Anybody familiar with a host of languages is well aware of the concept of “gender.” When you talk about objects of various types (inanimate and animate alike), you often apply words that indicate whether a given object is male or female.

Some languages allow for the application of neutral words in gender description.

The point is, using “el” or “la” in Spanish, and other such words in a host of languages, allows one to indicate the gender of that being discussed or considered.

Funnily, in Spanish as an example, if you have a “mixed group,” the definite article used to talk about it is the masculine (male).

As far as sex is concerned, in humans, there are really only two (you can make an argument for “biological sports;” otherwise though, there is male or female.

Is this true for all animals? I understand the answer to that to be, “No.” Nonetheless, it applies more or less across the board for humankind.

This is the first and most important understanding that must be had where sex is concerned.

Where sex and gender are not unrelated, gender is a more conceptual thing, where sex is not quite set in stone.

But what about the idea of “feeling like” you’re male when you’re a female or vice versa?

There are two things I want to discuss where this concept is concerned.

Firstly, I’d like to ask a simple question. How do you know what the it feels like to be a male if you’re biologically female? Obviously, the same applies in reverse (IE., “How do you know what it feels like to be a female if you’re biologically male?”)

I want to point out something that really throws a wrench in the works for anybody trying to answer this question. Just because I’m a biological male does not mean I know what other biological males’ life experience “feels like.”

True that we very likely have things in common in terms of how we feel, but past that, there’s no guarantee we experience all that much in the same sort of way.

It’s also fair to say, you can talk to folks of a given sex, and get some insight into what it’s like to be those individuals.

Even doing so should not be counted any kind of assurance you know what it generally feels like to be the same sex—much less the opposite.

Because this is true, the idea of “gender fluidity,” needs must be counted questionable at best.

If you cannot even know what it feels like to be another person of the same sex as yourself (and even less, a person of the opposite sex to yourself), how on Earth can you assume gender fluidity to be something that can be even ethereally quantifiable?

What about the concept of sex being “assigned at birth?” Is this a reasonable idea?

I would argue it is not.

Simply put, if you’ve the ability to carry, birth, and nurse children (and the last of these is questionable for some—remember, there have been those who employed “wet nurses” and used artificial “formula” based on their inability or unwillingness to produce sustenance for their young), you’re a female!

If you’re the “other side of the production equation,” you’re a male.

Neither of these is particularly mysterious.

While we’re in this wheelhouse, I want to consider the idea of “changing sex.”

If “modern science” is to be believed, the majority of (perhaps all?) animals—the same for plants—are defined by Deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, as it’s commonly known.

In that DNA, can be found the “encoding for” pretty much every facet of our physical being.

Naturally and obviously, that includes sex.

If you use either physical or chemical modification techniques to attempt to change that reality, the effects of doing so can only be cosmetic unless you can isolate what it means to be male or female (typically done through chromosomal analysis) and show this has been changed by your actions or those of another performing them.

This means that purely cosmetic changes (like plastic surgery of various kinds) may be “more than skin deep,” but not much more than that.

Chemical changes aren’t much better.

Don’t believe me?

There tends to be one of two outcomes for people using chemicals to attempt “become” the opposite sex to the one they were born.

Either the person is “chemically sterilized,” or they continue to be able to perform the activity someone of the sex they were born into could have done (so a person who looks like a male can still carry a baby, or a person who looks like a female, can still impregnate an actual female).

The upshot of all of this is horribly uncomplicated.

If you were born with XX or XY chromosomes, that’s what you’ll possess until the day you die. It matters not the least bit, that you try to make yourself appear (or even “feel like”) someone of the “other sex.”

I want it understood that there is no intent to assign value to either sex in the previous rant.

Let’s take a second to do that here and now.

Being male is pretty important, and rather special.

Without males, society ceases to be. Without males, progeny are not produced.

That considered, being female is—if it’s possible—even more special and important.

Females are the ones tasked with the arduous and extremely significant task of carrying babies until they’re ready to come into the World—to say nothing of the unenviable, extremely difficult actions of going through labor, and finally giving birth to a “natural miracle.”

Society fails to be without both sexes being represented in some fashion within it.

Allow me to tie a neat little bow on this whole conversation.

You were born male or female, no wishing, modification, or feeling to the contrary aside will change that fact. Some may not meet either criteria. Frankly, I somewhat feel sorry for them.

For the rest of us, please stop attempting to make those of us who know better believe any other thing.

Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping your day is a good one.