What do the terms "male" and "female" mean, exactly?

[Yoshi]

This thread originates from my continued lack of understanding of transgenderism or the term "gender" in general. I have an understanding of the term of "sex", which is the same intuitive understanding as I have of the term gender, but which is incompatibile with the expected understanding wrt. at least transgenderism. It is possible of course, to term people with the gender they inquire, but since people see it as important to have people see them according to their gender, I feel it is imperative to understand what the terms "male" and "female" mean, exactly. Afterall, how can I say with conviction "I see you as (fe)male", when I do not even know what this means (other than the sex-interpretation, which, in the case of transgender people is certainly not the interpretation that is expected and required). Thus, I have basically two questions:

1. What does "male" / "female" / "gender" mean, exactly?
2. What are the correct words to use for what I now understand under the words "male" and "female" (to distinguish the biological sexes)?

I would kindly ask anyone else who, like me, does not have a firm understanding of the terms that is compatible with transgenderism to not participate in this discussion, as I do not want to have this topic closed due to loads of gentialia based comments. If you want to leave a comment to that regard, please keep it to yourself, or you are doing a considerable disservice to both, me and transgender people, who I would like to help me get a solid definition and understanding of the terms without feeling even more uneasy than they might already by reading the original posting.

 

[xandaca]

Male means the ability to produce sperm and has a Y chromosome. Female means being able to produce eggs or bear children.

 

[John Kowalski]

It determines the purity of your soul

 

[Yoshi]

Male means the ability to produce sperm and has a Y chromosome. Female means being able to produce eggs or bear children.

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

 

[Goldfishking]

Male means the ability to produce sperm and has a Y chromosome. Female means being able to produce eggs or bear children.

Basically this. The English language is weird. The scientific and psychological meaning of man,woman and gender are separated yet the word is the same.

Not to devalue the subject but the separation of a single word having two meanings is also why the question, Are tomatoes a fruit?, has no definitive answer. From a culinary sense the tomato is vegetable, but from a scientific point of view it can be described as a fruit.

In the end, don't worry about it too much. As long as you respect other peoples opinions and right to be whatever gender they feel comfortable in, you will be fine.

 

[psychowave]

"Gender" is just a set of stereotypes we assign to male/female people (as they've been defined in this thread already). Male people are dominant, assertive and unable to express their feelings; female people are submissive caretakers who are in touch with their feelings.

 

[demon]

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

His post was the perfect response to the question in your title, whether you agree with it or not. That's what male and female mean. If you don't like that meaning then you should probably just seek out different terms to describe whatever it is you're looking to describe instead of arguing with the established definitions of the words.

 

[.JayZii]

I'm no expert, but here's how I think about it in simple terms:

Sex is anatomical/biological, gender is basically the societal constructions/norms associated with the sexes. Think of the term "gender role", meaning it is akin to something people "perform" based on cultural expectations and traits that are usually identified with one sex or another. So if someone feels their gender (internal) does not match with their sex (external) that they were born with, he/she might alter themselves physically in order to more closely match their gender and sex.

"Male" and "female" can refer to either a person's gender or their sex. Which is why you hear things like, "I am a woman who identifies as male" or "I am a male that identifies as female".

Feel free to take my cisgender ass to school if I'm spouting nonsense.

Not to devalue the subject but the separation of a single word having two meanings is also why the question, Are tomatoes a fruit?, has no definitive answer. From a culinary sense the tomato is vegetable, but from a scientific point of view it can be described as a fruit.

Because it's a cultural thing. A fruit like a tomato will be thought of as a vegetable because it has a more savory flavor, despite it technically being a fruit because it carries seeds. Vegetables are savory, and fruit is sweet. Similarly to gender stereotypes where males are more assertive and females are more submissive.

 

[marzlapin]

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

That's literally what male/female means though. Maybe you meant to ask what the terms "man" and "woman" mean?

 

[SiteSeer]

are you a top or bottom, op?

 

[Yoshi]

In the end, don't worry about it too much. As long as you respect other peoples opinions and right to be whatever gender they feel comfortable in, you will be fine.

How can I truly respect something that I do not even know what it is? I can tolerate it, I can behave accordingly by adressing a person the way the person prefers, but to be able to respect a point of view in the stricter sense, I need to understand, what it even is. And without it, I necessarily run into a problem when asked "Do you think I am (fe)male" - I could then either lie, because the only understanding I have is incompatible with the desired answer, or I could say something that hurts the person who asked, either way, both options are certainly not optimale.

The tomato example is a good one though: I see it as a fruit, because of the biological similarity to other fruits, but opposing views still come with a definition that makes me understand and thus respect dissenting views.

 

[Wafflecakes]

Male means the ability to produce sperm and has a Y chromosome. Female means being able to produce eggs or bear children.

Pretty much this.

are you a top or bottom, op?

WTF is this shit?

How can I truly respect something that I do not even know what it is? I can tolerate it, I can behave accordingly by adressing a person the way the person prefers, but to be able to respect a point of view in the stricter sense, I need to understand, what it even is. And without it, I necessarily run into a problem when asked "Do you think I am (fe)male" - I could then either lie, because the only understanding I have is incompatible with the desired answer, or I could say something that hurts the person who asked, either way, both options are certainly not optimale.

The tomato example is a good one though: I see it as a fruit, because of the biological similarity to other fruits, but opposing views still come with a definition that makes me understand and thus respect dissenting views.

Very easily?

Start by just respecting all people and the way they live their lives and the rest kind of takes care of itself...

 

[Pau]

People I know who are active in academic discussions of gender don't use female and male for it. They use woman and man for nouns and feminine and masculine for adjectives. Female/Male is exclusively used for biological sex.

I try to adopt that but it's hard when the discussion already so heavily uses certain phrases. Like "female characters" or "male characters". I think calling a character "feminine" speaks less of their gender and more of how much they embody traditionally gendered qualities. So it's a bit confusing.

 

[Althane]

How can I truly respect something that I do not even know what it is? I can tolerate it, I can behave accordingly by adressing a person the way the person prefers, but to be able to respect a point of view in the stricter sense, I need to understand, what it even is. And without it, I necessarily run into a problem when asked "Do you think I am (fe)male" - I could then either lie, because the only understanding I have is incompatible with the desired answer, or I could say something that hurts the person who asked, either way, both options are certainly not optimale.

The tomato example is a good one though: I see it as a fruit, because of the biological similarity to other fruits, but opposing views still come with a definition that makes me understand and thus respect dissenting views.

I feel like you're spending way too much energy worrying about this.

Also, a tomato is a fruit and a vegetable. Fruit by more scientific definition, vegetable by culinary definition.

 

[TenCentCoast]

How can I truly respect something that I do not even know what it is? I can tolerate it, I can behave accordingly by adressing a person the way the person prefers, but to be able to respect a point of view in the stricter sense, I need to understand, what it even is. And without it, I necessarily run into a problem when asked "Do you think I am (fe)male" - I could then either lie, because the only understanding I have is incompatible with the desired answer, or I could say something that hurts the person who asked, either way, both options are certainly not optimale.

The tomato example is a good one though: I see it as a fruit, because of the biological similarity to other fruits, but opposing views still come with a definition that makes me understand and thus respect dissenting views.

OP, it really isn't this hard to understand. You sound like a closet transphobe who just really doesn't want to called out on it. If someone who is a transgirl asks you if she is male or female (which :lol at the idea of that happening in the first place) just don't be a fucking dick unless you actually are a transphobe, in which case I hope that you aren't friends with trans people to begin with. And that isn't even get started on genderfluid people.

 

[AnathemicOne]

That's literally what male/female means though. Maybe you meant to ask what the terms "man" and "woman" mean?

Yeah I believe there is a mix up in words you are choosing here OP. Male/Female can be used beyond the human species and can reference animals as well (male lion/female lion), whilst Man/Woman is strictly bound to describing people.

 

[zeemumu]

I was pretty sure that most people use male and female for sex and man and woman for gender. That other guy answered your question and you snapped at him for it. I'm assuming that you meant to ask about man and woman, not male and female.

 

[Yoshi]

That's literally what male/female means though. Maybe you meant to ask what the terms "man" and "woman" mean?

OK, then let me rephrase the question for all people who say that this is the only legitimate definition of male / female:
What is the meaning of "man" / "woman", as opposed to "man" as "human who is male" or "woman" as "human who is female".

And if you cannot give me a proper definition that is compatible with transsexualism or can support me in understanding it, do not post[/i].

 

[AlucardGV]

Male means the ability to produce sperm and has a Y chromosome. Female means being able to produce eggs or bear children.

i don't think female is tied to your ability to have children, because there are people who can't. it should be enough to say xx chromosome

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

what's incompatible there? because that's pretty much what it is, male/female is the sex, the physical. man/woman is the gender, in the brain

 

[xandaca]

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

No need to feel aggrieved, I provided what is the only concrete definition of male and female. In terms of gender rather than sex, you're probably looking for definitions of masculinity and femininity in terms of characteristics and the debate over what might be biologically defined, what might be socially defined, or a mixture of both. Transgenderism as I understand it is someone born into one sex who profoundly feels they belong to the other even if there isn't (as far as I'm aware) a specific biological reason they might feel this way, unlike intersex people who I think have biological characteristics of each sex. I don't know if it's possible to get any more specific than that without delving into the philosophy of what defines a man or a woman in a psychological and emotional sense.

It's an interesting and complex topic, particularly for those who aren't transgender and take their sex for granted, but as Goldfishking said, as long as you're respectful to people however they define themselves, that's what matters.

 

[zeemumu]

i don't think female is tied to your ability to have children, because there are people who can't. it should be enough to say xx chromosome

Generally speaking, yeah, giving birth has nothing to do with it. There are males in different species who give birth.

 

[Pancake Mix]

Generally just means biological sex. There are two.

You can look at man/woman and gender quite differently though, but biological sex is essentially binary.

 

[Platy]

1. What does "male" / "female" / "gender" mean, exactly?
2. What are the correct words to use for what I now understand under the words "male" and "female" (to distinguish the biological sexes)?

1- There is an entire category of studies dedicated to answer that. It is not even CLOSE to the simplicity you expect.
The simple version is "gender is the sex of the brain and male/female is someone who identifies as male/female" which is not even close to the tip of the iceberg

2- Normal people don't talk about biological sexes in real life. 99,9% of the time people asks about biological gamete production they are actualy talking about gender

"Male" and "female" can refer to either a person's gender or their sex. Which is why you hear things like, "I am a woman who identifies as male" or "I am a male that identifies as female".

I never heard those thing said in first person ... every trans person I know said "I am a man" or "I am a woman" ... the "this person is X who identifies as Y" is a "daddy puts a seed into mom's" version of transexuality for cis people because they only understand if you talk in cis ideas of transexuality.

Talking about biology only matter to people who scientifically study biology and even in that way it is not that simple as people make it to be.

 

[Yoshi]

OP, it really isn't this hard to understand. You sound like a closet transphobe who just really doesn't want to called out on it. If someone who is a transgirl asks you if she is male or female (which :lol at the idea of that happening in the first place) just don't be a fucking dick unless you actually are a transphobe, in which case I hope that you aren't friends with trans people to begin with. And that isn't even get started on genderfluid people.

Well, depending on your definition of "transphobe" this may be correct, in which case: Assume I am a transphobe who is willing to learn about why his viewpoint is wrong. Please explain it to me in a way that is as precise and scientific, as possible, to make it easier for me to grasp the concept.

 

[zeemumu]

Yeah...this thread's probably gonna get locked...the initial misunderstanding is making things tense.

 

[driggonny]

OK, then let me rephrase the question for all people who say that this is the only legitimate definition of male / female:
What is the meaning of "man" / "woman", as opposed to "man" as "human who is male" or "woman" as "human who is female".

And if you cannot give me a proper definition that is compatible with transsexualism or can support me in understanding it, do not post[/i].

I'm a little fuzzy on the exact definitions but I'll share with you how I think of it.

Male/Female can refer to your biologically born sex. Basically what genitals you have.

Male/Female can also refer to your brain. Do you have a female brain, or a male brain? What genitals do your brain expect you to have? How does your mind expect people to see you?

 

[Yoshi]

Talking about biology only matter to people who scientifically study biology and even in that way it is not that simple as people make it to be.

This point is only an aside, but since science is the most valuable thing outside my family and friends in this world for me, biological views of course do have a high value to me, even if I don't study biology.

I don't know if it's possible to get any more specific than that without delving into the philosophy of what defines a man or a woman in a psychological and emotional sense.

This is what I am interested in.

 

[norog]

To be honest, even in the biological definition there are tons of small percentage exceptions to the rule in regards to chromosome type/number, ability to bear children, and phenotypic presentation (what the person actually LOOKS like), and all of that is before you get into the crazy stuff that happens elsewhere in the plant and animal kingdoms.

My advice is simply to not worry about it too much. Does what someone wants to call themself hurt you in any way? No? Then chill.

 

[ant_]

Well, depending on your definition of "transphobe" this may be correct, in which case: Assume I am a transphobe who is willing to learn about why his viewpoint is wrong. Please explain it to me in a way that is as precise and scientific, as possible, to make it easier for me to grasp the concept.

Being transgender is most closely related with ones own gender identity, not the physical sex in which they were born. It's about ones personal experience with their own gender. You can read about gender dysphoria here: http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/gender-dysphoria#1

 

[besada]

It seems you want concrete answers about ambiguous language, which is doomed to failure. No one has the same exact definition and connotation of man and woman, masculine and feminine. We have: cultural norms, cultural traditions, literary opinions, personal opinions both well and poorly informed. It's like asking for a definition of good or bad,both of which are and will always be ambiguously defined, depending on who you ask.

In short, what you're looking for -- a simple understanding of a complex situation -- doesn't exist.

 

[Prototype]

Sorry, but you are really making me mad, did you even read the OP? I explicitly highlighted the part about not posting stuff like this, because I am specifically talking about gender here and obviously, this understanding is exactly the biological one and incompatible with transgenderism. I do not ask for approval of my existing view, but for help with understanding a different viewpoint, so please, you and everyone else who as a similarly witty comment in mind: Don't post stuff like this anymore.

That's the fundamental mistake that's being made then. There are no differences except biological ones. All differences stem from biology.

This reminds me of the that crazy Canadian teacher who claimed there are no biological differences between men and woman.

You are asking for something that doesn't exist if you are removing biology from the equation.

No need to get mad. You have the only answer there is.

 

[BearPawB]

Well, depending on your definition of "transphobe" this may be correct, in which case: Assume I am a transphobe who is willing to learn about why his viewpoint is wrong. Please explain it to me in a way that is as precise and scientific, as possible, to make it easier for me to grasp the concept.

Is it really that hard to respect people's wishes?
Someone says, I am a woman, please call me she. You say no?
Why do you give a shit?

 

[Abstruse Moose]

OK, then let me rephrase the question for all people who say that this is the only legitimate definition of male / female:
What is the meaning of "man" / "woman", as opposed to "man" as "human who is male" or "woman" as "human who is female".

And if you cannot give me a proper definition that is compatible with transsexualism or can support me in understanding it, do not post[/i].

The words you're looking for are masculinity and femininity, which can be expressed by either sex.

 

[AnathemicOne]

A simple rundown (be aware the topic is way more complex) that I've been taught during my initial and continued friendship with my LGBTQ friends is that gender and sex are words one should separate from one another to get a grasp on what people are talking about.

Sex strictly refers to physical genitilia a person comes with (male/female).

Gender refers to a person's mind and what identification they are comfortable with (man, woman, etc.)

 

[John Kowalski]

I don't know if OP is trying to understand what being male or female is, or if he's trying to understand what it means to be transgender.

 

[Platy]

Being a man and woman is one thing.
It is called gender.

Being feminine and masculine is other thing.
It is called gender expression.

Being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual or asexual is other thing.
It is called sexual orientation.

There are lots of mix between gender expression and gender here in this thread.

Which is totaly common in a transphobe society that thinks that trans women is just "very gay", which implies homosexual men needs to be femine in order to like other men.

This point is only an aside, but since science is the most valuable thing outside my family and friends in this world for me, biological views of course do have a high value to me, even if I don't study biology.

If you understand this joke than you understand trans people.
When you talk about people you talk about the mecha pilot piloting the mecha, not the mecha.

What is important is what the brain is, not anything else.

 

[Sub Boss]

Male=👨

Female=👧

Of course im thinking you are just asking what the "terms" mean and not gender.

Thats what you are described on the outside based on your born sexual characteristics

 

[Cyan]

Not sure exactly what you're looking for here, OP. But I'm going to go broadly philosophical, since a problem a lot of people have with this sort of question is that they confuse representations of reality for reality itself.

Or to put it a little differently, categories are part of the map, not the territory. We find categories useful because they allow us to use similarities between things to make quick assumptions and to communicate information--if I tell you that the new Zelda is an open-world game, you know some of what to expect from the game, can make a few assumptions on how it works, and I was able to communicate that in only a few words. The mistake comes in thinking that a category represents something real. If someone then asks "but is Zelda really an open-world game" and then we argue about what features Zelda does and doesn't have, and then finally agree that actually yes, it really is an open-world game, we don't learn anything new from that final agreement that we didn't already know from talking about the game's features. "Is it really an open-world game" has no content. It doesn't mean anything.

Is Pluto really a planet? Is a tomato really a fruit? etc etc. Most categories aren't precise, because the world isn't a tidy place, so there will always be outliers. Determining what features those outliers have as compared to more prototypical members of a category can be helpful and interesting, but there's no point trying to find a true answer to the question. It's meaningless.

In short, categories represent reality imperfectly, and categories are not themselves real.

 

[Pau]

Being a man and woman is one thing.
It is called gender.

What would you use as the adjective for this?

 

[Yoshi]

I don't know if OP is trying to understand what being male or female is, or if he's trying to understand what it means to be transgender.

I want to understand, what the genders "male" and "female" even are, and to understand being transgender. The former is a requirement to understand the latter. And an understanding of this is required to properly adress people who are transgender without using words in a different way than I understand them.

 

[Escape Goat]

Male is spanish for "pees standing up" and female means "pop a squat"

 

[Sub Boss]

How can I truly respect something that I do not even know what it is? I can tolerate it, I can behave accordingly by adressing a person the way the person prefers, but to be able to respect a point of view in the stricter sense, I need to understand, what it even is. And without it, I necessarily run into a problem when asked "Do you think I am (fe)male" - I could then either lie, because the only understanding I have is incompatible with the desired answer, or I could say something that hurts the person who asked, either way, both options are certainly not optimale.

The tomato example is a good one though: I see it as a fruit, because of the biological similarity to other fruits, but opposing views still come with a definition that makes me understand and thus respect dissenting views.

Im not sure what are you trying to say here :S

"Gender" is just a set of stereotypes we assign to male/female people (as they've been defined in this thread already). Male people are dominant, assertive and unable to express their feelings; female people are submissive caretakers who are in touch with their feelings.

i hope this is a joke

 

[Platy]

Is Pluto really a planet? Is a tomato really a fruit? etc etc. Most categories aren't precise, because the world isn't a tidy place, so there will always be outliers. Determining what features those outliers have as compared to more prototypical members of a category can be helpful and interesting, but there's no point trying to find a true answer to the question. It's meaningless.

And most transphobes argue that tomato is a fruit when everyone else say that tomato is a vegetable for all its uses and porpueses and if you try to put a tomato into a fruit salad you will be an idiot.

What would you use as the adjective for this?

Might be because english is not my first language but I have no idea.

 

[Zelias]

People have a 'gender identity' which is a personal conception of one's own gender. For most people, this matches up with their own physical sex. For others, such as transgender people or people who identify as agender, non-binary etc. it doesn't.

A person's gender is therefore what they perceive themselves to be. A transwoman is female because she identifies as such. A transman is male because he identifies as such. Simple.

 

[Platy]

Biology and dinossaur society determines that whoever produces an egg is female.

But the society of outcasts known as the Yoshis answer "male" when asked about what they are, therefore they are male.

As even Snake knows

Also the outcasts now took over the island and called it by their name, relegating other dinossaurs to be evil and squashed by mario ... or living in shitty places as lava because they are transphobes

 

[John Kowalski]

I want to understand, what the genders "male" and "female" even are, and to understand being transgender. The former is a requirement to understand the latter. And an understanding of this is required to properly adress people who are transgender without using words in a different way than I understand them.

That's a negative on both your points. You don't really need to fully understand what it means to be a man or a woman to know that being transgender means experiencing a gender identity that's different from your sex according to your primary sexual characteristics (in the simplest of cases).

The latter only requires you to have the empathy and humbleness to defer to other people when you don't know enough on your own.

 

[Five]

I want to understand, what the genders "male" and "female" even are, and to understand being transgender. The former is a requirement to understand the latter. And an understanding of this is required to properly adress people who are transgender without using words in a different way than I understand them.

It sounds like you want to know why people identify in a way that seems to run counter to what the external evidence suggests, but the answer is we don't know yet. We have some guesses. There has been research with brain scans that suggests transgender people's brains more closely mirror the sex they identify as. There are hypotheses about the fallibility of the hormone wash that undeveloped fetuses undergo. There's more besides. But afaik there's nothing concrete that you can point to and say "this is why someone feels that way".

But it doesn't matter why. What they feel is as real as anything you or I feel, and it does no more good to pick apart why someone identifies as a man or woman than why you have a favorite color.

 

[Yoshi]

Not sure exactly what you're looking for here, OP. But I'm going to go broadly philosophical, since a problem a lot of people have with this sort of question is that they confuse representations of reality for reality itself.

Or to put it a little differently, categories are part of the map, not the territory. We find categories useful because they allow us to use similarities between things to make quick assumptions and to communicate information--if I tell you that the new Zelda is an open-world game, you know some of what to expect from the game, can make a few assumptions on how it works, and I was able to communicate that in only a few words. The mistake comes in thinking that a category represents something real. If someone then asks "but is Zelda really an open-world game" and then we argue about what features Zelda does and doesn't have, and then finally agree that actually yes, it really is an open-world game, we don't learn anything new from that final agreement that we didn't already know from talking about the game's features. "Is it really an open-world game" has no content. It doesn't mean anything.

Is Pluto really a planet? Is a tomato really a fruit? etc etc. Most categories aren't precise, because the world isn't a tidy place, so there will always be outliers. Determining what features those outliers have as compared to more prototypical members of a category can be helpful and interesting, but there's no point trying to find a true answer to the question. It's meaningless.

In short, categories represent reality imperfectly, and categories are not themselves real.

I think this is an interesting viewpoint in general and it is a root problem of language, but many categories (all that I feel ok to ever use in my language) have a precise definition. As a mathematician, every category (including categories by the way ) has a precise definition and I can have a proper understanding of what the category I use means. For male / female sex a similarly precise definition exists (maybe a bit less precise, but the border cases are mostly ones where the problem lies in deciding which property really is the defining one), but for male / female gender I really have no such definition and not even an intuition that goes beyond "person thinks this is the right to adress the person", which is a situation I can not deal with properly. What I basically want to know, is, what does it mean if someone tells me he is a man even though the person has the property of being biologically female according to the egg / semen or the chromosme definition.

 

[ant_]

OP, I highly recommend you watch this documentary from HBO: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-trans-list/video/promo.html?autoplay=true

Watching it truly made me understand how ones' sex can be different from ones gender identity. It's just a compilation of interviews with transgender individuals, telling what their experiences were like.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Just hopping in to drop the hot fact that the German language (which is where Yoshi's from) doesn't actually have the term "gender", weirdly enough. Maybe this might help to clarify problems in understanding from a factual standpoint.