Confuzzled4 Wrote:I always appreciate someone who brings science into the discussion, though I never learned about the prenatal stages of life. Just as a devil's advocate, in Thailand there is a cultural recognition of a third gender. It's been around for quite some time, well before this explosion of exposure. Is this too just people trying to be different or is there really some unknown biological process going on?
In some of the ancient cultures there was also a concept of ''third gender''. It is unclear what exactly it was meant by that, because it included men with homosexual orientation (who clearly do not constitute a different gender). In such ancient cultures there was an obvious confusion about and mixing up of sexuality and gender. (It may not have in fact been confusing to the individuals themselves, or even to the general populace in some cases. There may even have been e.g. men who loved men and still identified as male in such cultures, but lost to history; and I strongly believe that that was so).
Although I am not familiar with Thailand and its culture, the people there share the same physiology with the rest of the people on this planet. Thus, yes, the same physiological implications apply -- that there are only two genders for them as well.
The manner in which a culture recognizes one thing or another does not affect the underlying physiology. Do you agree with and understand that? If you understand it, then nothing in the world could be simpler. If we realize that testosterone determines the male gender, then we realize that it can and does happen to female fetuses occasionally with the resultant masculine gender identification in such adult individual (i.e. a transsexual person). Now,
the culture does not change or affect any of these processes at work there. These processes are universal to the human race. What the culture/environment does, is define them and determine a space for such individuals according to the cultural ethical/moral values and standards. E.g. one of such cultural implications in this particular case is that the process appears as a malfunction to us, rather than a normal development. But in ancient Indian culture, such individuals were seen as shamans, and/or people with special spiritual abilities, etc. That was just the way the culture interpreted a simple biological quality, which in its bare essence in this case, would just be the exposure of testosterone at a right time, with no moral/ethical connotations whatsoever.
My point, where I am getting with this, is that
the underlying physiology is the same, no matter how the culture/environment defines it. The culture can define the result in an xyz way, which is variable depending on the time and the geographical location. But whether we are talking about transsexual individuals in the 21st century West, about the ancient Indian third gender shamans, or Thailand's third gender individuals -- it's one and the same thing in the end.
The only thing making them look different is the fact that they exist in a different cultural context. Like, when you put yellow juice into a blue glass it will appear green. But the juice is still yellow, the glass doesn't change that. It just makes it look green, which essentially is an illusion. Gender is that yellow juice in this analogy, and culture is blue drinking glass (or any other color). Juice has its own intrinsic unchangeable color, glass is the context, and depending on its color, it can make the juice appear a different hue than it really is. It's a perfect analogy.
This topic is additionally confusing in some instances, because some cultures confuse gender and sexuality not understanding that they are two different things. Thus, some cultures equate male homosexuals with females (ancient Rome can be quoted as an example), because their attractions/sexual practices are the same as/analogous to females'. But this is not in any way a correct interpretation, nor a fair one. The cultures got it wrong.
Science doesn't change underneath, it's the culture that misinterprets it. The fact that cultures have missed such a crucial differentiation is one of the things making this topic so difficult for some people to understand.
I think West has arrived at the clearest definition on it, which in large part is due to a heavy reliance upon and understanding of science (which is the only thing that should be taken into consideration when defining gender). This is why I don't go by how Thailand defines the gender, or how ancient Rome defined male homosexuals. Because their cultural context is not transparent to it; like a blue glass with yellow juice it distorts it, it adds color -- it adds meaning and modifies definitions in the process. You have to see through those cultural biases. They are not real.
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