sex and have commited fraud by claiming you are.
I am not clinging to any ignorance. I am clinging to the scientific definition of sex and the requirement that you accurately report it.
California can pass laws defining what sex means to them but it does not change the definition of sex. What California seemingly has done is stopped asking about sex and started asking about gender. This is perfectly acceptable and in almost all instances more helpful in identifying a person. However as long as the state is asking sex and not gender you must answer the question accurately. We have specific tests to determine whether someone is male or female and you (as far as I can tell) meet all the requirements for the male sex and none of the requirements for the female sex.
If the State of Illinois allows you to do so legally I don’t support charging you with fraud. Illinois should not be asking or listing sex then they should be asking and listing gender. I don’t know why the states are mucking around trying to change a term with a clear definition when the information they want has a perfectly good term for it.
On a mostly unrelated note, it appears that KellyM could marry a woman under Massachussetts’ new gay marriage provisions, and the marriage would still be recognized by the federal government despite the DOMA, because the feds don’t consider her a female … Interesting when the bigots’ legal efforts trip each other up, no?
(Maybe I should change my sig before I post this, though … naaah.)
Well, the olympics test chromosomes to make sure their females are truely females. There was that one case where the female that was born femal, grew up female and was only not female in one area- her reproductive organs did not work(female external anatomy, male internal, IIRC). They found out she had male chromosomes, and was born female due to developmental issues. (she and her type were banned from female olympics, according to my sociology teacher, now they do blood tests and check chromosomes) So yeah, one could say she was a male, but was she?
Gender and Sex are distinct categories in sociology. In some cultures there is actually a third gender. Gender and sex are distinct from one another in biology as well.
No, in some cultures there are more than two gender roles. The number of genders that exist is a product of biology, and as such is the same across all cultures.
You are wrong in fact according to this person you are a member of a third gender. Otherreferencesaboutthirdgender. Generally the main two genders are male and female with other being the catch all third. The number of sexes that exist is a product of biology while the number of genders are a product of society.
I was not aware that they reversed that. Interesting.
However, you are wrong in your other point. Here is my citation. Sociology, Understanding a Diverse Society, Margret L. Anderson and Howard F Taylor, copyright 2004, Wadsworth, division of Thomson Learning, Inc.
On page 246, it quotes this: “Sociologists use the terms sex and gender to distinguish biological sex identity from learned gender roles. Sex refers to biological identity, male or female. For sociologists, the more signifigant concept is gender- the socially learned expectations and behaviors associated with members of each sex. A person is born male ore female, but becoming a man or woman is the result of social and cutural expectations that pattern men’s and women’s behavior.”
The book goes on to site berdaches in Navajo Indians, that were defined as a “third gender.” The book’s quote, not mine. A book written by sociologists to teach sociology. Another reference to “third gender” is on page 172, which talks about the hijras of India, a sexual minority group considered a “third gender”- neither man nor woman.
The book itself does not make such a distinction between roles and actual gender, and personally, without a good cite, I would go with what it says. But perhaps I am biased, I DID spend 80+ dollars on it. Other than that, the sociology teacher specifically made the distintion that gender and sex were different.
I was not aware that they reversed that. Interesting.
However, you are wrong in your other point. Here is my citation. Sociology, Understanding a Diverse Society, Margret L. Anderson and Howard F Taylor, copyright 2004, Wadsworth, division of Thomson Learning, Inc.
On page 246, it quotes this: “Sociologists use the terms sex and gender to distinguish biological sex identity from learned gender roles. Sex refers to biological identity, male or female. For sociologists, the more signifigant concept is gender- the socially learned expectations and behaviors associated with members of each sex. A person is born male ore female, but becoming a man or woman is the result of social and cutural expectations that pattern men’s and women’s behavior.”
The book goes on to site berdaches in Navajo Indians, that were defined as a “third gender.” The book’s quote, not mine. A book written by sociologists to teach sociology. Another reference to “third gender” is on page 172, which talks about the hijras of India, a sexual minority group considered a “third gender”- neither man nor woman.
The book itself does not make such a distinction between roles and actual gender, and personally, without a good cite, I would go with what it says. But perhaps I am biased, I DID spend 80+ dollars on it. Other than that, the sociology teacher specifically made the distintion that gender and sex were different.
>Does anyone seriously think that I’m defrauding anyone by presenting to the State of Illinois a paper that states that I’m a transsexual and could I please have my license changed to match? If so, whom?
This post is serious? I actually once as a reporter had to get details on a drug death for consideration to add to my website. The person who died was intersexual (hermaphroditic). When I contacted the coroner, when they asked for the gender of the deceased I had to respond it was indeterminate. Genetically the person was male, but appeared female. They were able to match the person as I had their name, date of birth, and death. They listed this person as female. And NO, I am not lying about this.
Most sociologists do not understand the difference between gender and gender role. Therefore, cites to sociology materials (or to general references on the internet) lack the necessary expertise to be considered reliable. I will only consider citations to acknowledged gender researchers as valid, and only when their work shows that they recognize the difference between gender and gender role. Gender is a psychological trait that is consequent to neurobiology. Gender roles are a set of culturally-defined boxes that people are expected to sort themselves into based on their sex and gender. The United States has dozens of gender roles, although we generally refuse to admit this, insisting that there are only two. As best I can tell, there are between three and five inherent genders; the vast majority of people are either male or female, with a significant minority what I call “indifferent”.
The term “third gender” is somewhat silly; it’s a construction of western sociologists to discuss something that they simply do not understand. The especially silly comment was the one that said that “third gender” is a “catch-all”. It is not. In those societies that have a “third gender” role, that role has very specific boundaries. There will still be people in that society who still fit none of the gender roles offered in that culture. In addition, many of those that western sociologists found to have “three gender roles” actually have four or more: western sociologists often failed to distinguish between male-to-female and female-to-male roles, treating them identically when they are in fact not within the society. This is what happens when you filter another culture through your own cultural concepts; sociologists are not immune to this (and are in fact prone to document another culture in the terms of the differences from their own).
Feel free. I’ve had my share of sociology classes; one of the reasons I got out of the field is their obviously incorrect conception of gender.
Living with being transgendered gives you a lot of personal insight into what gender is, and I can assert with certainty that what they teach in sociology classes about gender (at least when I was in school, in the early and mid 90s) is simply wrong. There are people who have it right (or at least mostly right), but they’re generally either in psychology or in gender studies, and as of yet there isn’t enough interdisciplinary communication between experts those fields and those in sociology (probably because of the stuck-up attitude of so many sociologists).
We can sit here and quibble all we want about what gender and gender roles are but we won’t get anywhere becuase you flat out refuse to accept someone elses view. I find it funny that you are “well-aware how deeply many people want to cling to their ignorance when it comes to issues related to gender and sex” yet you refuse to listen to anyones viewpoint that differs from you.
I’m not seeing this refusal. I am seeing **KellyM ** replying to your posts with disagreements which seem to me (as a sociologist myself from a degree standpoint, although not practicing) to be well-reasoned and supported.
You seem to have a point to make about the confusion between sex and gender, but I (for one) am having a hard time making out what it is. You first say that **KellyM ** is commiting fraud by identifying herself as female, then say that (in a limited circumstance) you wouldn’t support charging her with fraud. So where do you stand on this issue?
