Hi All.
Firstly, to point out the elephant in the room, I have not written anything in about 2 months, I'm really sorry about that. I've been really demotivated, and haven't had anything that I really want to write about.
I'm hopefully going to write more consistently this year, and not have a two month gap between posts.
The Post
So the topic I chose today was gender and the pressing question of, how many genders are there?
Because for many, it's just two, those being male and female whereas others would answer with the claim that there are an infinite amount of genders. So, who's right?
(Image Link: www.storychick.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/men-women-stress-response.jpg)
Before I even get into that however, I think that there's an important point to make relating to this entire discussion that is an undeniable fact. There are two biological sexes. That is something that is fact, and no matter how many people disagree, I will not change my mind. However with the gender debate, there seems to be this "agender" (ha see what I did there) that is floating around, and it is the claim that there are more than two genders.
However, if you try to ask these people how many genders there actually are, the answer is either:
a) An infinite amount of genders or
b) I don't know
In a lot of ways, the second option seems like a cop-out, in fact both seem like a cop-out in my opinion. If you claim that there are more than two genders, the next obvious question is, "Well, how many are there then?" And a lack of a definitive answer certainly speaks volumes about the intelligence of some of these people making this argument.
As for my opinion? I believe there are two: male and female. And for the most part, people's gender matches their biological sex.
So then the next issue arises. What about Transgender people?
The existence of Transgender people is not proof that there is a third gender and as an additional point, it actually proves that there are only two genders! If people could just pick and choose their gender on a whim, then why do transgender people undergo real, actual surgery to change to the opposite gender?
And just so I make myself clear, if a male transitions to a woman or vice versa, I would recognise them as whatever they wished to be called, and would address them as such because that's called being polite. But respect is a two way street, meaning that I will respect your pronouns as long as you respect me as a person as well.
So currently, we're at two genders: male and female, and Transgender people transition from one gender to the other. Issue solved, right? Almost. There's one more group of people that I haven't addressed and I think would be remiss of me to leave out. That group is non-binary people.
And... for that topic, I don't really care enough about it. I think non-binary is more of an expression of yourself than a gender, or lack of a gender. But can we just agree that non-binary people are not transgender? Leave that term to the people who actually undergo surgery to change their gender.
That's all really. If you disagree, leave a comment and I'll kindly discuss with you any disagreements you might have with this post.
Thanks for reading.