I am someone who believes that gender is determined by society, not biology.
I do not think that hormones, sex organs, or chromosomes make a person male or female. Furthermore, I don't believe that male or female are the only genders (I mean, that would invalidate gender-neutral and gender-queer people).
How do we decide someone's gender, usually? Rather than wait until the baby is old enough to decide how they feel, we will look between a newborn's legs and make a conclusion solely based on what they look like. If the sex organ they find is ambiguous, usually doctors will decide along with parents to tweak them to make it look more 'normal'.
In conclusion, since gender is not something that is fixed from birth and has the ability to change...what does it mean to be male or female? I am not excluding other genders here, I just want to use the two as examples since they are the ones we're always referring to.
I've already established that having a vagina/breasts/a uterus etc doesn't make me female....so what does? How feminine I am? But wait, I'm stuck there too because there are many females who are what we would call 'masculine' and that doesn't invalidate their gender. And if it did, it would be a pretty closed-minded way to look at gender. People who can't accept males/females because they don't fit certain genders is how homophobia, misogyny, and bullying in general are reinforced.
So, what is gender, and how is it established? I identify as female, because I feel female, but I don't even know what that means anymore.
Is gender real? I'm not sure. Can something that is determined solely by society ever be absolute?
I'm interested to hear what other people have to say on this.
Additional question: When someone says they prefer a certain gender, what do they mean?
I used to define my preference for women as 'people with vaginas', but now I realise that that can cover pretty much anyone of any gender identity (or lack thereof). It COULD mean people who are feminine, but as I said before, not everyone who is feminine will be female.
