Posted: Aug 30, 2010 12:56 pm
Beatsong wrote: 4. Their interaction with social expectations about how these factors go together.
The concept of "gender" only seems to arise where there is a severe conflict between any of the first three of these factors, and the fourth one. A biological male who happens to be homosexual will have to fight against homophobes who insist on the expectation that men "should" want to have sex with women. A young girl who happens to like playing rough games will be called a "tomboy" and, later, probably be suspected of being gay, simply because her interests don't coincide with what society says they "ought" to be. In extreme cases, a young child can form a transgender identity and insist that they are the opposite of everything people tell them they "should" be.
But the problem with all this is that factor 4 is entirely cultural and arbitratry. There is no innate connection between biological sex and certain interests, or contradiction between it and other interests.
I humbly suggest that we don't have all the answers yet. Neuroendocrine factors and brain neurochemistry have shown over the past two decades to be more intricately associated with mammal behavior (bot human and non-human) than any expert in behavior (or any neurologist or endocrinologist) could have predicted. As you say:
Anecdotally, I have never known young children to have a concept of their own "gender" that is separate from or additional to these elements.
Yes, there is culture and there are societal expectations. But they apparently can't override biology and the perception of gender that each of us has for our selves (splitting intended).
As for the definition of gender...
