Cis folks— I know that a lot of you mean well, & I appreciate that some of y’all are actively standing up to transphobes.

But y’all gotta let go of “there are X number of genetic sexes, & that has nothing to do with gender which is socially constructed & about stereotypes!” 1/

Neither of those things are particularly particularly helpful arguments.

Sex is a complex construct of Western biology & medicine that is generally understood to consist of primary & secondary sex characteristics, hormone makeup, and to *some extent* genetics.

But it’s really important to grasp that sex is an observed and interpreted *phenotype*. The vast majority of people know absolutely nothing about their DNA. Karyotype is assumed from phenotype, not vice-versa. DNA is not some “deeper truth”.

Given that sex is complex, constructed, & ontologically phenotypic, it is therefore also *mutable* & extremely variable, & any boundaries are essentially arbitrary. There are about as many arguments for 2 sexes, 10 sexes, or 100 sexes bc you are applying language to observation.

Secondly, it’s critical to understand that “gender” is even more complex, & reducing it “a set of restrictive, harmful stereotypes” is both rhetorically harmful, & also rooted in racism, western Christian imperialism, and settler-colonialism.

It’s is not Blue Boys & Pink Girls.

You can take entire courses on just the Western context of gender, so it’s actually difficult to explain in simple terms.

But on an individual level, it consists of gender identity (sense of self), how one expresses their gender, how their gender is interpreted by others, & more

On a social/societal level, gender is also a system of social organization, identity, and power. In the *West*, those things are also essentially inexorably linked to the Christian view of the body & family, and also capitalism, biopower, and economics.

Gender is *not* simply stereotypes in which child are indoctrinated into. If it were, much of the work of the “abolish gender” people would already be done. It is an entire contextual social system of signs & signifiers, expression and interpretation, negotiation & meaning.

Importantly, *because* of the way that gender is constructed in the West, you CANNOT make a clean separation between sex & gender. They, too, are inexorably linked (notice: LINKED NOT EQUIVALENT), as there is an underlying social assumption of gender as signifier of sex.

But, this largely works in the complete reverse from how most transphobic people argue. By and large, in the public sphere *sex* is phenotypically cryptic. We do not see primary sex characteristics, gametes, or hormones. We certainly don’t see chromosomes.

We may see *some* secondary sex characteristics, but largely we see & interpret gender expression and performance. Because we *aren’t* going see anything more than that of most people, sex and gender have an ontological collapse in many contexts. That *could* change eventually!

This doesn’t mean that these things aren’t inherently & constantly equivalent. But it does mean also you cannot separate them entirely, and context is important. There are some terribly complex conversations to be had here that aren’t suited for Twitter, obviously,

Just as important: the understanding of gender as little more than an oppressive, limiting set of stereotypes one is indoctrinated into based on birth-assigned sex is peak White Feminism, and it’s inescapably Eurocentric, imperial, racist, colonizer thought.

Complex social gender systems that were/are not inherently linked to sex and reproduction or subjugation have been documented on every continent. Western imperialism forced their gender system on countless societies around the world in their campaigns of cultural genocide.

Even what anthropology had been done on some of those cultures is so horribly tainted with the intractable racism and white supremacy of Western academic thought as to be almost worthless.

To add to that, even within Western contexts, gender systems aren’t *homogenous*.

We are generally constrained by our wider cultural contexts and power systems, but marginalized communities form their own alternative publics and counterpublics with separate meanings, signifiers, and systems of gender from which they derive meaning, identity, and value.

So when I hear cis white women, and especially cis straight white women arguing for “gender abolition”, I cannot help but roll my eyes. “Gender” and “Patriarchy” are not interchangeable, and to argue otherwise is a selfish red herring.

In summary, sex & gender are complicated, & transphobes are not rational. They are making post-hoc justifications for their gut reactions that are rooted in fear and/or insecurity. You cannot argue them out of their nonsense. So don’t spread bad rhetoric for easy feel-good dunks.