For some time now I’ve been trying my best to understand gender. I’ve searched high and low for sensible definitions and explanations and I’ve still little clue of exactly what gender is. The definitions are always vague, often conflicting, and usually very simplistic. While on the surface they can seem straight forward, when some further thought is put into these concepts they tend to fall apart. Here I’ll try to explain exactly why I feel gender is a weak concept and a few of the conceptual problems it presents.

First, however, I’d like to insert this small disclaimer. In this piece I’ll be discussing the way we think about gender as a concept. I’m not trying to damage or hurt any individual and I’ve absolutely no animus against anyone who thinks of themselves as trans-gender or non-binary. I aim merely to clarify what these concepts are for myself and others. I strive to ensure I treat each person without bias or discrimination and that doesn’t change just because I think some of these concepts are ill founded. End disclaimer.

‘Gender’, for anyone lucky enough to have thus-far avoided this subject, is being used to describe something wholly different from sex. While sex refers to physical attributes and biological makeup, gender refers to something social, cultural, and/or personality based. For the sake of readability I’ll stick to the referencing the male gender/sex but everything I say could easily be inverted. Also for readability ‘man’ will refer to sex, while ‘male’ will refer to gender. This should be sufficient for most of my article but as gender proponents have tended toward combining the two, there may be some instances where they seem to overlap.

Gender refers to preferences.

Gender is usually described as some sort maleness that exists in one’s mind but such a description is needlessly vague. What parts of someone’s mind does it refer to? Other terms like ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘intelligence’ also refer to things in the mind but link to specific aspects such as a “sex based preference in mate selection” or “one’s ability to learn and apply knowledge” respectively. Gender, is usually described along the lines of “the mental counterpart of sex”, but given sex has something to do with genitals, chromosomes or reproduction it’s hardly sensible to say that a mind could have such an attribute, it not being a physical thing and all. Amalgamating the variety of different sources I’ve heard describe gender, the concept fits most closely with other preference based concepts (things like “liberal”, “outdoorsy”, “straight”, or “introvert”). That is, one is male to the extent they prefer male things or to the extent they prefer to be a man. (I’m aware that’s two different definitions but most of the objections remain the same) Gender, therefore, is a concept that explains these preferences. If this view doesn’t align with what you feel gender refers to please provide your explanation in a comment. You’d be surprised how many different ones there are.

So let’s get to my objections;

Objection 1 – Re-purposing

The proposition of gender doesn’t appear to be the kind of concept that would subsume sex. Rather, both concepts would exists simultaneously. Of course, it may make sense to revise the distinctions we’ve previously made regarding sex. Should someone’s pronouns be based on their sex or their gender? Should their eligibility to play is men’s or women’s sporting leagues be based on sex or gender? It appears to make sense to refer to people by names and pronouns they prefer while it makes sense that someone’s body be the benchmark for sporting segregation. This re-evaluation has lead to an enormous amount of needless confusion that could easily be remedied by keeping both concepts simultaneously.

The biggest obstacle to this solution is a language one. Gender proponents have opted to re-purpose language that previously refereed to sex to now refer to gender. Take the statement “I am a man”. Previously that statement would be about one’s sex but is now being seen to refer to gender. If someone refers to another as a man when they are by sex a man but by gender a female I can’t see that they’ve erred or that a correction is needed. So how would one refer to someone’s gender if these words are reserved for sex? Perhaps words like “masculine” or “feminine” could be employed. ‘Masculinity’ basically already refers to one’s preference for male things. And it’s not unreasonable to invent new language to describe a new concept, but re-purposing old language is needlessly confusing.

Objection 2 – Truthiness

This one is obvious. Preferring to be something does not actually make you that thing. Someone is not a man simply because they’d like to be or because they like typically manly things. Of course we might, in the interest of politeness, act as though someone’s sex aligns with their preference even when it doesn’t. Given most of us treat people differently based on their sex, even if only slightly or in specific situations, if someone prefers the treatment members of the opposite sex typically enjoy, there might be reason to humor such a preference. However, it’d be wrong to take this humoring as truth and especially wrong to do so in the context of law or academia.

Objection 3 – Consistency

Some problems might mean a concept is wrong or internally inconsistent, but that they logically provide for other concepts we find concerning. In this case gender identity also seems to justify other identities and does so in an odd way. Racial identity, species identity and age identity are three such examples. If gender is one’s preference for things that are masculine or feminine, then why wouldn’t a preference for things that a part of “black culture” confer a similar identified? Wouldn’t animalistic or childish things also provide similar species or age based identities? How meaningful is it to say that one is black because they prefer rap music and dreadlocks? Or if gender is based on the preference for be a certain sex, then why wouldn’t a preference for being a certain age, race of species also provide some equally formidable identity? It it might even come down to a difference of acceptability. It’s not a big ask to have someone call you Michael instead of Michelle, but it might be too much to ask someone to refer to you by some 20 digit number. Perhaps gender isn’t too much of an ask where age and species are. But race? Race is as meaningless, if not far more meaningless, as sex. How little an imposition is it for Shaun King to ask be treated as though he were black? Most of us do our best to ignore race so treating people as though there were a different race would almost be a non-effort. Yet, I’m certain the idea of ‘racial identity’ as divorced from physical race (an already weak concept) is confronting even to those who espouse a very generous conceptualization of gender identity. It may be that preferring to be a given sex is just not that meaningful. Sexual preference (whether you’re attracted to men or women) defines next to nothing about a person, so why would sex preference?

Objection 4 – Derivation

The other issue here is that we have to find a way to explain why a given thing is or isn’t a male thing. If one’s gender is based on preferring male things or female things then we ought have a good reason for why something is associated with a given gender. The most common source cited here is culture. That is, culture has developed certain roles, activities, mannerisms, and mentalities and has imbued these things with gender. Thus, on this view, someone is male when they prefer male things. The issue here is that, the thing that makes these things male is that men tend to like them. Take Googles definition for example; Gender is,

“the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones).”



This would imply, in a rather circular fashion, that someone is male if they’re male. It quite reminds me of and old dictionary I had that’s entries for both spellings of “kumquat” were “an alternative spelling of qumquat”. It doesn’t even begin to describe what being male might entail. One can circumvent this with terms like masculinity. “Things men tend to like are masculine, so a person is masculine as long as they like those things”. It’s nonsense to try the same statement with gender. “Things men tend to like are male, so a person is a man as long as they like those things”. It reads like some “real men like red meat” kind of appeal to masculinity, and not as a statement intended to be literally true. This problem evaporates when we keep sex and gender separate but at that point gender is little more than how masculine or feminine you are.



As far as I can go with gender is preferences. Not necessarily meaningful ones either. I can’t see how the statement “I identify as male” means anything more than “I like masculine things” or “I’d rather be a man”, neither of which are things that justify invalidating or subsuming sex as a concept. The gap between being male and being a man is never traversed and I’ve no justification for treating a woman as though they’re a man for any other reason but to humor them. I find it difficult to justify why I ought accept gender identity as a property of the mind while rejecting racial identity as the same thing. And, I don’t see why deriving gender from sex, when it’s supposed to subsume it, is remotely sensible.

Before I finish, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that I’m not talking about people, but concepts. And that, regardless of the sensibility of gender as a concept, we ought still treat every person with respect and dignity, and ought be understanding of difference wherever possible. And understanding really is what I’m aiming for here. I want to see comments and I want to see explanations. I’d be quite happy if I were wrong, but for that I’ll need your help.