What is Gender？ ｜ A Critical Compass Clip
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
155.17543
Summary
In this episode, we discuss gender and its role in our society, as well as the controversial topic of transgenderism and gender identity. What does gender mean, what does it mean to be transgender, and what does that mean to us as a society?
Transcript
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I have a theory and I don't know I don't think I've stolen this from anyone I think
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but other people may have reached the same conclusion I I believe actually that me and
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maybe this is extreme of me but I actually don't think that the word gender has any useful meaning
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I feel like when people say gender if they're not using it as a synonym for sex male or female
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and they separate those then what I believe they mean what they actually mean when they say
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gender either it boils down to one of two things either a a sexuality like a sexual proclivity or
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preference or to a personality trait and and I've challenged people to this on on x before and they
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I again like I same as you I don't really get a clean answer to it or a concise answer to it but
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I would challenge anyone maybe anyone listening who disagrees with me on this if you can if you
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can describe your gender that isn't um that doesn't boil down to just either a personality trait or a
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sexual proclivity I would be very interested to know because that's all that I hear about it when
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somebody says they're you know usually what they're referring to like say that they're um you
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know maybe a gender you know well probably that means if you're a woman maybe you're a little bit
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bisexual and maybe you present a little bit more um androgynous it may be the same for a man for a man
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too a gender is just one that came to mind but there's no doubt countless examples but that's my
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theory I'm sticking to it until proven otherwise well if if there's a word that's commonly used
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in our society and it interacts with the way people live their lives we would want a clear definition
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of that word we want to make sure that we all know what it means and we're all using it in the same ways
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and if gender is sometimes used for sex and then sometimes used for just describing how people feel
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based on traits or personality then it doesn't really describe the the usefulness of that word
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is it's useless except for people's feelings about themselves so if somebody says well I identify as
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female great they just told us that they maybe act or feel a little bit more feminine well what does that
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mean like how do we navigate do we treat them differently now just because they they have a
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few more feminine traits like or are we at this point where differences in some of these big five
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personality traits don't really matter as much on a day-to-day basis like you'll naturally find
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people who maybe in like a heterosexual relationship the high assertiveness in a male
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in males is still like still a desirable trait from women when they're dating like men in a relationship
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they still look for these things so in those cases these these personality traits maybe if they fit these
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traditional kind of averages across the like when we sample our population like it maybe it's more
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stable in those circumstances but on the fringes you'll always have tomboys and you always have
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like feminine men and yeah yeah and there's even look at like the artist community like there's all
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kinds of misfits uh personnel like well and that's where you get we're both members of that of that
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misfit artist community so we know it's it's absolutely true but and the the point of it is
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too that um look i i hate that you know we have to do this because if anyone knows this in real life
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they know that we're not you know we're not judgmental people we're not um you know we aren't
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we don't go out seeking to you know be rude to people or disrespectful or mean or anything like that
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so i hate that i have to say it but what this ultimately comes down to is i and i know you would
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agree don't believe that there's any right or wrong way to be a boy or a girl or a man or woman there's
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just the way that you are and and and that's fine and you should be able to have a community that you
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can you know have friends and relationships in and and be accepted for exactly who you are
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i think that actually that's that's much less sexist and uh divisive and exclusionary i think
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that's a word uh then then being the other way where you know if you have to take it back to the
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schools if you have an activist teacher who who looks at a at a little boy who maybe is more
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interested in playing with uh the stereotypically girls toys or the or a little uh girl who's more
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interested in playing you know sports or something more stereotypically boyish or masculine to suggest
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that those little boys or girls are uh exhibiting signs of transgenderism or or are truly the opposite
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sex or whatever that seems to me to be very regressive and sexist and and not accepting of
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the differences of in personality that everyone has