Thread:Tlaqh1335/@comment-3261439-20200811230357/@comment-46173343-20200824181741

Oh boy, I never thought I'd be having to teach a class on sex and gender on here but here we go:

Sex is a biological category typically based off of chromosomes, with Female being XX and Male being XY. It is rare, but there are several genetic conditions where a person may be some type of intermediate between Female and Male, and those tend to be all lumped into one category called "Intersex."

Gender is cultural but very closely related to biological sex. In some definitions sex is included within gender. Examples of genders includes things like: man, woman, transgender, etc. Gender includes societal things like what you wear, how you talk, what pronouns you use, who do you marry, etc.

Sexual orientation describes either who you are attracted to, such as gay, straight, or pansexual. Or it can describe how or when you experience attraction if at all, such as asexul, or demisexual.

Now with that backgroud info over with, lets talk about the categories on this site. As mentioned above, biological sex is based mainly off of chromosomes. But people didn't discover chromosomes until the 1800, and didn't begin to understand their purpose until the 1900's. So it doesn't make sense to use biological sex when categorizing characters from ancient mythologies that existed long before biological sex was understood. The ancient people who created these mythologies were working at the gender level of things.

Additionally, certain creatures and deities, though they may have a masculine or feminine appearance, would have been spiritual entities as opposed to physical, and so even if ancient people were able to know about chromosomes (which they didn't) it's unlikely that spiritual entities would even have them. So gender would be more appropriate.

Lastly, calling human women "Females" and human men "males" seems robotic and de-humanizing. Those terms can be appropriate in certain medical settings, but it doesn't sound right to the ear in English in this setting. It makes it seem like you're talking about people in a similar manner to how a biologist might talk about an animal that they are dissecting.

In conclusion:

I think we should stick to terms like "Men" and "Women" and not "Males" and "Females."