Sex and Gender - the conservatives problem with language

Many think language is strictly defined with a set of rules. They will say you can use it “wrong” if you say a phrase that's not grammatically correct or use a non standard definition.

However language is made up and arbitrary. Objective rules don't exist.

Dictionaries don't dictate language. Otherwise we wouldn't need to update them all the time to keep up with language evolving. They exist to document and be a tool. They do not indicate the “correct” meaning of words.

Even grammar only came after language and it is much more about analysing existing structures and documenting changes in language rather than enforcing said structures.
You wouldn't say a poet who's purposefully breaking grammar rules to make a point or express a certain feeling is using grammar or language wrong. They are simply using the tools at hand to better understand the conventions in language to then purposefully break them for certain purposes.

Of course you can technically use language wrong on an ethical or practical level but not on a linguistic one as language doesn't put forward such values and rules itself.

You may use it in a way people don't understand which would be impractical or you may use it in a harmful way which could be called “wrong” but using it wrong implies there is a correct or better use which begs the question under what metric it's better and from there we can only go to things like ethics and practicality as linguistics does not provide these metrics.

As an example let's look at the word “literally”.

It used to mainly mean: “In a literal manner or sense”. Meaning, not figuratively.
But if I nowadays say: “my head literally exploded” after a movie for example, then you don't say: “what, but its still there?”
You understand clearly that I used “literally” to just emphasize the expression.

And yes it doesn't conform to traditional definitions but you understood how I used the word, the communication worked out, so how could you possibly argue I used the word wrong.

Meaning is dependent on how words are used and understood and not what's written in some books. And how words are used and understood constantly changes over time and in different contexts.

(As a side note, dictionaries will nowadays also often include the newer meaning of the word “literally”.)

Code words may be another good example.

If I use the word “apple” as a safeword for example in which it now means “stop it” during sex, will you tell me I used the word apple wrong or will you understand that in this context the meaning changed.

Because meaning is also always context dependent.

Be it the difference of colloquial or academic language (and even in different fields of science the same terms may be used with different meanings. For example “naturalism” in visual art compared to literature) or the difference of talking to friends compared to authority figures.
Not to mention different dialects and so on.

Another point about how definitions are loose and not defining can be made by the example of the word chair.

A chair is “a seat for one person typically with a back and four leg” (according to Oxford Languages).

So lets take it apart. (Here's also an interesting video on it: "Do chairs exist?" by Vsauce on Youtube. )

First of all, typically? As in, it is not a defining characteristic then. This already shows definitions don't seem to define anything clearly but rather are there to give a rough insight into the meaning of something.

Besides that, plenty of chairs are seats for multiple people and chairs exist that are not meant for people at all (like miniature chairs for animals or puppets.)

What about broken chairs that people can't sit on anymore? Theres plenty more exceptions to find.

And what even is a seat or a person? This might seem silly to ask at first but if you really break it down you will run into similar issues trying to come up with all encompassing definitions.
There is this vagueness to all words as they are fundamentally abstract on some level since language is based on our perception of the world which is equally abstract.

We don't learn language by having someone read definitions to us. We learn by experiencing the world and hearing people describe different things differently. And slowly we built an understanding of what something is. We slowly understand “ok the things that look like this are often called trees and the things that look like that are called bushes” and so on. It's not about putting clear boundaries down but about noticing similarities and categorizing things based on those by calling them different words.

Think of questions like: “When does a puddle become a sea? Is cereal soup? How many holes does a straw have? Or when does literally anything stop being that thing?”.

All this comes from the vagueness of language and there are not objectively correct answers to these questions as language isn't a thing with objective rules but a everchanging construct with which we communicate.

We can't say for sure how many holes a straw has because it was never necessary to constrict the meaning of the word hole to such a point. And even if we did ever define it so clearly in society, it could still change it's meaning as time goes on.

That's where idea of “everything is a social construct” come in.

Pluto the celestial body for example materially exists regardless of what we call it but the concept of planets is still a social construct.
On some way anything is a social construct in our language though typically people will only use the word to highlight how a category is not inherently determined by material reality but by how we perceive and engage with it on a societal level. It's usually referring about things we more directly made up for cultural reasons like money or country borders.

Ultimately every word can be understood as a category we made up and every one of those categories is built and connected to one another all with slightly open borders

And with that let's talk about gender.

Part 2 Gender

Currently the consensus (scientifically) is that sex is the biological aspect while gender is the social one. They are not entirely disconnected but they are not the same.

Conservatives like to say the definition of man and woman have always been based of purely biological sex.
Now this is of course ignoring all the cultures that had more than two genders hundreds or thousands of years ago. But aside from that even in western cultures this is clearly not true.

For one you can hardly say that a few hundred years ago they believed sex and gender to be the same the way conservatives do now because of course the understanding of sex was vastly different.

But more importantly we can see that even then they didn't infer gender and the meaning of man and woman purely from biological sex if you for example look at how black women have historically been denied womanhood.
And that wasn't because they didn't believe them to be female but because they were black.

In other words, there were other societal cultural factors impacting gender and the meanings of man and woman.
Racism had always had a big impact on how gender is viewed.

Now then, let's get to the question “what is a woman?” that so many conservatives like to ask.

Now first of all it is not a genuine question.
We can see that by the fact they never ask “what is a man?”, even though that should be the same argument. The difference only being they couldn't claim to “protect women” or anything like that.
Beside that we see they don't actually want to hear an answer because whenever they get one they ignore or reject it without further argument. They simply use the question as some sort of “gotcha argument”.

But with that said, why is not only a disingenuous question but also a dumb one or to say it different, a question based on a misunderstanding of language.

In the first part of this essay I made the point that all words are abstract on some level. That is why their question for some clear short definition is misguided.
We use definitions to get a baseline understanding of something but not to get a deeper understanding of it. I ask a definition for example if I never heard a word.

To bring back the earlier example, if I have never heard the word chair then the definition “a seat for one person typically with a back and four legs” is quite helpful because it gives me an idea of what to look out for.
Now if I want to know exactly what is and what isn't a chair then I would have to look at wider cultural contexts on how the word has historically and is currently being used and what edge cases existed that people debated on and so on. And only then I could have an informed (but not objectively correct) opinion on what is and what isn't a chair.
It still wouldn't be objectively correct since meanings are fluent and constantly change and there is never a objectively correct meaning.

“What is a woman” shouldn't be a question about a short one sentence definition but a discussion around the wider usage of the word and it's cultural meaning in different contexts and throughout time.

(Here are some interesting videos on the topic: “What are Women?” by Lily Alexandre on Youtube
“Debunking Matt Walsh's “What is a Woman?” “ by Jessie Gender on Youtube
Here is also the first part of Jessie Genders video explaining more how the question is disingenuous:
“the manipulation of Matt Walsh's “What is a Woman?” “ by Jessie Gender on Youtube )

Now to talk about some common talking points that come with the question.

“But if the definition is too open in meaning it will lose it's value.”
Now this is wrong because every word has open boundaries with it's meaning but we can also look at commonly agreed abstract words like “art”. Many people will say anything can be considered art. It is one of the most vague and open words we have with many different meanings but it is still a word commonly used nonetheless.

“If you can't define it, then you don't understand it.”
Imagine asking an artist for a definition of art and if they don't give one that encompasses all meanings of art and excludes everything it doesn't mean then they must not understand it.

Perfect definitions like that don't exist because again meaning is arbitrary and always changing.

Think about asking a child do define a tree. They probably won't be able to give you much of an answer but they sure as hell know what a tree is and are able to talk about them.
That's because we don't think in definitions.
Our thoughts aren't within rigid clear boxes but more fluent.

Now if you let conservatives answer their own question they will be happy to say a woman is an “adult human female.”
It sounds like a nice answer right? Its short clear and precise (or at least appears that way).

And I wouldn't even say it's a bad answer necessarily. For a definition, it does give you a decent baseline understanding of the word that will be true enough in many contexts.

However that's not how conservatives mean it. They mean that this entails exactly what a woman is and everything not fitting these three words is not a woman.

Or at least that's what they say in theory, practically they don't conform to that definition themselves.

An example is when conservatives complain that fictional alien characters like Taya the alien or Nightshade a transformer from a Transformers cartoon are non binary. So I suppose even aliens should be men and women even though they can't be based on their own definition because “human” is one of the three defining characteristics.

We can take it apart in more detail.

Adult. Well there are plenty of times we use the word woman on non adults. Think about teenagers being called young women or when someone says “I was born a woman” even though they were a baby.
Not to mention “adult” isn't a very clear category either and there are many different cultural meanings to it. Is it when you're 18? 21? 25? Maybe when you first had sex or when you went through some religious ceremony.

Theres many different ideas to entering adulthood and womanhood.

Human. We already mentioned non human fictional characters gender. Think about how we call Ahsoka from Star Wars a woman/ girl even though she isn't human. But this also extends outside of fiction. We may call Siri or Alexa the talking softwares a girl or woman or at least will most likely refer to them as “she”. (And mind you, many conservatives also hold the opinion pronouns must be linked to biological sex.)

We may also call boats or cars “she” and refer to them as girls affectionately.

Not to mention times where we call non human animals man or woman. Most pet owners probably called their animals “little man” “girl” or anything like that at some point.

Female. Now sex also isn't as strictly defined as most people believe and when it comes to categorizing it scientifically there can be a lot of nuance. But without going too much into all that let's just reuse the example of boats and cars who are definitely not biologically female but may still be called girls, woman or anything like that.

With that said the definition that a lot of leftists will respond with is something along the lines of “A woman is someone who identifies as a woman”.

Now conservatives might say it's a circular definition and that is correct but they just asked for a definition and not a non circular one. Circular doesn't mean it's not useful.

Yes it won't give you a baseline understanding of the word but here's the thing, we all already have that, because everyone knows what a woman is.
If I say “woman”, then you have an image in your head. All were saying is that that image you have is ultimately dependent on self identity.

Now how does this relate to trans people today. On one hand it's matter of dignity and compassion but also it's about queerness and how it's viewed in society.

Some people want to find strict definitions of gender and sexuality and I think that's not helpful.

On one hand you have conservatives who want that to reinforce old gender norms and continue to uphold patriarchy.

But also there are some who desire it because it can bring them a sort of comfort and security to have clear labels and micro labels for sexuality and gender that they can put themselves in. And I do understand that to a degree and I'm not against using these labels but I am against trying to strictly confine them in which ever way.

When I hear people argue “can trans men be lesbians?” or anything of the sort, I just think “what does it matter?”.

A huge point of queerness has always been breaking out of societies norms and arbitrary standards of what is and what isn't and who you can and should be. Why do care so much to go against the lived experience of many queer folks and their use of language just to force back older standards that were pushed onto us by people who despise us.

Literally none of this makes sense if you think about it long enough. Every word is arbitrary and abstract on some level so why do you care so much to make up boundaries to gatekeep.

A trans man calling himself a lesbian doesn't harm anyone, it doesn't invalidate anyone else and it doesn't make bigots hate us more.

published: 02.02.24
last update: 02.02.24